Literature & Psychology

bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

11 Novels That Feature Life Stories

Related Posts: Introduction to Life Stories Before I Go to Sleep, S.J. Watson: We Are What We Remember All these novels in some way feature the notion of life stories and identity. An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson The Double […]

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

“Before I Go to Sleep”: The Film

Before I Go To Sleep: Exclusive film stills show Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth in new psychological thriller Related Posts: Introduction to Life Stories “Before I Go to Sleep,” S.J. Watson: We Are What We Remember These emotive images depict Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman as a woman who wakes up every morning remembering nothing in the

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

“Before I Go to Sleep,” S.J. Watson: We Are What We Remember

  Related Post: Introduction to Life Stories   Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel by S. J. Watson HarperCollins, 2011 Kindle Edition A woman awakens, wonders where she is, rolls over—and is shocked to see a middle-aged man wearing a wedding ring and with hairs on his back sleeping next to her. She stumbles

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

Introduction to Life Stories

  “We live forwards but we understand backwards.” –Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Even though we may not be aware of it, we all carry within us a story about our lives that describes who we are. We’ve had experiences from which we’ve learned lessons, and from those experiences and lessons we’ve formulated a set

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

“Mr. Mercedes” by Stephen King: The Power of Characters

  King, Stephen. Mr. Mercedes New York: Scribner, 2014 448 pages ISBN–13: 978–1476754451 I don’t read a lot of Stephen King’s works because I don’t like horror. But I do love mysteries, so when I saw King’s latest book described as a “straight-up mystery,” I went for it. Technically, Mr. Mercedes is not a mystery—in

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

Must We Like Fictional Characters?

  During a recent book group discussion of John Updike’s novel Rabbit, Run, someone said, “I don’t particularly like any of the characters in this book.” I had to admit that I agreed with this assessment, but that truth doesn’t affect my appreciation of the book. This seemingly casual reference to not liking fictional characters

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

“Silent Snow, Secret Snow,” Conrad Aiken

  Aiken, Conrad. “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” (1934) In The World Within: Fiction Illuminating Neuroses of Our Time Edited by Mary Louise Aswell Notes and Introduction by Frederic Wertham, M.D. New York: Whittlesey House, 1947 Related Post: “The World Within”: Introduction   I remember discovering this story in an anthology of American short stories back

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

“The World Within”: Introduction

  The World Within: Fiction Illuminating Neuroses of Our Time Edited by Mary Louise Aswell Notes and Introduction by Frederic Wertham, M.D. New York: Whittlesey House, 1947   The World Within was one of the first literary collections assembled to spotlight a psychological approach to literature. It couples a literary editor’s introductory remarks with analysis

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

Do Books with Anthropomorphic Animals Hinder Children’s Learning about Nature?

  There’s been a lot in the news lately about a study suggesting that children do not gain accurate knowledge of the natural world by reading stories with human-like animals. Dr. Patricia A. Ganea, of the psychology department at the University of Toronto, and colleagues examined how books that present animals with human characteristics (that

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

“Breaking Bad” and the Willful Suspension of Disbelief

We know that time travel is impossible. Yet when we pick up Octavia Butler’s Kindred or Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, we don’t stop reading when we see characters moving through time. No, we accept that the story the author wants to tell requires time travel, and we allow it to exist in the

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