Fifty Books That Changed the World
Lovers of books always used to like to see themselves, a bit like gardeners, as peaceable, unaggressive types. The nearest you expected to get to confrontation in a library as I was growing up was a gently raised eyebrow and a reproachful ‘Shh’.
Certainly, you would never have expected an irreproachable activity like writing a book to spark fights, family rifts, and staring-eyed bitter arguments. Well, maybe times have changed, or maybe it’s the kind of book that I wrote.
Telling people that I was drawing up a list of Fifty Books That Changed the World was like lighting a long fuse on a very, very big firework. The responses started quietly, but fizzed irrevocably towards the final explosion. First, people would ask what I’d included, and I’d list a few of the books.
Then, still apparently peacefully, they would say, “Why haven’t you put in … “ – whatever book it was they felt had been unfairly left out. Or maybe it would be how on earth the list could include some other book, self-evidently barely worth the trees that had been felled for the paper on which it was printed.
And then, however calmly I tried to explain my reasoning, everything would kick off. Sometimes people would start politely, but it was the ominous politeness of a man who was checking his ammunition. Then, when he – or she, because women were often more aggressive than the men – would turn in an instant from a reasonable, friendly human being into a nutcase with a knuckleduster.
Why wasn’t Jane Austen there? What about Virgil? Or Henry Miller? How pompous to write about Horace, or how pathetic to include Harry Potter – clearly an example of shameless dumbing down to sell books. And as for the Telephone Directory!
There are dear friends to whom I haven’t spoken since I started drawing up my list for Fifty Books That Changed the World. Wills have been changed because of the family rows that it engendered; it would be no surprise if the feuds that started over a fairly light-hearted selection of books carry on down the generations, until in another hundred years people are still crossing the road to avoid each other without having the first idea about how the argument began.
Well, perhaps I exaggerate. But only a little. Fifty Books That Changed the World is released as a paperback by Quercus in March. The publishers say – irresponsibly, I think – that they won’t put a public health warning on the cover. But if you’re tough enough to buy a copy, remember that you’ll be asking for a fight if you take it out in public.
Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
