Upon being asked to contribute to this series, I gave some solemn thought to what I was going to write about. I’ve become a serial abandoner of novels, so I could’ve written about one of the many unfinished books that I occasionally lie about having read all the way through. I could even actually have read one all the way through.

In fact I did, in a sense. I committed. I recently finished Sally Rooney’s Normal People, regarding which there’s plenty to say. But I feel like I cheated with that one, because I listened to it as an audiobook—this is a ‘what I’m reading’ series, after all. Plus, if I were to draw quotes from the text, I’d have no idea where to find them. On what page did that altercation by the banister take place again?