I enjoyed this essay and I thought I would pass it along here on my blog. It’s written by one of my favorite reviewers, Michael Dirda, a reviewer for the Washington Post and other sites. Here he writes about the nature of his reading habits (voracious to say the least) and the changing nature of today’s literary culture. I especially liked this paragraph, where he writes about a moment he felt he was at the crossroads, seeing his profession evolve while he had to make a decision about his future.
“Of course, I didn’t count on the now ongoing crises in print journalism. Nor that Book World itself would cease to be a separate section in 2009 (my pieces now appear in the Style pages on Thursdays). Neither did I pay enough attention to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s comment about being a professional writer: “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.” Still, a long career in newspapers, combined with a workingclass background, does teach resilience. Any journalist I’ve ever known figures that he can cover just about anything. It’s part of the cocky charm of the field.”
