I’ve written earlier about reading on a device: sure it’s great for travel (endless titles, one gadget!) but holding a book in hand, in a public place, creates the opportunity for conversation. Earlier this week I was on a city bus midday, going to a doctor’s appointment. I was finishing Harper Lee’s Go Set a
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Can a great novel — a classic! — have a bad ending? Joan Acocella’s thoughtful post on the New Yorker’s “Page Turner†blog calls out the lame last halves and endings of, among others, Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,†Charles Dicken’s “David Copperfield,â€and Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights.†Her point: the characters’ intense struggles — for freedom,
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Let’s begin with books. I read, and loved, so many.* Most recently, A.M. Homes’ novel May We Be Forgiven, which begins with a series of unforgivable acts: a mindless and deadly car crash, adultery, murder. The only arc could be upwards, yes? Well, no — not in Homes’ New York suburbia. Before we arrive at
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