Exactly a year ago today, on January 24, 2021, the Seattle Times ran a story on a new bookstore in Seattle called Oh Hello Again (and no, I didn't plan to post this article on the anniversary of that other article - I had just been hanging onto the newspaper cutting until I could get around to writing about bibliotherapy - serendipity at work again!). The bookstore is noteworthy for its unusual way of arranging its books. Not in sections featuring the various genres, but according to the article, they are "categorized emotionally". There are sections, for example, for "those afflicted with existential crises, trauma, tech addiction, boredom, and anger". The store's most popular sections last year were "Anti-Racism", "When You Need a Laugh", and "Climate Change" and probably still are.
Bibliotherapy is not a new concept. The term "bibliotherapy" first appeared in a 1916 Atlantic Monthly article, but according to Wikipedia, its roots go back to ancient times. As a librarian, I have always focused on a thematic approach in displaying books, presenting classroom booktalks, and writing my blog articles, but I haven't ever shelved novels and biographies with the non-fiction books!
Right now, there is a renewed interest in bibliotherapy with the recent publication of such books as The Novel Cure: An A - Z of Literary Remedies. I bought myself a copy of The Novel Cure which, I must admit, I find rather silly. (Silly is fine, but I disagree with too many of the authors' choices.) In an article that appeared in the New York Times, "Your Therapist’s Prescription? The Right Book" (7/26/2019), Lori Gottlieb wrote: "Of course, my suggestions don’t always resonate; a novel that to me brims with insight about love and loss or regret and resilience — in short, the human condition — is sometimes met with a meh from a patient. In these cases, I’ve learned to temper my reactions, to move beyond ungenerous thoughts about the depth of that person’s soul, along with my knee-jerk inner monologue: What do you mean you weren’t moved by “A Man Called Ove” or “Olive Kitteridge”? I’ve come to recognize that there’s an art to matching a book to a person’s sensibility; I won’t recommend Tayari Jones to someone who tells me her favorite character of all time is Bridget Jones."
None-the-less, I looked through The Novel Cure to find all the titles which we have at Plymouth Library and what their therapeutic use might be. If you are a sexagenarian, suffer from high blood pressure, or are being haunted, we may have the book for you.
Best novels for after a nightmare: The wind in the willows / Grahame, Kenneth, J F GRA
Best novels for duvet days: The red tent / Diamant, Anita. F DIA
Best novels for ninety-somethings: Through the looking-glass /Carroll, Lewis J F CAR
Best novels for sci-fi beginners: Brave new world : and, Brave new world revisited / Huxley, Aldous, F HUX
A wrinkle in time / L'Engle, Madeleine. JF LEN
Best novels for sixty-somethings: Things fall apart/ Achebe, Chinua. F ACH
The sense of an ending / Barnes, Julian. F BAR
Best novels for teens: The book thief / Zusak, Markus. F ZUS
Best novels for the very blue: The bluest eye: a novel. Morrison, Toni. F MOR
Best novels for when you have a cold: The secret life of bees/ Kidd, Sue Monk. F KID
Best novels to cheer you up: Cold Comfort Farm / Gibbons, Stella, F GIB
Best novels to cure the xenophobic: Cutting for stone : a novel / Verghese, A. F VER
Best novels to lower your blood pressure: The hours / Cunningham, Michael, F CUN
Best novels to read on a plane journey: The lovely bones : a novel / Sebold, Alice. F SEB
Best novels to read on a train: The railway children / Nesbit, E. JF NES
Best novels to read on your gap year: Flowers for Algernon. Keyes, Daniel. F KEY
Best novels to turn your partner (female) onto fiction: A thousand splendid suns / Hosseini, Khaled. F HOS
Being haunted: Beloved / Morrison, Toni. F MOR
Being in a jam: Life of Pi : a novel / Martel, Yann. F MAR
Broken spirit: I am David / Holm, Anne, JF HOL
Claustrophobia: Little house on the prairie / Wilder, Laura Ingalls, J F WIL
Common sense (lack of): Cold Comfort Farm / Gibbons, Stella, F GIB
Drugs (doing too many): Brave new world : and, Brave new world revisited / Huxley, Aldous, F HUX
Happiness (searching for): Fahrenheit 451 / Bradbury, Ray, F BRA
Limb (loss of): Peter Pan / Barrie, J. M. J F BAR
Pessimism: Robinson Crusoe Defoe, Daniel F DEF
Racism: Invisible man / Ellison, Ralph. F ELL
Rage: Cry, the beloved country. Paton, Alan. F PAT
Road rage: Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance / Pirsig, Robert M./ 818 PIR
Shame: The help / Stockett, Kathryn. F STO
Sibling rivalry: Little Women /Alcott, Louisa May J F ALC
Turmoil: Home /Robinson, Marilynne F ROB
And if you would like books that offer more bibliotherapeutic help, try these:
Books to grow with : a guide to using the best children's fiction for everyday issues and tough challenges / Coon, Cheryl F. 011.62 COO
On reading well : finding the good life through great books / Prior, Karen Swallow 028.9 PRI