The National Year of Reading celebrates the ‘joy’ of books. But let’s not forget they can also be deeply troubling, too | Charlotte Higgins Encounters with great art can be absorbing, unsettling and even painful. How has this been tamed into ‘reading for pleasure’, asks Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian’s chief culture writer

#NationalReadingYear www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... I worry about The Youth' not reading. Maybe this is an explanation. They're disturbed by encountering 'diffficult' material. Currently re-reading #WilkieCollins' #TheMoonstone and #JamesCurtis' W.C. Fields: A Biography.

Currently re-reading #JamesCurtis' biography of #WCFields. One passage jumped out at me. Describing the 9th edition of the #ZiegfeldFollies (1915), which had a filmed section about the cast attempting to make a Civil War movie, he writes, '(Ed) Wynn stood in the left-hand aisle, next to the