The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life
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The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
Masquerade – Kit Williams
Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters
Journey to the End of the Night – Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Tarantula – Bob Dylan
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
Stoner – John Williams
A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking
Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
The second half of Daniel Deronda – George Eliot
The Man Without Qualities – Robert Musil
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne
As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel
Bring Up the Bodies – Hilary Mantel
Stalingrad – Antony Beevor
Life and Fate – Vasily Grossman
The World as Will and Representation – Arthur Schopenhauer
Autobiography – Morrissey
Inferno – Dan Brown
Bibliography
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders, where appropriate. Any errors or omissions will be corrected in future editions.
The book’s epigraphs are taken from The Odyssey by Homer, translated by E.V. Rieu, Penguin Classics 1946; and from ‘Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield’, an episode of The Simpsons written by Jennifer Crittenden, first broadcast on 4 February 1996.
The Introduction (‘A Word of Explanation’) contains an excerpt from Malcolm Lowry’s letter to Jonathan Cape, 2 January 1946, reproduced in the introduction to Under the Volcano, Penguin Modern Classics 1985, copyright © Margerie Bonner Lowry 1965.
The epigraphs to Part I are taken from Whatever by Michel Houellebecq, Serpent’s Tail, 1999, copyright Maurice Nadeau 1994, translation copyright Paul Hammond 1999; and from Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Russian Literature, Picador 1983, copyright Estate of Vladimir Nabokov, 1981.
‘Book One’ contains extracts from ‘I Start Counting’ (Basil Kirchin/Jack Nathan/James Coleman/Patrick Ryan), copyright © United Artists Music Ltd 1969; from Mr Small by Roger Hargreaves, World International Ltd. 1998, copyright © Mrs Roger Hargreaves 1972; and from The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Michael Glenny, Vintage 2003. Copyright in the English translation © the Harvill Press and Harper and Row Publishers 1967.
‘Book Two’ contains extracts from Middlemarch by George Eliot, Penguin Books 1965, edited by W.J. Harvey; from ‘The Bedsitter’ by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, an episode of the BBC television series Hancock first broadcast on 26 May 1961, copyright © Galton & Simpson 1961; and from ‘On Reading and Books’ by Arthur Schopenhauer, reproduced in Essays of Schopenhauer, translated by Mrs Rudolf Dircks.
‘Books Three to Five’ contains extracts from The Communist Manifesto, Penguin Books 2004, and The Holy Family by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Penguin Books 1967; from The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell, Flamingo 1993; from Post Office by Charles Bukowski, Virgin Books 1992, copyright © Charles Bukowski 1971; and from Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, translated by Pam Gems, Nick Hern Books 1992, translation copyright © Pam Gems 1992.
‘Book Six’ contains extracts from The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, Vintage 1999, copyright © Iris Murdoch 1978; and from Cooking with Pomiane by Edouard de Pomiane, translated by Peggie Benton, Modern Library 2001, copyright © 1976 by Faber and Faber. The quote from Charles Monteith is taken from the BBC Arena documentary Joe Orton: A Genius Like Us, first broadcast on BBC2 on 9 November 1982.
‘Books Seven to Nine’ contains extracts from A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, Penguin Books 1981, copyright © Thelma D. Toole 1980; from Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton, Vintage 1998, copyright © The Estate of the late Patrick Hamilton 1987; from The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett, in the Samuel Beckett Trilogy, Calder 1994, copyright © The Samuel Beckett Estate 1994; from notes by John Calder accompanying the Naxos audio recording of The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett, copyright © John Caldes 2005; from ‘No Place Like London’ by Stephen Sondheim, reproduced in Finishing The Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981), Alfred A. Knopf, copyright © 2010 by Stephen Sondheim; from ‘Love Letter to London’ by Luke Haines, from the album 21st Century Man (Fantastic Plastic Records), copyright © Luke Haines 2009; and from ‘Unhappy Hour’ by Dan Rhodes, the Guardian, 13 March 2004.
‘Book Ten’ contains extracts from Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville, edited by Harold Beaver, Penguin Classics 1972; from The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, Corgi 2004, copyright © Dan Brown 2003; and from ‘976-LOVE’ by Dan Brown, from the album Dan Brown, copyright © DBG Records 1993. The quote from Brian Eno is taken from On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno by David Sheppard, Orion 2008. The quote from Stephen Fry is taken from ‘Combustion’, an episode of QI first broadcast on BBC2 on 16 December 2005.
