While I love the feeling of accomplishment in finishing reading a book, if I’m enjoying a read – and, particularly, if I’m enjoying a novel – I tend to look with dread at the swaths of pages disappearing to the left. With each turn, I get closer and closer to running out of story, to no longer feeling the constant tug of the book, away from what I should be doing, begging me to curl up, read a chapter, and then another.

That’s why I’m particularly glad I’ve enjoyed the first hundred pages of Anna Karenina (one of the many classics I somehow missed in my years of education). With literally hundreds and hundreds of pages yet to go, I have days of reading left before the fear of running out taints purely enjoying the unfolding narrative.