A fearless and forthright Jim Flynn visited the shop this Friday lunchtime to introduce us to authors and titles that feature in his second torchlight list, The New Torchlight List: In Search of the Best Modern Authors. As the subtitle suggests, Flynn’s aim is to gather together a quality reading list of (mostly) living authors. The list doesn’t aim to find the very best contemporary writing in the world but the best of the 400 titles recommended by friends that Flynn has managed to read over the last six years.
In his usual style Flynn delivered an informative, enjoyable and provocative talk. Whatever you think of omission or bias, the aim of the The Torchlight List and The New Torchlight List is to get people reading good fiction. According to Flynn reading increases empathy and understanding of societies and culture and this can only improve individual human behaviour and, on a larger scale, foreign policy decisions. Or as we like to put it at Unity: Read yourself to good environmental health and a world without war!