An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland

A very good book, writen in a way to make you want to continue reading it and feel relaxing.

Our book group was fortunate enough to have Michael Dirda attend our discussion of this memoir. He is delightful, witty and steeped in the pleasures of reading, just as his book is. It's the story of an insecure, highly intelligent boy from a family of limited means who engages the world through literature. He is guided by several inspiring teachers, but mostly is self-taught as to what makes good reading and the lessons in life to be gleaned from books. While his keen intelligence sets him apart from his family in many respects, he also lives an ordinary and in some respects idyllic boyhood in Ohio. As Michael Dirda said of one of the books he recently reviewed for the Washington Post, "you really should read this book."

This is an extraordinary story of an ordinary life. From comic books, to the Hardy Boys to Faust to the French classics, we go on a ride through books with Mike Dirda. I also grew up in the Midwest at about the same time and I can identify with just about every page of the book. Extraordinary.

Everything Michael wrote in his book brought back so many boyhood memories for for my friend. It wasn't just the big things, it was the little things Dirda wrote about that brought smiles and tugged at the heart.

Michael Dirda's memoir of his growing up years is very personal, highly engaging, and by turns, wistful, sad and funny. We follow the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic from his birth in an Ohio mill town to the middle of his years at Oberlin College. His family, teachers and friends play significant roles in the story, but so do the books that fueled his imagination and shaped his destiny.In an environment that was indifferent, if not hostile to books, Dirda discovered their ability to entertain, educate and uplift. His story is an affirmation of the argument that it doesn't matter what a child reads in the early years, just so long as he or she reads. Dirda quickly graduates from comics, Big Little Books and the like to more substantial fare. In fact, the list of classics in the back of the book that he had read by the end of high school would put most adult readers to shame. Though reading is at the heart of the story, there's a lot of classic childhood reminiscing here, including memorable incidents like his attempt to run away from home at age 14 and his awkward early journeys into the world of dating and romance.This is a personal story that should have wide appeal, though I bet it will have a special resonance for those (such as this reviewer) who felt a little out of the maintstream during their growing up years because they "always had their nose in a book."