Story

woman reading

Why You Never Hear Stories about Wicked Stepfathers

You know the story of Cinderella. She’s a princess, dearly loved by her father, the king. When her mother dies, her father eventually marries a widow with daughters of her own. But nothing much changes for Cinderella as long as her father lives and continues to protect her and treat her like the princess she […]

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woman reading

On Reading

35 books everyone should read at least once in their lifetime This article arose from a question posed on Reddit: “What is a book that everyone needs to read at least once in their life?” Of the top 35 books listed here from the Reddit responses, I have read the following: Zen and the Art

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bookshelves: Literature and Psychology

What Your Favorite Books Tell You About Your Writing

My major life activities are reading (usually fiction) and writing (always nonfiction). So I’m delighted when I come across something that combines the two: something like Marcy McKay’s writing challenge What Your Favorite Books Tell You About Your Writing. Marcy runs The Write Practice, a web site and newsletter aimed at fiction writers, but even

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“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”

I finally got around to watching the film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2012), based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel of the same title. Our book group read the novel several years ago and loved it, so I’ve been looking forward to seeing the film adaptation. The story involves 10-year-old Oskar Schell, whose father died

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Monday Miscellany

LeBron James, open book The NBA championship, recently won by the Miami Heat, was big news in the sports world. But a secondary story was the focus on Heat star LeBron James, who focused before games by reading. Yes, reading—all kinds of books, fiction and nonfiction. And lots of sports reporters, including ESPN’s Michael Wilbon here,

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book review

“The Storytelling Animal” by Jonathan Gottschall

Gottschall, Jonathan. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012ISBN 978-0-547-39140-3 Recommended “We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories,” declares Jonathan Gottschall in the preface to his recent book The Storytelling Animal. Gottschall, a member

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