My tween-age daughters make me proud in countless ways, but I am still adjusting to the fact that they are not bookworms. I’m pretty sure that two generations ago, they would have been more like I was: always with their nose in some volume, looking up only to cross the street or to guide a fork on their plates. But today, even in our book-crammed home, where their father is often in a cozy reading chair, their eyes are more likely to be glued to a screen.

But then, as often as not, what I’m doing in that cozy chair these days is looking at my own screen.

In 1988, I read much of Anna Karenina on park benches in Washington Square. I’ll never forget when a person sitting next to me saw what I was reading and said, “Oh, look, Anna and Vronsky are over there!” So immersed was I in Tolstoy’s e

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