We ought to only read the kind of books that wound and stab us. If
  the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head,
  what are we reading it for? We need the books that affect us like a
  disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved
  more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from
  everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea
  inside us. That is my belief.

            Franz Kafka