Mr. Verklin added that it might be harder to surprise readers today than a decade ago.

That the play ends on a happy note may surprise modern readers, to whom the word tragedy denotes a drama ending in misfortune.

Mr. Rosenthal said yesterday that he wanted the newspaper to move faster on breaking news and to surprise readers with innovative feature articles.

Certainly there is little in either of these books that will surprise readers who regularly follow the news.

What may surprise readers, and certainly surprised this writer, is that Americans, by paying so much more, do not have many more services.

That we have many mediocre programs because "commercial television must appeal to the majority in order to survive" will surprise few readers.

Another insight that may surprise readers is that Japanese workers would rather conform to accepted procedures than achieve a favorable outcome.

Another large-scale import that will surprise readers is garbage (Plate 27).

It is a work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts.

I say "pretty close" because it's still possible to surprise readers with an unexpected ending without violating the above criteria.