I would skip right to the last chapter of the book, Reading a Hundred Novels. Truly a worthy guide to help choose what great novels to read. She broadly covers masterpieces from around the world and going back a thousand years, beginning with the tale of Genji. She read (and reread) them all shortly after the events of 9/11, the reason for which she covers in her Introduction, also worthwhile.

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(spoiler alert)

Title is a play on a famous Wallace Stevens poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Bird. Her first twelve chapters about how to read a novel are dense with information, more fit for an advanced level of reader.