How is fiction like music? As I consider my reading practice over the last year, I feel compelled to ask that question. Reading: that is, listening. I’m a music critic, so my life revolves around processing and interpreting sound; sometimes, though, I need a break from kick drums and synthesizers, so I turn to audio to reveal the rhythms in sentences, the way a great story can pull me along the way an orchestral work does, and the melodies that emerge when writers