Connie Ogle

"THE MARRIAGE PLOT." By Jeffrey Eugenides. Farrar Straus Giroux. $28.

The one true and lasting love affair in Jeffrey Eugenides' new novel doesn't develop between two of his three main characters, though those characters generate plenty of daydreams, intrigue and lust amongst themselves. No, the great love in "The Marriage Plot" lies in the heart of bright, privileged Madeleine Hanna, and Madeleine Hanna loves books. An English major "for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she loved to read," she may also love a boy or two, to varying degrees. But literature invariably comes first, even when she doesn't realize it.

"THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR." By Arthur Phillips. Random. $26.

Arthur Phillips' new novel is more triumph than tragedy, a clever, funny literary deceit that skewers everything in its path -- scholars, Shakespeare lovers, anti-Stratfordians, family dynamics, the publishing world, bookish pretensions, even the author. It also slyly tackles some pointed questions about what we consider art and why, and if a rose by any other name would indeed smell as sweet. Yes. That's the sort of wonderful novel this is: It dredges up every familiar line that ever lodged itself in your consciousness.