So the last book list Jason and I debated was from the College Board. (I can't wait to debate the Newsweek one, though I suspect we will agree more often than not on that list.)

I noted on the College Board list that I had never read Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find." As fate would have it, it's one of Mrs. Jason's favorites and she kindly loaned me a cherished copy. Thanks, Mrs. Jason!

It certainly is an interesting tale. The understated prose. The language of the '50s. The deliberate way situations are ignored.

These are the elements that stuck with me.

From the family in the title tale to Ruby in "A Stroke of Good Fortune" to the women in "A Circle of Fire," O'Connor's characters embody the lengths we humans go to to see what we want to see and believe what we want to believe in spite of all evidence to the contrary.