A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events follows three orphans, the Baudelaires, as they survive and solve mysteries while under the care of various guardians. The author definitely delivers on the series’ title, with deaths, unreliable parental figures, and other sad occurrences. Surprisingly, despite the author’s warning of depressing events at the back of every book, there are plenty of happy moments, like new friendships, competent guardians, and even a tiny bit of romance. Readers will lose out if they heed Snicket’s plea to throw away his books and choose happier novels. Even though the series is supposed to be solely a catalog of gloomy happenings, the thirteen books manage to be fun, humorous and suitable for all ages. Sometimes the author lapses into writing backwards and upside down, so readers have to go to a mirror to continue. Other times the author playfully defines words, which is helpful when the youngest orphan, Sunny, speaks, because she is only a baby. Part of the fun comes because the world the Baudelaire children inhabit is very unlike our own. The newspaper is notorious for printing rumors. Being ambidextrous is a quality considered so freakish, the only job such a person could find is being on display at a circus. Flimsy disguises fool whole towns.  This otherworldly tone is what helps make all the unfortunate events seem ridiculous and funny, instead of sad and melancholy. Reading this series helped me find joy in even the bleakest situations.  

My name is Daphna Craven. I graduated from BYU with a print journalism degree last April. I currently work as a telephone surveyor at BRG Research Services. I love reading and being married, of course!

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan

Being an art/humanities student I have been taught well the old saying to 'never judge a book by its cover,' but again being an art/humanities student I often ignore that advice.

I have a problem. When I travel, I open my carry-on luggage only to get weird looks from people who are judging the pile of books that I lug around all over the place. When I'm home that pile of books crowds my bookshelves and side tables only to overflow onto almost every flat surface in my apartment meanwhile slowly accumulating even more. I collect books. I collect them for both their story and their worth as a piece of art and more times often than not I will pick up a book and peruse it for a little while solely because of its cover. I don't rely only on this when I actually buy a book but it's the cover that pulls my attention first.

So, when deciding on what to read next, I have to admit that I was initially drawn to Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore because I really liked the cover art. However, I did stumble across it while looking through the October '13 Indie Next List and I then looked up reviews before I bought it so my obsession with book art can't be all that bad.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is a novel about a man named Clay Jannon who finds himself unemployed in the middle of an economic crisis. With no apparent direction in life he stumbles across Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore while dawdling down the streets of San Francisco. Drawn to the idea of having a job, Clay soon finds himself caught in the midst of the parallel realities between literature and technology and the interesting people who come hand-in-hand with both industries. Part-humor, part-mystery, part-love story, part-adventure; it has a little bit of everything.

If you open this one, you'll soon find yourself caught up in the whirlwind that is Clay Jannon's new found existence. Sloan's writing reads easily and I found myself racing through this one. Not as fast as I would have liked because life has been busy but I often found myself nearing the end of the day and thinking, 'I really want to keep reading that book.' If you don't love it for the story, you will appreciate it for its admiration of knowledge. This is a book for book lovers.

Education of the Heart

I loved Allanah’s expression that to “To read is to grow, not to retreat.” I, too, read to feel better and, further, to understand. I read to gain insight into viewpoints other than my own. I read to expand the narrow capacity of my own mind and heart. I read for the “aha” moments that go right to my core. Rudyard Kipling said, “Fiction is truth’s older sister.” I interpret this to mean that there is a wisdom found in fiction that is mature beyond mere facts. There is an education of the heart that comes with reading fine fiction written for any age.

Just a few titles that have been this education for me are:

Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
The Bronze Bow, by Elizabeth George Speare
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine l'Engle

- Anita

Anita is the Children's Book buyer for the BYU Bookstore and has worked at the BYU Bookstore for over ten years! Anita spreads her love of reading within our Children's Books department and with many local book events.

YRead? To Feel Better

 

This past week I stumbled across this little piece of anonymous advice. Not necessarily said or written as advice but something someone, anyone, could say in passing, "I might read until I feel better."

I, personally, read for many reasons and I must admit that to feel better is sometimes one of them. I read when I'm stressed, it calms me down. I read when I'm bored, it entertains me. I read when I'm upset because in the end reading really does make me feel better.

The concept of bibliotherapy is a relatively new one but it is definitely growing. Let me throw in a disclaimer right here, reading doesn't heal you and if you suffer enough that your doctor recommends medication then listen to your doctor. All I am saying here is that reading helps more than you know.

The fact that therapists are jumping in support of this new form of therapy is evidence enough. Psychotherapist Dr. Richard Singer claims that, "books can heal you and reading good books is more than a hobby, it's a therapy in itself." Judith Mawer from the Mersey Care Mental Health Trust also emphasizes this theory that, "people who don't respond to conventional therapy, or don't have access to it, can externalise their feelings by engaging with a fictional character, or be stimulated by the rhythms of poetry." Again, Raymond Tallis, a professor of geriatric medicine at the University of Manchester said,

"The pleasure of escape into a parallel world; the sense of control one has as a reader; and the ability to distance one's self from one's own circumstances by seeing them from without, suffered by someone else and gathered up into a nicely worked-out plot - somewhere around here is the notion of the Aristotelian purgation and Sartre's idea of 'the purifying reflection'."

I don't want you to come away from this thinking that reading is a form of escapism. To an extent, it may be, but really good literature, the literature that affects us and stays with us long after the book is closed leaves you looking inside yourself. To read is to grow, not to retreat. So saying, "I might read until I feel better," is a perfectly reasonable piece of advice.

What do you think of reading as a form of therapy?


- Allanah