Have you ever found yourself looking up from the pages of a book and pondering the question of how much the words you’re reading are a reflection of the author’s own personality and life? We’re all familiar with famous examples of autobiographical fiction (such as Dickens’s David Copperfield) in which it’s easy to draw parallels between the make-believe and the real life. But most of the time, the reality on the page is a far cry from the reality of the author’s life. (I remember being devastated when I learned one of the favored authors of my childhood, Will James, was not the rip-snorting, free-wheeling cowboy portrayed in his books.) But certainly the adventures on the pages of a book are just as intimate, if more obscure, a portrayal of the author as the “real” persona he presents to the world.

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