With TV becoming more and more a chronicle of the absurd, here are a couple of thoughts that remind us of the importance of novels. First, David Shields, author of Reality Hunger: “The best books are a bridge across the abyss of human loneliness…and according to Samuel Johnson, a book should either allow us to escape existence or teach us how to endure it.” While Ralph Ellison, the author of Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 wrote: “The American novel is in a sense a conquest of the frontier; as it describes our experience, it creates it.” Food for thought. Keep on reading.