Source: New Haven Register, Conn.迷你倉Jan. 07--Everybody knows that novels bring us slices of entertainment and escape. They take us out of ourselves and allow us to forget our own lives for a short time.But Susan Elderkin of Hamden says they have the power to do a lot more than that. "A novel that comes to you at the right time can actually transform your life," she says. "It has the power to change your perspective."And, she says, it has the power to heal what ails you.Elderkin and her friend Ella Berthoud, who lives in Sussex, England, are the co-authors of an inventive, fascinating new book, "The Novel Cure," $26.95, Penguin, 2013, which prescribes some 751 books to heal a variety of ailments, from the mental to the physical.Do you suffer from carelessness? You may need to leave immediately to go get a copy of "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery to see how someone cares for a planet with 44 sunsets per day.Or maybe it's pessimism that's got you down, right here at the dawning of a new year. If that's the case, perhaps you just need a little dose of "Robinson Crusoe," which may just be the first novel to show that optimism can turn a life around.Then there's the misery of a breakup. Our sympathies if you're going through that. Try "High Fidelity," by Nick Hornby and allow Rob to hold your hand through your pain and recovery, and maybe help you navigate your way back to love.Elderkin, herself a novelist, says that she and Berthoud first discovered the healing power of fiction when they were college freshmen at Cambridge."We met and bonded immediately over books," she says. "We started the idea of giving books to help each other through whatever we were going through, usually boy troubles. Sometimes we needed a kick in the backside to help us sort things out. We shared the idea that books held the answer."And not just any books. As Elderkin puts it, "So many people only read the books that are on the main table in the chain bookstores. Sometimes those books are good, but what about the books that have stood the test of time, the books that have fallen into obscurity, but still have a lot to tell us about life? Those are the ones I want people to know about."Take the book "Tristram Shandy," she says. "Such a wonderful book! It's the absolute cure for being too anal-retentive. It's so freeing, it's about having a laugh, having fun, digressing all over the place. It could cure you."Let's say you're feeling a tendency toward cowardice. Elderkin says there's no better book for you than "To Kill a Mockingbird.""I've read the nonfiction self-help books, books like 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway,' but there's nothing more powerful than reading the dramatized example of Atticus Finch being brave when he feels frightened," she says. "You see him struggling with the need to stand by what he knows to be right even though it puts him on the other side of his whole community, even though it possibly puts his children in danger. It was a much more effective cure for my cowardice than a self-help book."In 2008, Elderkin and Berthoud got the idea of being "bibliotherapists." They took the idea to an alternative education establishment in London called The School of Life, and set up a practice, talking with clients and prescribing novels for them.It was a great success."The people we meet with seem to be either people who are big readers already and want to talk to somebody else who's well-read about their reading journ迷你倉將軍澳y, or they are people who are going through crises and who need a new perspective," says Elderkin.After that, they knew they needed to do a book. When Elderkin was living in Somerset with her husband, Ash, and their little boy, Kirin, Berthoud came to visit with her three daughters. The two women sat up late with a bottle of wine and started listing all the maladies that books could help with.Then they set to work listing the novels that had been transformative to them in some way. Together, they've trawled some 2,000 years of literature to find novels that effectively promote happiness, health and sanity.And then they set to work, mostly long-distance through Skype.Their book is arranged alphabetically so that you can look up your ailment and then find the prescription of the novels that will help you. The ailments are both whimsical ("Stiff Upper Lip, Having A") and serious ("Cancer, Caring for Someone With"), and while some of the cures will bring you immediate relief, others may just offer solace through letting you know that you're not alone. There are cures for wardrobe crises, hiccups, nameless dread, inability to find a good cup of coffee, boredom and broken dreams.The whole experience has been fantastic, Elderkin says. The two have different reading tastes -- Elderkin likes the cures that come on the level of the rhythm: a book in which characters experience what it is to be alive, who notice the things around them, take in the poetry and lyricism of life."Ella's more of a story girl," Elderkin says. "She likes those big, thick books when the story transports you to another place."Besides addressing ailments, the book also has plenty of lists. There are the Ten Best Novels to Cheer You Up, The Ten Best Novels to Read in a Hammock, the Ten Best Novels to Turn Your Partner On to Fiction (either male of female), and even The Ten Best Novels to Drown Out Snoring, among many others.For those who suffer from "reading ailments" (such as "Book Buyer, Being a Compulsive" or "Read Instead of Live, Tendency to") will be glad for the down-to-earth advice.Elderkin wants to caution, though, that the novels are not to be seen as "message books," with the goal of curing people's ailments as their primary point. "They are not self-help books," she says. "Fiction works on several levels. We read for so many different reasons -- to escape, to explore the craft of story, to travel, to read beautiful language. But books also have the power to change our perspective, by letting us live lives that are other than our own, by engaging with a mind that may be from a completely other culture or time.""The Novel Cure" has only been out since September, both in the United Kingdom and the U.S., and it's already been picked up by publishers in some 15 other countries. Right now, Elderkin and Berthoud are busy collaborating and setting guidelines for foreign editions, which will include some additional books that are native to those cultures.They're also still providing bibliotherapy -- speaking with clients and discovering the issue that needs perhaps a new perspective, and then prescribing a list of novels that could help. Go to .thenovelcure.com. And if you have an ailment that could use a solution, go to .thenovelcure.com/surgery and fill out the form.Copyright: ___ (c)2014 the New Haven Register (New Haven, Conn.) Visit the New Haven Register (New Haven, Conn.) at .nhregister.com Distributed by MCT Information Services倉
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