25th
You should read Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Save Your Life. The title is the only crappy thing about it. AdB introduces Proust in a very relaxed manner and convinces me that I should/must read Proust at some time in the near future. Notcing details is the way to go.
The following quote is brilliant:
‘That abominable and sensual act called reading the newspaper, thanks to which all the misfortunes and cataclysms in the universe over the last twenty-four hours, the battles which cost the lives of fifty thousand men, the murders, the strikes, the bankruptcies, the fires, the poisinings, the suicides, the divorces, the cruel emotions of statesmen and actors, are transformed for us, who don’t even care, into a morning treat, blending in wonderfully, in a particularly exciting and tonic way, with the recommended ingestion of a few sips of café au lait.’
