PAGE-TURNERS. Entertain your brain.

Byline: PRAKASH NAIDOO

PAGE-TURNERS Entertain your brain Ever since the spectacle and mostly self-produced drama around his last book, The Corrections, author Jonathan Franzen was in danger of drowning out his literary voice with personal distractions.

The book had reached more than 3m in sales, thanks mostly to talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who placed it top of her book club list.

But Franzen's disdain and misgivings about making a list so distinctly unliterary left him branded an ego-blinded snob (Boston Globe), a pompous prick (Newsweek) and a spoiled, whiny little brat (Chicago Tribune).

It apparently set back the writing of his new book by almost a year and, finally, nine years after he won acclaim for The Corrections, Freedom was released in the US.

The reception has been ecstatic, Franzen was …