As the Nobel Committee gets ready to admit a new writer into the pantheon, our critic asks: Is greatness overrated? Critic’s Notebook As the Nobel Committee gets ready to admit a new writer into the ...

Great literature feels like recognition. It's that jolt when a character from 1925 describes exactly how you felt last Tuesday. It's the way a single sentence can make you laugh and break your heart ...

Lovers of great books will take any excuse to drop back into resonant scenes and stories. They happily reread old favorites in print, listen to them afresh on audiobook or dip into summaries that ...

The results show that about 30% of these 2,000 "mediocre" books are rated as literarily important or of high quality according to other criteria—for example, whether they are considered classics, are ...