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Reading list system for keeping your head (and heart) together.
(this review is based on a review copy from the publisher)
After a certain amount of preamble, necessary to explain that the book is to help you to choose books to actually read depending on your condition and position at the time, the reader is presented with a questionnaire so they can self-profile both their own character and their condition of life. This results in a reading list to help the reader at that particular moment.
It’s probably a good idea to go through ALL the questions every time this book is resorted to, because even if a person’s character does not change over time (hopefully it matures) the person’s perception of their own character changes often, especially during an emotional or actual crisis. And sometimes this is going to work better than others.
Reviewing this kind of work is very difficult for a seasoned reviewer, because we might read almost anything without any thought as to whether it is good for our mind, let alone our soul, but the possible lists are mostly fairly sound and in some cases excellent. Almost any reader, at almost any point in their life, is going to benefit from reading “A Long Petal of the Sea” if they haven’t read it already. [That sentence will have to come out before this gets past the Amazon censor-bot!] The exception is a certain amount of selection bias in the list offered to those who might be pondering issues of gender identity. Where the dilemma is more about how to actually do things of a sexual nature, the only perceptible bias is towards encouragement to get on with the job.
There might be readers for whom this could have awkward consequences, but they probably won’t sue.
Bibliotherapy by Molly Masters is published by Harper Collins of the 12th of September 2024.
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