The famous writer and cultural critic Alexander Genis loves books and writes about them as about living people - with sincere respect, interest and humor. “Of all the freedoms, I value most the one that allows me to read only what I want,” says the author himself. The book includes the philological novel “Dovlatov and the Surroundings” and essays from different years about literature and cinema. Among the heroes of Genis are Venedikt Erofeev and Vladimir Sorokin, Conan Doyle and Victor Pelevin, Harry Potter and Sasha Sokolov, Leo Tolstoy and Joseph Brodsky.