Van Doren's Franklin, Cuelho's Witch of Portobello

I read Carl van Doren's life of Benjamin Franklin because the New Yorker said it was unusually elegantly written. Well, it was, but I dislike biographies full of long quotations from other documents, even the principal's. And this one is full of it, as the introduction warns us. However, it was very interesting to learn all sorts of details about Franklin, including the fact that he invented the harmonica. Paul Cuelho's novel also manages to overcome one of my prejudices, about a changing point of view in a novel. This time, it serves the novel well. It is about an unusual young woman who helps people get in touch with themselves and the transcendent realities of this life, and it ends unusually with her faking her own death. It is well worth reading.