The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life by Andy Miller
From Goodreads
A working father whose life no longer feels like his own discovers the transforming powers of great (and downright terrible) literature in this laugh-out-loud memoir.
Andy Miller had a job he quite liked, a family he loved, and no time at all for reading. Or so he kept telling himself. But, no matter how busy or tired he was, something kept niggling at him. Books. Books he’d always wanted to read. Books he’d said he’d read that he actually hadn’t. Books that whispered the promise of escape from the daily grind. And so, with the turn of a page, Andy began a year of reading that was to transform his life completely.
This book is Andy’s inspirational and very funny account of his expedition through literature: classic, cult, and everything in between. Beginning with a copy of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita that he happens to find one day in a bookstore, he embarks on a literary odyssey. From Middlemarch to Anna Karenina to A Confederacy of Dunces, this is a heartfelt, humorous, and honest examination of what it means to be a reader, and a witty and insightful journey of discovery and soul-searching that celebrates the abiding miracle of the book and the power of reading.
ISBN: 9780007255764
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: April 23rd 2015
Pages: 322
Review
When I started this book I wasn’t really sure what to expect, suffice to say that it wasn’t quite what I had imagined I would be greeted with. Once I had got my head around the style of the book I found it a very enjoyable and informative read. It was interesting to see how a person’s perception of a book can be very different from the actual thing. Andy Miller discovered this on his own reading journey. He tried to interject some humour into the book along with some back story as to when he had first come across the book or what memories it evoked in him.
Andy Miller used to work in a bookstore before he went on to become a journalist. This part of his background also featured throughout the book. On the whole the book was well written although at one spot it became a bit laboured (Andy actually gave the reader permission to skip this bit) and therefore slow. Having said that, I did enjoy his reviews of books such as Anna Karenina. Andy Miller is very honest about his thoughts on the books he read which was extremely apparent when he reviewed The Da Vinci Code probably one of his least favourite books of those he reviewed. I really appreciate Andy Miller’s honesty and openness with his reviews; the reader is never left wondering what he thought or his motivation for reading the book in the first place. This is a worth while read.
Recommend for: Adults
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
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