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How To Read A Novel - by Steven Johnson - Adjacent Possible

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Last week, I happened on a tweet from Patrick Collison (co-founder of Stripe and the excellent Stripe Press) reflecting on the ten classic “triple-decker” novels that he’d just finished reading: This year, I read ten important historical novels: Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse, Bleak House, Portrait of a Lady, Anna Karenina, Life and Fate, Heart of Darkness, Madame Bovary, and The Magic Mountain… For me the clear standouts are Middlemarch, Bleak House, Karenina, and Life and Fate. I would enthusiastically reread any of them. If I had to choose just one to go to again, I would probably select Middlemarch. There's something memorably compelling in Eliot's affection and empathy for almost all of her characters. If Succession is a show with no likable personalities, Middlemarch is the opposite. Bleak House is a close second. His ranking more or less aligns with mine: of the hundred or so novels from the 19th and 20th century that I read during my grad school days, my favorites we

Last week, I happened on a tweet from Patrick Collison (co-founder of Stripe and the excellent Stripe Press) reflecting on the ten classic “triple-decker” novels that he’d just finished reading: This year, I read ten important historical novels: Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, To The Lighthouse, Bleak House, Portrait of a Lady, Anna Karenina, Life and Fate, Heart of Darkness, Madame Bovary, and The Magic Mountain… For me the clear standouts are Middlemarch, Bleak House, Karenina, and Life and Fate. I would enthusiastically reread any of them. If I had to choose just one to go to again, I would…

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