http://www.tv-online-live.com...

My book shelf is full of contrasting stuff. Classics next door to Doctor Who books, for example. I really do shudder when certain critics try to create a “list of books that are good” as if there is some great authority court of literature out there. The whole point of art is that people enjoy it. If it shocks, fine. So long as it delivers some sort of pleasure in the shocking. And it reaches out to everyone not to a select few. If the arts stick with some sort of high school clique then boy oh boy are they done for.

I love Dickens. One of my ancestors once told Dickens to get lost which is a cool claim to fame. It can feel like one needs to take a holiday of about five years to finish the book but there’s so much richness there, even in the short stories.

Anyone who does struggle with “getting into” the classic should check out The Classic Tales podcast. Free audio books of some of the great works of literature professionally read and recorded.

I could sound incredibly pretentious by expanding on Derida’s ideas about a translation of a text being a different text to the original (I’d have thrown in that a text is translated when someone reads it which means each person gets and “creates” a different text which they either resonate and connect with or they don’t) indeed, I can give any critic a run for their money on theorising largely daft stuff.

But the point of literature is that you enjoy it. That you get something from what you read and delight in it. Whether that’s Crime And Punishment or a sports annual. Hamlet or Harry Potter.

@Sharon I said this to someone on Facebook yesterday but I’m going to have to suck it up and read The Life of Pi because literally everyone I’ve spoken to who has read it has loved it. That’s got to be saying something.

@Normalityandme Glad to have given you a good excuse! Glad you enjoyed the post and thanks for commenting