The Year of Reading Dangerously

It was a simple and cosy evening at the Cafe Royal, Andy Miller sat with Helen Brocklebank to discuss his new book : The Year of Reading Dangerously .
Delightful evening with Dalia scented candles, drinking wine and champagne while listening to the discussion that brushed through the emotions he fell, some of the books read  while writing  The Year of Reading Dangerously

ANDY MILLER a writer, editor and former bookseller, decided that he hadn't read any were near the number of great books he habitually claimed to read, because he estimated that reading a book when he was fifteen, did not count. In his justify opinion it is much more better to read books such as Don Quixote, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Communist Manifesto and Beowulf – all bursting with potential for Betterment – and a lot of what one might call unread Greats: Jane Eyre, War and Peace,Middlemarch, Frankenstein, books that fit Alan Bennett's definition of a classic, "a book that everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have".

The toil of self-improvement almost inevitably leads Miller to reflect on the many books not on his list, the ones that he genuinely loves, rather than those he hopes will be good for him, or which he feels guilty about. The complete works of Douglas Adams, Dickens, Larkin, Sterne, Philip K Dick, Matt Groening – none of them is in his scheme, which he gets increasingly desperate to bunk off. Possibly his most reflective and lyrical outpouring is on the tragic atmosphere of The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and many of the chapters of memoir, which seep into and overset the reading-list plot, are vignettes of Miller's youth in Croydon, Hornby-esque musings on the part played in his development by the combined efforts of his parents, Croydon library, WH Smith and the Puffin Club. 

Miller comes to the rather unbelievable conclusion that it actually does one good to finish a book, like a course of antibiotics. Pride and Prejudice was fine after all, and this, he suggests, is how the life-saving/changing effect kicked in, halting "an erosion of integrity", no less.

But the truth that emerges more powerfully is that great books achieve and maintain their status from widespread neglect. If everyone was put through War and Peace or Paradise Lost – and I mean everyone – would those books gain or lose greatness?

Having finished The Year of Reading Dangerously, I find to my dismay that I am now no nearer, in fact considerably further from ever picking up Moby-Dick. But I do want to read Atomised, if only to marvel yet again at the uniqueness and individuality of literary taste.
The description of Andy's work on the online Gardian, is simply perfect; I could not find better words.

Read more at " The Gardian online."

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