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At the end of two weeks in off-the grid Quebec, I braved the bright lights of a (now defunct) bookstore in the Ottawa airport. I had nothing left to read and a two-and-a-half hour flight ahead of me. I picked up Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, because I love books set during World War Two.

I’m often in awe of museum art; how or when it was created, how it’s presented. It’s a quiet, passive pleasure. Delight, joy: at a museum? That’s rare. Olafur Eliasson is the Danish-Icelandic artist whose installations can be seen and experienced at the Museum of Contemporary Art (220 E. Chicago Ave.) through Sept. 13. Go.

It’s fun checking the “best of” lists that come out this time of year. Did my favorite books make the list? Movies? Museum shows? Plays? Restaurants? Yes and no. Let’s start with books. On everyone’s list is Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, and it’s on mine, too — an oversized, engaging read — but there’s another