Do not suppose, however, that I intend to urge a diet of classics on anybody. I have seen such diets at work. I have known people who have actually read all, or almost all, the guaranteed Hundred Best Books. God save us from reading nothing but the best.

Davies is pushing back against a dutiful, checklist approach to “serious” reading—especially the idea that cultural refinement comes from consuming only canonical works. By likening classics-only reading to a restrictive “diet,” he suggests that even excellent books can become stultifying when treated as moral obligation rather than pleasure, curiosity, or personal need. The jab at “guaranteed Hundred Best Books” mocks the commodification of taste and the false security of curated lists. The closing line—half prayer, half punchline—argues for a varied literary life: mixing high and low, old and new, difficult and entertaining, so that reading remains human, responsive, and genuinely nourishing.