Not Crime & Punishment?

This is rather fascinating. I'm not sure what I think. I'm not a Les Mis fan, so I confess when I first saw this I thought his reasoning was that reading it was a form of punishment; I was glad to see it was more nuanced than that. I'm still not sure what I think about it as a practice, and I'm quite sure it's not what I would personally pick (not sure what I would, though).