End of a chapter

Two writers died this week, both proof that the approval of the so-called academy has little to do with pleasing readers or selling books.

Erich Segal, the Yale classicist who wrote the wildly successful “Love Story” and Robert B. Parker, whose nearly 40 lively novels delivered a memorable, wise-cracking detective named Spenser and a succession of short-haired pointers, all named Pearl, will be missed by their fans.

Both Parker and Segal (a scholar who horrified peers with his pop titles) provided countless hours of escapism, entertainment…even some enlightenment. And at least one very enduring aphorism. Both placed novels in Boston and both populated their fictional worlds with smart women.

Look around on the next bus, train or airplane you’re in — if you don’t see someone with a Parker book, I’ll buy you lunch. And whether or not you were around to read the first printing of “Love Story” (or see the 1970 movie), surely you know by now that Love means never having to say you’re sorry.