Learning from crime

There's no such thing as a coincidence, says our favorite fictional detective, Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch, from the pen of Michael Connelly. So when Václav Klaus starts giving interviews that humanize him, it must mean he's up for reelection. Our eyes opened when we read in LN that Klaus hasn't ever thought much of crime novels, although he's read five or so in the past 30 years. Compare this with another controversial intellectual, Bernard-Henri Lévy of France. He told Time magazine that crime novels are a "primer of efficient dialog, where every word counts." He said that, as a writer, he's learned a lot from them, and he even admitted to not missing a single book of the lowbrow SAS series (James Bond with real sex). Our view is somewhere in the middle. Reading crime novels in your native tongue, as Klaus suggests, might be a bit of a waste of time. But there's nothing better than a good page-turner for learning Czech or another foreign language. [Czech Republic Lidové noviny]