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Wednesday 16 April 2014

Welcome to the world of books, Jamie Oliver. Now, just stick to what you like

We're often too quick to use our reading habits as a way of showing off, but what's important is enjoying it, not self-consciously reading the classics

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver Photo: Channel 4

Jamie Oliver has read his first book at the age of 38, having been held back by dyslexia and “getting bored easily”. It makes you think of the first great books you read and enjoyed, and some are thinking of what he should read next. Books can be a great part of life - the chef described how he “loved disappearing into a story.” There’s honesty in admitting you haven’t read a book before, that you struggle with reading, and that you actually enjoyed it when you tried. Too many people wish to pose as book-readers rather than enjoying reading for itself, and it is refreshing to hear someone praise a popular book for being a good book.

People love talking about how much they love books; like people who insist on telling you that they don't own a television, some people are very keen to let you know just how great a book-lover they are, how the densest novels have spoken to them, how they identified with Dickens before Peter Rabbit. Knowing books shows wisdom, integrity and worldly knowledge, and it can become the image a person wants to project. Sometimes this can mislead us about what we really want from a book, and become more of a concern of what a book says about us, rather than what it can teach us.

It can progress into a fashion statement. In entering a gift shop you cannot avoid the huge collection of Penguin Classics mugs, coasters, posters, pencils, magnets, and deck chairs for sale. Notebooks are made to look like actual books; bookmarks have book covers on them. The objects show the title and author, and the familiar three-tone colour scheme to display as part of your home decor. Even beauty takes on a bookish theme sometimes; Liverpool’s recently opened Beauty Bazaar features a fragrance “library”.

There is certainly something about the image of books, particularly classics. Maybe we are all captivated by that famous photograph of Marilyn Monroe, perching on a climbing frame finishing off Ulysses. There is no shame in loving the aesthetic of them - publishers such as Vintage and Penguin continue to produce beautiful, more costly editions of the great academic works. Maybe that is why we choose to huddle over our smartphones and order modern cheap paperbacks on Amazon, but go into a bookshop to cough up for a more literary one that we get to publicly place on the counter. Shake off the embarrassment; the only shame is in owning a vast and untouched bookshelf of books that you feel pressured to read, rather than reading what you enjoy.

Jamie Oliver’s first book was Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, the sequel to the sci-fi hit The Hunger Games. It’s a book aimed at teenagers but enjoyed by adults, as it should be. Maybe it isn’t the choice of literature buffs, but in March 2012 Collins was announced the best-selling Kindle ebook author of all time. Many say that it is popular with people who “do not read books”; people who normally get bored at the first paragraph of a novel, but now cannot eat or sleep because they want to finish the series.

The people who “do not read books” have been an issue among intellectuals for years. Virginia Woolf displayed her dislike for the “middlebrow”; accessible literature and art. Others rush to denounce popular hits once they get just that bit too popular, recoiling from the novels sitting by the one-pound chocolate in WH Smith. It is a great pity if the bookish want to warn people away from popular books, rather than wanting to welcome new readers into the literary world. Those new to reading can get cut off by this intellectual wall, especially those who struggle, whether with dyslexia or not.

Jamie Oliver shows that it is never too late to start reading. He offers those unfamiliar to reading quite a good tip; it might be best to go for the obvious. The pillars of literature in elegant editions appear “proper”, but maybe you should just start with what other people like.

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