What book are you reading?

[Rev. Rye]

Austen is far from crappy literature. In an era in which we expect worlds to blow up, werewolves to fight vampires for dominion over the earth, and in which the news is overrun with Jihadis and natural disasters, a quiet stroll with Miss Austen can be a balm for the nerves. I read Pride & Prejudice to learn a little more about a girl I liked, and went on to Sense & Sensibility and Emma. There may not be any massive action, but the dialog is actually quite good-snappy at times, and the settings are lovingly detailed.

Well, Oscar Wilde did that much better in his plays, and in his prose. Maybe the settings might not be well-described in his plays, but that's what set designers are for, and in The Picture of Dorian Gray, the story (the [likely intentionally] tedious Chapter 11 aside) is amazing.