Whenever I find myself growing dissatisfied, it isn’t long before I start to point a finger at the nearest stack of books. The symptom is always the same: after fifteen or fifty pages, I toss them aside with the full knowledge that the failure may be mine, this inability to meet expectations. Weeks, sometimes months, pass before I can define the problem. It’s something primal, a longing that’s easier to describe to an addict than someone who doesn’t recognize literature as a lifeline.