In the first week of Brighton Festival author Jeanette Winterson explained why it was important to read literature.

Read Y’Self Fitter was almost a companion piece, as Andy Miller, author of The Year Of Reading Dangerously and former employee at Brighton Waterstones, gave a practical lecture on how it should be done.

Having spent a year reading 50 of the greatest books in the English language – and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code – he was in a good position to give advice.

And it ranged from setting yourself 50 pages a day, to (trying to) finish every book you start.

It’s hard to imagine anyone leaving not wanting to tackle the book long-gathering dust on their shelves. Miller’s approach was passionate but with a huge sense of fun – baaing at all those who had read Stoner in the last 18 months and launching into a Stewart Lee-influenced tirade against Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years Of Solitude.

Picking names out of a hat he forced four audience members to pledge to read Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Anna Karenina, Alice In Wonderland, and even the hated magic realist classic within the next 12 months.

Following his championing of it, expect War And Peace to be checked out of Jubilee Library for the next few months.

Four stars