‘Book Eleven’ contains extracts from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, Wordsworth Classics 1995.
‘Books Twelve and Thirteen’ contains extracts from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, edited by Tony Tanner, Penguin Classics 1972; from Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, Mandarin Paperbacks 1990, copyright © by The Royal Literary Fund; and from ‘Bookshop Memories’ by George Orwell, reprinted in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays, Penguin Books 1964, copyright © George Orwell 1936.
The epigraphs to Part II are taken from ‘Riding Down from Bangor’ by George Orwell, reprinted in Essays, Penguin Books 2000, copyright © George Orwell 1946, reprinted by permission of Bill Hamilton as the Literary Executor of the Estate of the Late Sonia Brownell Orwell; and from ‘And I Was A Boy From School’ by Hot Chip, from the album The Warning (EMI), copyright © Hot Chip 2006, reprinted by permission.
Part II contains extracts from One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa, Penguin Books 1973, translation copyright © Harper and Row Publishers, Inc. 1970; from The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr, PictureLions 1992, copyright © Judith Kerr 1968; from H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Dorna Khazeni, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2006, copyright Michel Houellebecq 1991, translation © Dorna Khazeni 2005; from Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson, translated by Kingsley Hart, Puffin Books 1974, copyright © Tove Jansson 1965, translation © Ernest Benn Limited 1966; and from Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes, Allison & Busby Limited 1980, copyright © 1959 The Colin MacInnes Estate. The quote from Scott Walker is taken from an interview with Mojo magazine, May 2006.
The epigraphs to Part III are taken from Correspondance by Gustave Flaubert, Folio-Classique 1998, translated by the author; and from ‘Little Gidding’ by T.S. Eliot (1942, from Four Quartets), reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber for the UK and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the USA, copyright © the Estate of T.S. Eliot.
‘Books 28, 29 and 31’ contains extracts from The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith, edited by Kate Flint, Oxford University Press 1995; from Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel, Fourth Estate 2005; and from The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, edited by Peter Preston, Wordsworth Classics 1998.
‘Books 41 and 42’ contains extracts from The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart, HarperCollins 1999, copyright © George Cockcroft 1971; from The Essential Silver Surfer Vol. 1 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Marvel Comics 2005, copyright © 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970 and 2005 Marvel Characters Inc.; from Krautrocksampler: One Head’s Guide to the Great Kosmische Musik – 1968 Onwards by Julian Cope, Head Heritage 1995, copyright © Julian Cope 1995; from Repossessed by Julian Cope, Thorsons 1999, copyright © Julian Cope 1999; from ‘I Have Always Been Here Before’ by Julian Cope, from the album Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson, copyright © Julia
n Cope 1990; and from ‘The Stages of Life’ by Carl Jung, from Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Routledge Classics 2001. Unless noted, other quotes from Julian Cope are taken from his website at headheritage.co.uk; from an interview with Jon Savage (‘Stone Me!’, Observer, 10 August 2008); and from The Modern Antiquarian, a documentary first broadcast on BBC2 on 24 June 2000.
‘Book 45’ contains extracts from Public Enemies by Michel Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri Lévy, translated by Frank Wynne, Atlantic Books 2011, copyright © Flammarion/Grasset & Fasquelle, Paris 2008, translation Frank Wynne © 2011; from Atomised by Michel Houellebecq, translated by Frank Wynne, William Heinemann 2000, copyright © Flammarion 1999, translation copyright © Frank Wynne 2000; from ‘Neil Young’ by Michel Houellebecq and Michka Assayas, from Dictionnaire du Rock, Bouquins/Robert Laffont 2000, translated by the author, copyright © Michel Houellebecq and Michka Assayas 2000; from Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans, translated by Robert Baldick, Penguin Classics 2003, translation copyright © Robert Baldick 1956; from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams, Pan Books 1980, copyright © Macmillan Publishers for the UK, Random House Ltd for the USA; and from Vladimir Nabokov’s introduction to ‘The Vane Sisters’, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1996, copyright © Estate of Vladimir Nabokov. The quote from Mark E. Smith is taken from John Peel’s Record Box, a documentary first broadcast on Channel 4 on 14 November 2005.
