Getting Educated

Christmas comes and Christmas goes, and in its wake yet more tomes are added to the small library I hope I can eventually plough through. With so many modern novels to read, how will I ever address those old epics? War & Peace, Dante's Divine Comedy, A Brief History of Time, Ulysses, The Iliad - we've all set aside some big names that we'll someday tackle, educating ourselves in the process, maybe finishing them in time for it to go on our gravestones.

Give up. I've come to terms with it. I'm never going to get through the complete works of Shakespeare. Austen is too dull. Infinite Jest is actually insultingly long, while Rainbow Six is too much for any one man to understand.

Reading is not all it's cracked up to be - getting things read to you, that's where it's at. Get onto the BBC site and listen to Milton's Paradise Lost, read by Anton Lesser. It's all about God and Satan and things, and contains some excellent words. It's like reading but less grind.

Episode 1 is available for just a couple more days. GO!