The relationship between a book and it's reader is quite a personal matter. I wonder if authors consider that the book they write is not necessarily the one the reader reads. We all bring ourselves to the page. Birkerts' has two selves, that of the teen reader and that of the middle-aged man. He discusses them both in this collection of essays about The Catcher in the Rye, Pan, Women in Love, Madame Bovary, Humboldt's Gift, Lolita, The Moviegoer, the Good Soldier, The Ambassadors, To the Lighthouse, and The Beggar Maid. He piqued my curiosity so that I'm making my way through each one of these books myself, eager to have my own experience of them. That a writer makes you hungry for a book is a sign of success, I think. Highly recommended reading. ( )