‘Books 49 and 50’ contains extracts from The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse, Penguin Classics 2001, copyright © P.G. Wodehouse 1937; from The Buildings of England: North East and East Kent (Third Edition) by John Newman, founding editor Nikolaus Pevsner, Penguin Books 1983, copyright © John Newman, 1969, 1976, 1983; from ‘On Noise’ by Arthur Schopenhauer, reproduced in Essays of Schopenhauer, translated by Mrs Rudolf Dircks; from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude, Everyman’s Library 1992; and from Public Enemies by Michel Houellebecq and Bernard-Henri Lévy, translated by Frank Wynne, Atlantic Books 2011, copyright © Flammarion/Grasset & Fasquelle, Paris 2008, translation Frank Wynne © 2011.
The epigraphs preceding the Epilogue are taken from The Books in My Life by Henry Miller, Peter Owen 1961, copyright © the Estate of Henry Miller; from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Pan Books 1979, copyright © Macmillan Publishers for the UK, Random House Ltd for the USA, reprinted by kind permission of the Estate of Douglas Adams; and from Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, Penguin Modern Classics 1985, copyright © Malcolm Lowry 1947. The Epilogue itself contains extracts from Repossessed by Julian Cope, Thorsons 1999, copyright © Julian Cope 1999; from Malcolm Lowry’s letter to Jonathan Cape, 2 January 1946, reproduced in the introduction to Under the Volcano, Penguin Modern Classics 1985, copyright © Margerie Bonner Lowry 1965; and from ‘Publishing’, an episode of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Future, presented by Douglas Adams, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 21 April 2001.
Notes for Reading Groups
How many titles from the List of Betterment have you read? Which were your favourites?
‘Everyone is entitled to an opinion.’ True or false?
Do you need to have finished reading a book before posting a review online or discussing it with your book group?
Would you describe your book group as middlebrow?
Throughout The Year of Reading Dangerously, Andy Miller has employed recurring motifs of the tiger and the monkey. What do the tiger and monkey symbolise? Anything?
On page a former colleague of Andy Miller’s describes him as ‘one of the angriest men I have ever met’. What do you think Andy Miller is so angry about?
Andy Miller has painstakingly threaded images of duality through the text of The Year of Reading Dangerously. In your opinion, was it worth it?
Did you understand what Andy Miller was trying to achieve in The Year of Reading Dangerously? If not, whose fault is that? Yours or his?
Like Malcolm Lowry, Andy Miller has stated that he hopes people will read The Year of Reading Dangerously at least twice in order to engage with the text, delve into the book’s many allusions and resonances, and fully appreciate its architecture and design. Can you be bothered?
After reading an early draft of The Year of Reading Dangerously, a former member of the author’s book group (see Chapter IX) commented: ‘Andy [Miller] exhibits symptoms of clinical depression, repressed homosexuality and undiagnosed Asperger syndrome.’ Do you agree?
Andy Miller obviously has a unique mind and a fierce intelligence. But would you want to go down the pub with him?
Which of the following Andy Millers is your favourite? The author of The Year of Reading Dangerously; Andrew Miller, the award-winning serious novelist; Andy Miller, guitarist with the group Dodgy; or the Andy Miller who likes women to bring him sandwiches?
It doesn’t matter anyway, because it’s all a load of shit. Do you agree?
Are these discussion notes meant to be taken seriously? Discuss.
Reading group notes © Andy Miller 2014
Acknowledgements
This book could not have been written without the considerable help of the following people.
At Fourth Estate, my editor Nicholas Pearson has been a friend, collaborator and shrink. He has also had to be very, very patient. I promised him I would complete this book without recourse to the phrase ‘demise of the Net Book Agreement’ and I have kept that promise until just now: sorry for that, Nick, and also for the major delay in delivery. I would also like to thank Victoria Barnsley for her belief in me, first as an editor and subsequently as an author. Thanks too to Rebecca McEwan, Michelle Kane, Olly Rowse, Minna Fry, Paul Erdpresser, Kate Tolley, Essie Cousins, Laura Roberts, Julian Humphries, Clare Reihill, Louise Haines and especially Jo Walker, who not only designed the cover but also filled it with precisely the right number of books without having to be asked.
