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So it’s a safe bet that, having started last year by reading Willa Cather’s “My Ántonia,” I’ll spend some time at the beginning of this year with Benjamin Taylor’s new Cather biography, “Chasing Bright Medusas,” which Andrea Barrett’s review calls “a brief, clear introduction to Cather’s life and work.”

“It was a lovely party, with the whole world outside lost in snow,” Cather, the author of American classics like “My Ántonia” and “Death Comes for the Archbishop,” wrote to her friend Carrie Miner Sherwood.

Cather, whose works include “My Ántonia” and “O Pioneers,” spent her young years in Red Cloud, Nebraska, and graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1895.

Cather, who lived from 1873 to 1947 and spent many years in Nebraska, illustrated life on the Great Plains in her famous books, including “O, Pioneers” and “My Ántonia.”

He read a lot: “The Count of Monte Cristo,” “My Ántonia,” “On Gold Mountain,” “Anna Karenina” and lots of Jackie Collins.