Columbia University writing professor Binnie Kirshenbaum is the acclaimed author of four novels, including An Almost Perfect Moment and Hester Among the Ruins.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Bantam Classics, $4). It’s as if Hawthorne wrote with mirrors instead of words: You can read this book a dozen times (as I have) and still not quite figure out who is guilty and of what exactly.

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