Amiable authors are bookish

Lucy Mangan, Sam Leith and Daisy Buchanan
The Relais Henley
Saturday, October 11

READING is said to be on the decline in this country but you wouldn’t know it from the full house at a session given by three very bookish authors at the Relais on Saturday.

Bookish is actually the title of Lucy Mangan’s new book. Mangan is the Guardian’s TV critic but she is, above all, a reader and always has been. She was joined by Sam Leith, literary editor of the Spectator and author of a history of children’s literature, and podcaster Daisy Buchanan.

This was an amiable ramble round the uses of reading, whether for amusement, delight, distraction, comfort or consolation. Even perhaps for education, although the speakers were keen to stress that telling people, children especially, that things like poetry were important might be a turn-off.

On the other hand, telling people that something is forbidden or unsuitable is a sure way of sparking interest. A forbidden book is a lure. Mangan remembered coming to George Orwell’s 1984 in 1984, when she was 10. Much too young but the book had a lasting effect.

The panellists agreed that humour is much more difficult to achieve than it looks and that too high a value is placed on po-faced literary seriousness. P G Wodehouse and Damon Runyon, the source of Guys and Dolls, were cited as true comic originals. Also drawing on a classic, Daisy Buchanan finds inspiration in the world of Little Women.

This is an era of multiple distractions and shrinking attention spans but the session was a reminder that books have a value which is, literally, irreplaceable.

Philip Gooden