In Why Be Happy, Winterson argues that, “Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value.” That claim makes me nervous, because it’s easily used to make the case for a narrower rather than a broader literary culture. (I think of it as the “We Are All Holden Caulfield!” defense, which is even more likely than Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness to make me want to throw myself out a window.)