At Harper Perennial, John Williams acquired the book and was a vital early source of enthusiasm and encouragement; he subsequently commissioned me to write two long essays for his online journal The Second Pass, in which I was able to rehearse the approach I planned to take with this book; thanks, John. Back at Perennial, the book passed through the hands of Jeanette Perez, then Michael Signorelli before ending up on the desk of my editor, the wonderful Hannah Wood. She and publisher Cal Morgan have embraced the book as one of their own and I am deeply grateful to them both for their energy, care and commitment, and to everyone at Perennial.
At Curtis Brown, my agent Jonny Geller has been an invaluable source of good humour and good advice whenever I have needed either; thanks also Doug Kean and, latterly, Kirsten Foster.
All my friends from Canongate, especially Jamie Byng – the only person I know who says he never lies about books and I believe him – and ‘Digital’ Dan Franklin, who was still analogue when I met him.
All my friends at Faber & Faber, especially Stephen Page, Hannah Griffiths, Bridget Latimer-Jones, Julian Loose and, all the way from Forest Hill, John Grindrod. #CroydonTillWeDie.
At different times and in different ways, the following people inspired or assisted me: Mitzi Angel; David Barker; Richard Bedser; Alex Clark; Jenny Colgan; Peter and Polly Collingridge; Dick Copperwaite; Jackie Copperwaite; Steve Delaney; Peter Doggett; the late Patric Duffy; Travis Elborough; Victoria Falconer; Tim Grover; Rupert Heath; Sorrel Hershberg, Edie and Reuben; Tom Hodgkinson; Kate Holden; Leo Hollis; Tony Lacey; Stewart Lee; Sam Leith; the Lyons family; Dominic Maxwell, Emma Perry, Polly and Flora; Jeremy Millar; assorted Andrew Millers; David Miller; David Mounfield; Paul Putner; Dan Rhodes; Pru Rowlandson; William Rowlandson; Andrew Sandoval; the Sargent-McSweeney family; all my sparring partners in Sparta B.C.; Matt ‘Are You Passionate?’ Thorne; Rob Weiss and Mary Claire Smith; and Neil Young.
Special thanks to the brilliant Jenna Russell, Dot in the Menier Chocolate Factory production of Sunday in the Park with George, for sharing her thoughts on performing the work of Stephen Sondhei
m.
Many of the books on the List of Betterment were purchased from Harbour Books in Whitstable. Thank you Keith & Emma Dickson, Vicky Hageman, Matthew Crockatt, Elizabeth Waller and Kirsten Boysen for allowing me to wander in, check the correct spelling of, say, Knut Hamsun, and wander out again. Honourable mentions to Oxford Street Books in Whitstable, Waterstones in Canterbury, managed by the doughty Martin Latham, and both branches of the Albion Bookshop in Broadstairs, now sadly defunct. Whitstable Library and the British Library at St Pancras filled in the gaps.
The book itself was mostly written in two places: a substantial part of the first draft was completed at Dot Cottage, near Winchelsea Beach in Sussex, where I learned to chop logs with an axe and operate a wood-burner, much to the amusement and concern of Michael Crosby-Jones and Margot Prew, who were wonderful hosts to a struggling writer – discreet yet touchingly reluctant to let their guest die of hypothermia; the remainder was written, and then rewritten, in a quiet house round the corner from where I live. Unlike my house, there was no telephone, no broadband and no TV to divert me. It is little exaggeration to say this book would never have been finished without the generosity and forbearance of Anthony and Julie Robinson.
I would like to award £10 book tokens to each of the following in recognition of their outstanding contribution.
For almost a century of friendship, Matthew Freedman, Michael Keane and Paul Wright.
For tough love above and beyond that which was strictly necessary, Ben Thompson and Nicola Barker.
For singing and playing guitar with me, my partner in the Gene Clark Five, Tim Donkin; and for letting the GC5 make an unlovely noise in her lovely home, week in, week out, the divine Elise Burns.
‘Finished your book yet?’ For commencing all telephone calls with this enquiry, week in, week out, Clinton Heylin.
For laughing and making me laugh, Neil, Sue and Nicol Perryman.
Thanks, Mum and Dad, for giving me this love of books and for letting me follow it wherever it has led.