undesirable aspects of our shared culture as well. The ambient and all-pervasive hunger for ever-more-fleeting relevance; the disposability with which we treat people who mess up;

Olga faisait partie de ces Russes attachants qui ont appris au cours de leurs années de formation à admirer une certaine image de la France – galanterie, gastronomie, littérature et ainsi de suite – et se désolent ensuite régulièrement de ce que le pays réel corresponde si mal à leurs attentes.

What journalist W. David Marx calls “savvy consumers,” those desiring cool and convention-breaking pop culture, are still consumers. When the names of products or celebrities appear in a book, they prick us like a targeted ad, jumping from the page as digestible morsels. Reference novels work because of globalized digitization; the danger in them i