Michael Dirda is a book critic after my own heart. In his one-hair-shy-of-joyous tour of lit CLASSICS FOR PLEASURE, he sympathizes with the commonly held view that classics are “difficult, esoteric, and a little boring. … Really, after a hard day’s work, who wants to settle down with more … work?”

Exactly. But some classics aren’t work. Some can be enjoyed as much as a speedily paced thriller. Heck, some could be classified as speedily paced thrillers, at least comparatively for their time. And it’s these enduring books that Dirda revisits, hoping to introduce old-tome-shy readers to new-for-them stories, like BEOWULF, Jules Verne’s TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA and Philip K. Dick’s THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE.

Smartly, Dirda – a Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic – separates the book into sections by genre or some overall loose theme. This is great because if you categorically hate all romance, you can steer clear of that portion – but then you’ll miss his essay on Arthurian romances, heavy on the derring-do, not so much on the lovey-poo.

Two sections appealed to me – and likely you, dear member of the BOOKGASM faithful – most: “The Dark Side” and “Realms of Adventure.” The former addresses the giants of monster lit – Bram Stoker’s DRACULA and Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN – but also the ghost stories of M.R. James and Sheridan Le Fanu, and H.P. Lovecraft’s AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS.

The latter find Dirda poking around the works of H.G. Wells and H. Rider Haggard, but also Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes canon, Agatha Christie’s detective mysteries and even Dashiell Hammett’s THE MALTESE FALCON.

No essay is more than a few pages, and even if you disagree with Dirda, you still respect his views because they’re well-informed and not coated in dryness. The man knows literature, pure and simple; he’s intelligent, but not arrogant. That he’s attempting to make more of it accessible to today’s audience should be lauded; that he succeeds more often not, ditto.

For those looking to build a library of the greats or simply revisit them in lieu of a conversation with a like-minded friend, CLASSICS FOR PLEASURE is a gratifying start. –Rod Lott

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