:00:00. > :00:07.We will have more on the top stories at eight o'clock. Now time for Meet
:00:08. > :00:12.The Author. John Carey is the chief book
:00:13. > :00:23.reporter for the Sunday Times. People call him penetrant and
:00:24. > :00:28.waspish. He is also a president `` Professor at Oxford. His latest book
:00:29. > :00:32.is an engaging autobiography interspersed with formal essays on
:00:33. > :00:36.writers he advised from John Milton to George Orwell. He calls it the
:00:37. > :00:39.history of English literature and me, how we met, how we got on and
:00:40. > :01:01.what came of it. John Carey, this is a book really
:01:02. > :01:06.about one man's discovery of English literature over 80 years. Is it too
:01:07. > :01:14.soppy to call it a love affair? It is not too soppy but it is
:01:15. > :01:17.incomplete. I think what I get from literature is not only feelings but
:01:18. > :01:21.thoughts. It is true that when I started to be captivated by English
:01:22. > :01:27.literature which was only when I got to grammar school at the age of 12,
:01:28. > :01:33.it was poetry that I was captivated by, and very much poetry that fed
:01:34. > :01:44.the feelings. The first poem I really loved was GK Chesterton's the
:01:45. > :01:53.panto. I still admire it. George Orwell thought it was pure fusty.
:01:54. > :02:03.That is the one which goes Don John of Austria is much into war.
:02:04. > :02:08.Wonderful rhythm. You went on to discover a more thoughtful and
:02:09. > :02:14.serious side of literature? Yes, it was particularly reading as an
:02:15. > :02:20.A`level text, sure's Saint Joan, not only the play but the preface, which
:02:21. > :02:24.I thought it was a marvellous piece of writing, about the time before
:02:25. > :02:27.nationhood in feudal Europe when what mattered was Catholicism and
:02:28. > :02:36.the religions which were starting to develop to challenge it. Also in the
:02:37. > :02:43.play itself, there was a marvellous bit where Joan is being questioned
:02:44. > :02:50.about her voices. She says they come from God. He says, they come from
:02:51. > :02:56.your imagination. She says, of course, that is how God speaks to
:02:57. > :03:05.us. Brilliant. The intelligence was what I so admired in Bernard Shaw.
:03:06. > :03:10.The intelligence and provocation that he would annoy people if he
:03:11. > :03:13.possibly could. You have already mentioned two things which loom
:03:14. > :03:18.large in this book, one is that you have a grammar school education and
:03:19. > :03:22.the other is George Orwell. You are a great believer in grammar schools
:03:23. > :03:29.and you lament that almost all our grammar schools have disappeared.
:03:30. > :03:36.Why? ICV counterarguments, I am not ignorant of those and I know people
:03:37. > :03:42.who failed the 11 plus were seriously disadvantaged. For me, I
:03:43. > :03:47.was lucky, I passed the 11 plus and transformed my life. Why? It was a
:03:48. > :03:53.tiny grammar school in East Sheen but it was staffed, the teaching
:03:54. > :03:58.staff, the Masters, it was single sex, were the kind of people you
:03:59. > :04:02.wanted to be like. You wanted to have their kind of knowledge and
:04:03. > :04:09.values. That seems to me, in teaching generally speaking, to BD
:04:10. > :04:15.magic power. You are a great enthusiasts the George Orwell, why?
:04:16. > :04:21.It is not only his writing which I admire and I do admire it because of
:04:22. > :04:29.its economy, clarity, plain`spoken bus and wit. I admire him for his
:04:30. > :04:35.life. He would hate this but I think it is the life of a secular saint,
:04:36. > :04:40.if you like. He sees the light, has done with imperial is, becomes a
:04:41. > :04:45.socialist or his life, goes over to communism, sees the light about that
:04:46. > :04:52.and tells the truth about coming as and Stalinism. He is a truth teller.
:04:53. > :04:56.You admired in Oxford 60 years ago as an undergraduate and you got your
:04:57. > :05:00.first academic job. You said you were interviewed by a man called
:05:01. > :05:06.bison whose view was that literature should be for enjoyment and it was
:05:07. > :05:11.wrong to turn it into something arcane and scholarly `` a man called
:05:12. > :05:20.Dyson. You said it was a view you wanted to discredit, partly because
:05:21. > :05:23.you agreed with it? What I feel about academic literature is more of
:05:24. > :05:32.it should be written for the general reader. The people I admire as
:05:33. > :05:47.critics are people like CS Lewis, people like FI leaders, as a matter
:05:48. > :05:51.of fact. `` FR Leavis. People writing are not coming from the
:05:52. > :05:56.academic community at all. I'm thinking of people like Richard
:05:57. > :06:10.Holmes, his biography of Coleridge, Doctor Johnson and Savage. I think
:06:11. > :06:17.of Jenny Uglow, the remarkable biography of Hogarth. And none of
:06:18. > :06:25.the people who are writing the big biographical books come from
:06:26. > :06:30.academia. You are man who writes for newspapers, inevitably, the choice
:06:31. > :06:35.of books made by you and literary editors is somewhat arbitrary. There
:06:36. > :06:40.are so many books and which ones you choose are matter of chance, what
:06:41. > :06:45.you want to achieve with those? I do want to encourage people to read
:06:46. > :06:50.books, that is my main aim. I think reading books for pleasure seems to
:06:51. > :06:53.be threatened at the moment. I do want to be too apocalyptic about it
:06:54. > :07:02.but I do think that teenagers read less. Not younger children but
:07:03. > :07:10.teenagers. So my aim actually is if I am reviewing, to direct people to
:07:11. > :07:12.books that I think are truly rewarding and sometimes, of course,
:07:13. > :07:20.to direct them away from books which are not. I like to think of, it
:07:21. > :07:28.happened to me when I was younger, is these papers getting into homes
:07:29. > :07:33.with children and they are being read. My column, my review is being
:07:34. > :07:41.read by young people. I have had young writers say, I read your
:07:42. > :07:47.column. It is a lovely thought that I might have influenced in however
:07:48. > :07:54.small away there movement towards reading for pleasure `` I might have
:07:55. > :08:01.influenced in however small a way. John Kerry, thank you.
:08:02. > :08:06.This is BBC News. Coming up in the next few minutes: We will have more
:08:07. > :08:09.on the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane with
:08:10. > :08:11.satellite images being described