This concise overview makes a sweeping, timeless literary classic more accessible to modern readers. The year 2013 marks the centennial of the publication of the first volume of Marcel Proust's masterwork, "A la recherche du temps perdu" or "In Search of Lost Time." The first volume was titled "Du cote de chez Swann" or "Swann's Way." The full story extends to more than a million words. While it is a masterpiece of world literature, it is not something that can be digested with the ease of, say, a sonnet by Shakespeare, or a painting by Matisse. The goal of this brief introduction from...