If you ask readers of great fiction to name their favorites, how many would list Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn in their top five? My brother does. That's my brother Delbert McAmis — genius, holder of Master's and Doctorate Degrees, reader of great books. In English. In Greek. A little Latin.

There is a delicacy to Penelope Fitzgerald's book, The Blue Flower. In fact there is a delicacy to all that she wrote, whether it was one of her novels (she received 4 Booker nominations and one win) or her biographies (she was fascinated with historical people and events and wove those through all of her works). But it is Flower, her final novel, that captivates me most.

When I judged fiction entries for the Moore County Writers Competition earlier this year (open in categories school-aged children to adults) the hardest part was to select among a rich pool of work — short-shorts about penguins and burglars and water droplets — and my favorite, a whimsical piece that opens with this command: "I'm warning every pig . . . ."