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“Indeed, reading might even kill them, as was said in the Scots Magazine in 1774, to have been the case with the wife of the First Earl of Effingham. One night, in her rooms at Hampton Court, she became so absorbed in her book that she failed to notice that her clothes had caught fire. She died.” –From Joan Acocella’s “Turning the Page: How Women Became Readers,” The New Yorker, October 15, 2013

 I’ve never caught fire reading a great book, but I do become so absorbed I miss my el stop (three times in one day) or realize an hour into the train ride when I look up from my book and and think I’m at O’Hare airport but find I’m an hour the other direction, on the southwest side of Chicago. (Yes, I missed my flight.) My behavior is no better on airplanes: I’ve routinely ignored my children, since they were toddlers, for a book. I’ve left cookies, breads, dinner and myself, in the sun, to burn…all for a good read.

This year I lost myself in Richard Ford’s “Canada,” a long dark tale of a family undone by a bank robbery. Harry is right: the last section is deus ex machina, but…it had to end somehow, right? My favorite book of the year.

Another great read was Jess Walter’s “Beautiful Ruins.” During the1963 filming of “Cleopatra,” an inconveniently pregnant movie extra is shipped from the set to a failing seaside resort in Italy. Woven into that story — hello, Richard Burton! — is present-day movie-making in L.A. This is a magical read, very funny and wise. I I liked it so much I bought it — full price, in hardcover — and shipped it to my mother for Christmas. Ouch.

I’ve been remiss in recommending “Toby’s Room,” by Pat Barker. She’s best known for the “Regeneration” trilogy; this new one is set during the same time — World War 1 — and concerns characters we first met in “Life Class.” Incest, pedophilia, suicide, disfigurement among artists and siblings in London, and at the French front. Read any of her books. They’re magnificent.

Again I’d like to note my admiration for Kevin Power’s “The Yellow Birds,” which concerns three soldiers in Iraq. Beautifully written and put together, we must follow this narrator home and get to this story’s end, when he reveals the horror of the crime that leaves him the only one of the three alive.

Finally, a story collection. Dan Chaon’s “Stay Awake” are stories linked by a disturbing tone: a couple gives birth to a two-headed baby, a housepainter looks in a window and sees the faces of his murdered siblings. If you’ve never read Chaon, this is a fine start. From there, proceed directly to his most recent novel, “Await Your Reply.”

Nonfiction must read like fiction for me. This year’s best is Richard Seaver’s “The Tender Hour of Twighlight: Paris in the ‘50s, New York in the ’60’s, a Memoir of Publishing’s Golden Age.” Paris, New York, publishing: what’s not to like? An American life worth reading.

Overrated, forgettable, maddening: John Irving’s “In One Person,” Gillian Flynn’s, “Gone Girl,” Maria Semple’s “Where’d You Go, Bernadette,” M. L. Stedman’s “The Light Between Oceans,” Michael Chabon’s “Telegraph Avenue.”

Here’s to the New Year, and more great reads. Watch out for flaming bedclothes.