Michael Dirda

Books don't only furnish a room: they also make the best holiday gifts.

A job should bring enough for a worker and family to live on, but after that, self-realization, the exercise of one's gifts and talents, is what truly matters.

Close friends, or those in my pay, sometimes call me a literary polymath, while others say that I'm just a shallow dilettante, superficial and breezy, with a faux-naif style.

My style is Edie Sedgwick meets Grace Jones, or Audrey Hepburn meets Salt 'n' Pepa. Strong and feisty but still classic.

I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.

I was a huge J.M. Barrie fan as a kid, as most English children are.