The further I get from my college years, the more comfortable I become with long engagements with a single author’s work. In 2024 it was Dickens, last year it was Plato. This year I’m more scattered again, but I’m beginning to look forward to years with Proust and Tolstoy. The young are intoxicated by literature, trying to read everything at once, but there is a deeper, mellower delight that begins to accompany reading beyond 30.