Baldwin is a remarkable writer on both fronts, fiction and nonfiction, and I would rank him among America’s 20th-century greats. What’s the last great book you read? Sadly, it was the only novel Ross ever wrote, and even more sadly, Ross died at 50 back in 1985. I must have laughed out loud a hundred times, and it’s a short book, just over 200 pages, which averages out to one booming gut-laugh every other page. What’s the best classic novel you recently read for the first time?

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Persons: Isaac Babel’s, “, James Baldwin’s “, ”, Baldwin, Thoreau, they’re, Siri Hustvedt, Siri, Fran Ross, Ross, Virginia Woolf, Woolf, Orlando ” Organizations: of America, New Directions Locations: ”