Well, to take the obvious starting point, what about Jane Austen? -- any of her novels you choose, really, other perhaps than Northanger Abbey . 1 My own favourite is Emma, though perhaps her exploration of the virtues (Aristotelian and Christian) is equally near the surface in e.g. Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion. The great tradition of subtle moral reflection in novel form continues in e.g. George Eliot, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. Then of course there are the Russians (longer, yes: but wonderful -- and, for heaven's sake, with such masterpieces to read, don't wastetime on a fourth rate writer like Ayn Rand). What about Crime and Punishment , for another obvious suggestion? And the greatest of all novels -- Anna Karenina -- is shot through and through with reflection on what it is to live well. 1. Incidentally, there's an engaging essay by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle, 'Jane Austen and the Moralists' which is well worth reading (perhaps most...

Here's a somewhat differently slanted view -- in favour, perhaps, of being a bit "daft"! :-) No matter how many times I read three-year old Daisy her favourite book, no matter how well she knows it by heart, she hasn't read it herself. She can't read. No matter how many times the adult illiterate listens to a tape a complete reading of e.g. Bleak House , no matter how well he knows the book as a result, he hasn't actually read it. He can't read either. (The blind person who can read braille, of course, can read Bleak House. ) The audiences that heard bards sing The Iliad were fortunate indeed. But most never read it. They couldn't read. (And what about audiences before it was written down?) Similarly for the groundlings at early performances of Shakespeare. There's a difference between having read a work and knowing it well. You can read something without, as a result, remembering a word (as on long haul flights!); and you can know it very well without ever reading it. Sure,...