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“Indeed, reading might even kill them, as was said in the Scots Magazine in 1774, to have been the case with the wife of the First Earl of Effingham. One night, in her rooms at Hampton Court, she became so absorbed in her book that she failed to notice that her clothes had caught fire.

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,”and Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights.” Her point: the characters’ intense struggles — for freedom,

The 23rd Chicago Humanities Festival ended mid-November; I’m sorry to see it go. A month long event, the Festival offers one hundred programs centered on a single theme. This year, America. There was a one-man play, a cabaret, and talks by scholars, writers, educators, thinkers, politicians, and comedians. I felt like I was back at

My eldest son and I have an ongoing discussion about “The Shelf,” an imaginary but distinctive resting place for the best war literature. He referred to it after I finished Karl Marlantes “Mattherhorn,” a 640 page slog — in the best sense of the word — through the Vietnam War. (We agree to disagree on

It’s worth repeating: I love to read, and write, a life. A memoir of the Paris/New York life of Richard Seaver, an American publisher, is hard to give up. What a man, what a life. Seaver (1926 – 2009) was teaching math and coaching wrestlers at the Pomfret School in Connecticut (a funny, charming chapter)

Two of my dearest, smartest friends read no fiction at all. Ever. Lately I’m drifting into their camp. I’ve already railed about the grotesque resolution in Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl,” but it’s worth repeating: I see people carrying that book and think — ugh, just wait. That book that should be wrapped in warning tape.

The New York Times Book Review last Sunday ran a q & a with the editors of the Norton Anthology, that brick of a book we all lugged around during high school and college. This was the last question: Why study literature? M.H. Abrams: Ha — Why live? Life without literature is a life reduced

My husband’s family have been members at Pythonga since the early 70′s. Every year I invariably pack more books than clothes and still can manage to run out of things to read! You have to have the “boat book”, something if it gets wet, no big deal. Then the “porch book” and “beach book” and

I read all the time but there’s one place on earth I read most: Club Lac Pythonga in Quebec. My husband’s family has had a summer home there since the 1960’s. It’s a magical place deep in the woods, cut off from the Internet, cell phones, newspapers, cars. A central kitchen serves family dinners, freeing

Sure, there’s thrillers, but for me the everyday is full of suspense: will the tremendously fat (educated, interesting) man leave his Brooklyn home? If so, how far will he get? Once out, will he be able to climb the stairs and return? Liz Moore’s “Heft” takes us into the narrowed world of Arthur Opp, a

It’s so satisfying to be in the hands of a seasoned storyteller. In a row, I read three newly published novels written by authors who have been winning prizes and selling boatloads of books for decades. What sets their work apart? The art of storytelling: what to show, what to hold back. Dialogue, description, pace.

Living in a city beside an inland sea, my morning walk sometimes yields trash, or an odd hello: a washed up, desiccated raccoon, its teeth bared. Dried vomit. Charging geese. Our harmless resident crazy, who mistakes me for Hillary Clinton, and asks after Bill. Why keep walking? Because there’s treasure to be found: a mother

For the first time since 1977, the Pulitzer Prize committee today awarded no prize for fiction. I love reading fiction but I’m not finding a lot, lately, to cheer about. It feels fitting, then, to post on a memoir and two biographies. Each concerns the life of an American woman. For a work assignment, I

Wow. How many doorstoppers in a row? First, Peter Orner’s “Love and Shame and Love.” A great title! His story is multigenerational but so choppily told I lost interest in every character. Next, Anna Solomon’s “The Little Bride.” Another great title, well reviewed. I put it down two-thirds of the way through. If you put

Good friends made it easy to show off Chicago’s rich offerings of art, architecture, parks, museums and food this weekend. Affable and curious, they had ideas of what they wanted to see and experience while in town, but didn’t overdo it. With just a few hours left on Sunday, could they get to Ernest Hemingway’s

Gail Levin’s magnificent Lee Kranser biography was hard to give up and now I know why. Three disappointing reads in a row? John Steinbeck’s “The Winter of Our Discontent” was engaging but cartoon-y, a precursor to all things Updike. Adam Gopnik’s “Winter” essays are — I can’t believe I’m going to use this word for

I like to write, and read, a life story. Childhood, education, influences, love affairs, disappointments, a troubled marriage, triumphs and recognition: Gail Levin’s biography of painter Lee Krasner is a masterfully told story of a great American life. Krasner (1908-1984) was born to Russian immigrants in then-rural Brooklyn. Her scholarly father sold fish from a

In the Ottawa airport bookstore, after a few weeks in the woods, I picked up the paperback of Michael Ondaatje’s “The English Patient.” At the time I knew nothing of the writer. Too, I was traveling with my two small boys. An hour into the flight I looked up, so taken by the story and

With the year coming to a close it’s a good time to reflect on the offerings that enriched my days and nights. I read newspapers, magazines, works of nonfiction, but my true love is fiction. In these three novels, the characters and situations were so alive to me I didn’t want their stories to end: Jonathan

A shared prize set novelist Jonathan Franzen (“Freedom”) and biographer Isabel Wilkerson (“The Warmth of Other Suns”) on the same stage last Sunday. http://www.chicagohumanities.org/ through Nov. 13th. (Thanks for the treat, Deborah.) Migration figures in both works. In “Freedom,” Patty leaves the East Coast for a kinder, gentler life in the Midwest. In “Warmth…” six million