Photography: Maximilian Schönherr, via Wikimedia Commons.

• Martin Amis pays elegant tribute to his deceased stepmother, who saved him from an early life as “a semi-literate truant.”
• Chang-rae Lee’s forthcoming On Such a Full Seaboasts the world’s first 3D-printed book cover.
• How to modernize literary classics (even when cell phones and the Internet bring an infestation of plot holes).
• Can great literature really change your life? (Quick answer: probably not, but maybe.)