The novelist Ben Dolnick had a great piece in the NYT this weekend. It's about binge-reading. It's in favor of long gulps of reading. Don't read in short spurts, says Dolnick. Read for an hour at a time. Why? You get absorbed in the book. You notice details within subplots that you wouldn't otherwise notice. The author's voice seems to meld with your voice. There's a sense of momentum--and the reading becomes more and more entertaining--and then you can't stop. What I very much like is that Dolnick isn't wagging a finger. He isn't saying, "Read because it will make you smarter, or because you'll grow a better vocabulary." He's saying: "Reading should be fun, and the way to make it fun is to really commit to it--with zeal--for hours on end." I had this same epiphany a few months ago when reading an interview with the thriller writer Michael Connelly. He said, "Reading is about momentum [that word again]. When I c...