"Ben-Hur" was a favorite book when I was a kid. Of course, the movie wasn't bad, either! So it was irritating when the hyphen was left out in "As I Lay Dying" (Richard John Neuhaus). This very book was plucked from the library "new books shelf" because it is short and also very attractively produced, with deckle-edged pages and an attractive layout presented in a small size. It's quite platitudinous. It's been quite a long time since I've read any references to Sturm und Drang in a literary context, maybe not since I had to read Die Leiden des jungen Werther. I wouldn't be inclined to read any more of this guy's books, and I'm not talking Goethe here. It's wonderful to know that there's a German Gutenberg project.