the year of reading dangerously by andy miller

All books have the potential to impart knowledge, expand our world view, warn us or entertain us. And it is precisely this subjectivity that make books so wonderful. Now reading is a subjective matter, what one person will love, another will loathe. Would there be many I had read and if so would I find that we had similar opinions about the books? The answer – there were some books we had both read, some we agreed on and others our thoughts differed wildly. I was of course eager to see which books Andy Miller had decided to spend his year with. I had also been hit by a bout of reader’s block so I thought that reading about someone else’s book trials would help. But then I started a reading challenge to read 20 books in 3 months and so thought a book about a reading challenge, during a reading challenge, was too apt an opportunity to miss. So I did what most book lovers do, bought a copy then let it sit unread on the shelf for a while. I had heard good things about The Year of Reading Dangerously and I was keen to pick it up. So to read a whole book dedicated to someone else’s reading list seems like the ultimate bookish eavesdropping. And it’s always interesting to read other people’s views on books, after all you are reading this review (or at least I hope you haven’t stopped by now). There are book groups that will discuss to a minute level the intricacies of a novel. There are few readers who don’t try to sneak a peek at what a fellow commuter is reading. It’s like ordering food in a restaurant and then seeing what someone else is eating it always looks appealing. There is always something fascinating with some one else’s reading. ‘The Year of Reading Dangerously’ is a reader’s odyssey and it begins with opening this book…” Crack the spine of your unread ‘Middlemarch’, discover what ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Moby-Dick’ have in common (everything, surprisingly) and knock yourself out with a new-found enthusiasm for Tolstoy, Douglas Adams and ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh’.

This book is Andy’s inspirational and very funny account of his expedition through literature: classic, cult and everything in-between. And so, with the turn of a page, began a year of reading that was to transform Andy’s life completely. Books that whispered the promise of escape from the 6.44 to London. Books he’d said he’d read, when he hadn’t.

But, no matter how busy or tired he was, something kept niggling at him. “Andy Miller had a job he quite liked, a family he loved and no time at all for reading.

The year of reading dangerously by andy miller