I am reading another book about books. A favorite pastime of mine. This one's clever title is The Year of Reading Dangerously, written by British author Andy Miller.
The subtitle intrigued me: How Fifty Great Books (And Two Not So Great Ones) Saved My Life.
Not changed my life, but saved my life. What could this mean?
As his story goes, Mr. Miller, now in his thirties, married and a father, determined that there were books he wanted to read before he was forty and was tired of lying to his friends (and himself) about having read them. So he devised a program, his List of Betterment as he calls it, and set about reading 50 pages a day from books on that list as he commuted to London by train. He began with a lineup of maybe a dozen books and ended up with fifty.
I am enjoying Mr. Miller so far. He provides entertaining details about his daily life and his days as a bookseller. As of today, I am only up to book ten. He begins with The Master and Margarita moves on to Middlemarch, Marx, and is getting ready to read Moby-Dick.
I skipped to the back of the book (of course) to take a peek at his complete list and there are many books that I have never heard of. For example: Atomised by Michel Houellebecq, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton, and Absolute Beginners by Colin McInnes. But there are the standards here as well: Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice, and On the Road.
He also includes a list - oh, we love lists - of one hundred books that he has read that had great influence on him and a list of Books I Still Intend to Read.
It is a snowy day here (again) . We had over a foot of snow last night. Apparently, I am housebound for a day or two until the weekend and promised warmer days arrive, so I figure to make some headway on Mr. Miller's List of Betterment. I may even come up with a list of my own.
Are you snowed in? What are you reading to pass the time?
