I’ve been called “a slightly crazy reader.” I guess it’s true. But isn’t it true of anyone who loves books?

Someone gave me that moniker after discovering my glossary for William Gibson’s novel Peripheral. If they’d known that one day I’d follow it up with what I’m about to share with you, they would certainly have left out the “slightly.”

I read Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina for the first time this past summer. I’d been looking forward to it for quite a while, partly because I was interested in u...