A Bizarre, Challenging Book More People Should Read

Every year, I set myself a reading challenge. These are sometimes small—read more poetry; read older books—and sometimes quite large. More than a decade ago, I spent an entire year reading nothing but writing in translation, an experience that fundamentally reoriented my literary habits. Part of my annual resolution is to devote each summer to filling in a major blind spot. I finished Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, for example, over three years, cracking open one gray Vintage volume every June.