{"id":418,"date":"2013-10-30T19:01:42","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T18:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/?p=418"},"modified":"2013-10-30T19:01:42","modified_gmt":"2013-10-30T18:01:42","slug":"bibliotherapy-textual-healing-the-economist-12th-oct-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/?p=418","title":{"rendered":"Bibliotherapy:  Textual healing (The Economist 12th Oct 2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"<hgroup>\n<h2>Book balm, also known as bibliotherapy<!--more--><\/h2>\n<\/hgroup>\n<aside><time>Oct 12th 2013\u00a0<\/time>|<a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/printedition\/2013-10-12\">From the print editio<\/a>n<\/aside>\n<div>\n<p><strong>The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness\u2014751 Books to Cure What Ails You.<\/strong>\u00a0By Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin.\u00a0<em>Penguin Press; 420 pages; $26.95. Canongate; \u00a317.<\/em>\u00a0Buy from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1594205167\/theeconomists-20\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon.com<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0857864203\/economistshop-21\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>ON A therapist\u2019s couch, a patient complains of heartache, work stress and a creepy sense of anomie. The session ends with a prescription: Ali Smith\u2019s 2011 novel, \u201cThere but for the\u201d, a darkly amusing book about a man who escapes a dinner party by locking himself in the host\u2019s spare bedroom, which he refuses to leave for months. It is an inspired tonic\u2014absurd and vicariously satisfying. Days later a letter prescribes another eight carefully selected books, from Thomas Hardy\u2019s \u201cTess of the d\u2019Urbervilles\u201d to Iris Murdoch\u2019s \u201cThe Green Knight\u201d, each one a salve for a rather literary sort of problem.<\/p>\n<p>This is \u201cShelf Help\u201d, a service from the School of Life, an enterprise launched by Alain de Botton, a British writer, that caters to the financially comfortable and emotionally discontented (with lectures and programmes about \u201chow to balance work with life\u201d, for example, or \u201chow to be creative\u201d). Customers seeking bibliotherapy trade \u00a380 ($130) for an hour of chat with an insightful and dauntingly well-read \u201ctherapist\u201d, who then crafts a bespoke reading list designed to meet someone\u2019s special needs\u2014perhaps some New York-based classics with a touch of romance? Or a few futuristic escapist fantasies, with a dash of hubris? There is something for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>Fiction is often more \u201cpowerful than self-help books\u201d, explains Ella Berthoud, a bibliotherapist at the School of Life, whose \u201cpatients\u201d range from the newly retired to the newly divorced. She reckons that a good book leaves people \u201cfeeling altered in a fundamental way\u201d, and life is too short for bad books.<\/p>\n<p>But if a session of bibliotherapy seems a bit dear, help is at hand with \u201cThe Novel Cure\u201d, an A-Z of literary remedies by Ms Berthoud and Susan Elderkin, a novelist and fellow bibliophile. This entertaining tour of 2,000 years of literature matches beloved books with specific ailments, from \u201cabandonment\u201d (try Kent Haruf\u2019s heartening \u201cPlainsong\u201d) to \u201czestlessness\u201d (go for the \u201ctumult and tumble\u201d of E.L. Doctorow\u2019s \u201cRagtime\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>The result is astute and often amusing. Readers who have lost a job can find solace in Kingsley Amis\u2019s hapless \u201cLucky Jim\u201d or Herman Melville\u2019s rebellious \u201cBartleby, the Scrivener\u201d. Married to the wrong person? Try George Eliot\u2019s \u201cruthlessly unsentimental\u201d \u201cMiddlemarch\u201d. Anxieties about flatulence? Reach for a dose of John Kennedy Toole\u2019s brilliantly funny \u201cA Confederacy of Dunces\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Written in plain and inviting language, \u201cA Novel Cure\u201d is a charming addition to any library. Time spent leafing through its pages is inspiring\u2014even therapeutic, if not quite therapy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Book balm, also known as bibliotherapy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,2,13],"tags":[79,51],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesusromerotrillo.es\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}