A man awakens with no memory of who he is, where he is, or why he’s here. He’s being ministered to by robotic arms apparently controlled by a computer that keeps asking, “What is your name?” As flashes of memory play out in his mind, he struggles to remember. He asks questions, but all the […]
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Reading to young kids improves their social skills − and a new study shows it doesn’t matter whether parents stop to ask questions Interested in developing empathy and creativity in her school-age children, Erin Clabough, associate professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, compared two methods of reading aloud to children: (1) reading straight
We’re All Reading Wrong “To access the full benefits of literature, you have to share it out loud.” Journalist Alexandra Moe informs us “Until approximately the tenth century, when the practice of silent reading expanded thanks to the invention of punctuation, reading was synonymous with reading aloud.” She continues: “To reap the full benefits of
The existential balm of seeing yourself as a verb, not a noun Clinical psychologist Eric Jannazzo discusses the realization that he “could start to imagine my personhood not as a thing but as a roiling together of body and breath, memory and mood, ceaselessly shifting thoughts and perceptions, all braiding with the rest of the
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Julian Barnes Says Goodbye to the Novel “His fiction has found meaning in life’s gaps and love’s absence.” In The Atlantic literary biographer Adam Begley writes that Julian Barnes’s latest novel, Departure(s): offers only a sketchy storyline, mixed with memoir and thoughts on memory. An extended farewell, an author’s valedictory flourish, the whole package is
A simple illusion can unlock your childhood memories, according to new psychology research Recent research published in Scientific Reports suggests that “people can better access detailed memories from their childhood by experiencing an illusion of owning a younger version of their own face”: Our memories are not just recordings of external events; they are experiences
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For 2025 I decided to focus on books related to the topic of Life Stories in Literature. As usual, I read mostly fiction, but I also fit in a few nonfiction resources (about various aspects of storytelling) for Nonfiction November. Here, then, is the list, arranged alphabetically by author’s last name: 10 Best Books I
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The best book I read this month is Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. Here are the other two. When you’ve been in the writing business as long as I have, the one thing you need to constantly search for are stories that will challenge you as a novelist . . . This is probably the most
Reading Notes: December Read More »
My last read of the year turned out to be one of the best books I read in 2025. Buckeye by Patrick Ryan is my favorite kind of novel: old-fashioned storytelling from an omniscient narrator, a multi-generational family saga that follows characters over the courses of their lives. Ryan sets his novel in the fictional
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