Under the headline, "Good Books Don't Have to be Hard," book critic Lev Grossmann recently declared, "Lyricism is on the wane, and suspense, humor, and pacing are shedding their stigmas and taking their place as the core literary technologies of the 21st century." In his view, since Kafka, the novel has suffered from being verkrampft--increasingly so arduous as to repel readers, except for "a highly trained coterie of professional aesthetic interpreters." The revolution is underway, he announces, and "from a hieratic, hermetic art object, the novel is blooming into something more casual and open: a literature of pleasure."

Yet the literature of pleasure is not a new phenomenon, nor is hurtling through flaming hoops of plot the only way to relish a book. What about savoring a read to such an extent that we're loath for it to end, reluctant to leave a world with which we've grown intimate? Many readers first experience this intense connection to a book in childhood -- and never forget it.

Ultimately, for people who care about books, the discussion about a "l