Intimate, humorous, and insightful, Readings is a collection of classic essays and reviews by Michael Dirda, book critic of the Washington Post and winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for criticism. From a first reading of Beckett and Faulkner at the feet of an inspirational high-school English teacher to a meeting of the P. G. Wodehouse Society, from an obsession with Nabokov's Lolita to the discovery of the Japanese epic The Tale of Genji, these essays chronicle a lifetime of literary enjoyment.

The crime of his life --
The quest for Scrivener --
Talismans --
Maxims, etc. --
Heart of the matter --
Bookman's Saturday --
Supplementary materials --
Listening to my father --
Romantic scholarship --
Weekend with Wodehouse --
An abecedary --
Mr. Wright --
Heian holiday --
Childhood's end --
The one and the many --
Commencement advice --
Four novels and a memoir --
The October country --
Bookish fantasies --
Pages on life's way --
A garland for Max --
Read at whim! --
Comedy tonight --
Light of other days --
Data daze --
Four-leaf clovers --
Sez who? --
Lament for a maker --
Clubland --
The learning channels --
Guy Davenport --
Eros by any other name --
Frank confessions --
Mememormee --
Tomes for tots --
Three classics --
Vacation reading --
One more modest proposal --
Shake scenes --
After strange books --
Awful bits --
Turning 50 --
Blame it on books --
On the road not taken --
Excursion --
Millennial readings