'Tis e'er the lot of the innocent in the world to fly to the wolf for succor from the lion. - John Barth

One of the things I miss about teaching is that students would tell me what I ought to read. One of my students, back in the 1960s, put me onto Borges, and I remember another mentioning Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two-Birds in the same way.

A book is what gets me off: something with heft to it, that you can take in two hands and spread like a woman. Mnyum!

[G]ood readers read the lines and better readers read the spaces.