Boys do not generally grow up believing that men are forged under the reading lamp, but that’s how the journey unfolded for Ioan Marc Jones.The reading lamp, and the rugby pitch. His father (his biggest influence) was Welsh, after all.

In this second episode, Ioan explains to Jack Aldane how for years, the need to impress his father made the act reading closer to training on the pitch than something done for pleasure. Reading should challenge us, of course, but Ioan's literary life is a testament to line between self-betterment and self-punishment.

It wasn’t until he discovered Anne Carson 1998 verse novel Autobiography of Red, that Ioan’s attitude to reading changed for good.

The Lit Path

The Lit Path's mission is to engage with the crisis of masculinity head-on by looking to the transformative power of the novel for wisdom. Each episode will feature a guest — they could be an athlete, a musician, a writer, broadcaster, comedian, entrepreneur or public servant - reflecting on the novel that has resolutely altered their perspective and made them wiser as a result. Whether an episode involves a man telling his story, or someone telling that of someone they know, love or admire, the show will uncover how fiction not self-help manuals, not productivity guides, not scientific explanations of phenomena) can change the depth and texture of a man's inner and outer world.

Against the broader backdrop of men's mental health challenges, The Lit Path addresses two main concerns:

1. That male literacy, including pleasure in reading, lags significantly behind that of women and girls, and
2. That many male readers demonstrate a marked bias toward non-fiction titles that trade on facts, systems thinking, and broadly rational solutions to life's myriad challenges.

While such books have their value, The Lit Path asks instead: What happens when men turn away from the quantifiable world and towards the psychological, moral, and emotional vistas opened up by great works of fiction?

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