BOUND TO PLEASE

Book ID/图书代码： 14650006B04417

English Summary/英文概要： A showcase of one hundred of the world’s most astonishing books, Bound to Please is an extraordinary one-volume literary education.

Among the most enjoyable of literary critics, Michael Dirda combines erudition with enthusiasm, a taste for the outré and the forgotten, and a playful, understated wit. Like George Orwell or Gore Vidal, Dirda delights in popular genres, such as the detective novel and the ghost story, without neglecting the deeper satisfactions of sometimes-overlooked classics. This new work features scores of Dirda’s most engaging essays, never previously collected in book form, all intended to introduce readers to wonderful writers, from the anecdotal Herodotus and James Boswell to the sensuous Colette and Steven Millhauser to such European masters as Joseph Roth, Flann O’Brien, and Penelope Fitzgerald. With his trademark enthusiasm, Dirda also explores The Arabian Nights, the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, the crime novels of Chester Himes and K. C. Constantine, and the worlds of Tarzan, Cormac McCarthy, and Proust. Bound to Please is a glorious celebration of just how much fun reading can be.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 這本書是人類閱讀史上的盛宴 .美國重量書評家德達帶領讀者走過你這一生沒時間拜讀，也要知其偉大之處的100本重要名作… 聖經、阿拉丁之夜、普魯斯特、普希金、傅柯、杜思妥也夫斯基、福樓拜、王爾德、艾略特…
游弋于经典名著的海洋之中，普利策奖得主、著名散文作家迈克尔.德達再次向世人证明，其无愧于「当代最佳文学评论家之一」的头衔。首先，德逹对当代世人的阅读习惯展开了一番批判，慷慨激昂、高屋建瓴；之后，他随即又将自己推崇备至的众多作者一一向读者进行了引荐。从诸如侦探推理以及神怪等大众通俗文学，再到很多未引起世人足够重视的经典著作，本书所涉猎的题材范围足以堪称广泛。能够成功入围了美国洛杉矶时报最佳评论书籍大奖名单，便充分地证明了该书无疑是一场文学的饕餮盛宴，它将再一次把阅读的享受与愉悦带给广大读者朋友们。
本书作者迈克尔.德達，由于其在华盛顿邮报图书世界上的杰出评论，他荣获了文学界的最高殊荣普利策奖。他拥有多部著作，其中便包括有「Open Book」「Bound to Please」「Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments」，他现居住在美国马里兰州的银泉市. (Andy & Kate)

Awards/获奖情况：Review
A breadth of sympathy, a learned enthusiasm, a fresh and sprightly judiciousness, that enlivens as it informs, unfailingly satisfying. ---Anthony Hecht

He has the wonderful ability to make us feel as intelligent as he is.---Guy Davenport

Starred Review. In the opening of this marvelous collection of book reviews, Dirda declares that his book "intentionally resembles a cocktail party more than a work of criticism: it’s meant to be entertaining, sometimes provocative, above all a way to catch up with old friends and make new ones." The author himself serves as the perfect host: intelligent but humble, witty but substantial, instructive but never dogmatic. Dirda, who has worked as a writer and editor at the Washington Post Book World for more than 20 years, and who won a Pulitzer for his criticism in 1993, arranges his volume by topic so that readers interested in, say, the Renaissance, can turn to the section on "Old Masters" and find essays on both Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose and Peter Brown’s history The Rise of Western Christendom. Dirda is particularly deft at presenting well-known classics in a way that makes them seem fresh and inviting. Of Rabelais’s characters he writes, for example: "You wouldn’t want them for neighbors, but they’d be great on your side in a fight." And he’s tops at conveying the pleasure of reading itself. In fact, if there’s one problem with his collection, it’s that its essays are so tantalizing that they make you want to put down his book and run out to read a whole slew of new ones. But this, it’s clear, is exactly what Dirda wants. He’s included only the most praiseworthy reviews in this volume, with the hope that they will encourage readers "to look beyond the boundaries of the fashionable, established, or academic" and to become familiar with "terrific writers from around the world," such as Fernando Pessoa, Marcel Proust and Mikhail Bulgakov. Any serious reader will appreciate these gracious recommendations from one of the best literary journalists of our time. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ---From Publishers Weekly

Week by week, year after year, Dirda has shared his love for books and literary expertise in a column for the Washington Post Book World, earning a Pulitzer Prize for his supple, judicious, and enlivening criticism. Following his fine memoir, An Open Book (2003), he has assembled a terrific reader’s resource, gathering together dozens of his superlative essays. Dirda has a rare knack for revealing the process through which he forms his opinions, an approach that sharpens his readers’ reading skills, and his range is phenomenal, nearly approaching the grandness of Harold Bloom’s. Here are considerations of new translations of Herodotus and Rabelais as well as reviews of the late greats Stanley Elkin and William Gaddis. Eschewing the usual suspects, he writes about Dawn Powell, Henry Green, Terry Pratchett, and Gilbert Sorrentino. Dirda has a conspicuously good time reviewing literary biographies, which afford the opportunity for him to weigh in on both the biographer and the subject, be it Blake, Pushkin, Colette, or Chester Himes. Engaging, personable, and cogent, Dirda is a true champion of the book. Donna Seaman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved---From Booklist

About the Author/作者介绍： 普立茲獎評論獎得主，美國主要重量級書評家之一。除了紐約時報首席書評人角谷美智子外，就是華盛頓郵報的德達（Michael Dirda）。另著有Readings 和 An Open Book兩本書。

Format:TRADE PAPERBACK

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

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