The library of Pharaoh Ramesses II is said to have borne the inscription (碑文) "the house of healing for the soul". Dylan Thomas, an English writer, reportedly liked to relax by reading Agatha Christie's detective novels. As for the novelist Yiyun Li, it was War and Peace that helped her get through the toughest times; when she launched a virtual reading group of Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece in lockdown, 3,000 people signed up.
In recent years, a growing body of research has backed up the idea that books not only entertain, but also help us recover and grow. They offer companionship to the lonely, insight to the anxious, and release to those who feel trapped.
This feature has motivated Ann Cleeves to turn her attention to the old long-lasting bibliotherapy. She then co-sponsored such a program in northeast England, working with public health teams. Bibliotherapy is an approach using books and other forms of literature to improve a patient's mental health. A review of several studies found such programs have a long-term effect on people's well-being.
But Cleeves has a broader idea in mind. Writing for The Guardian, she described how reading and writing fiction helped her understand her own response and allowed her to escape into a different world. The reading coaches will match their patients with appropriate poetry and novels as well as non-fiction based on patients' condition, and will introduce them to librarians and other readers. After all, what's uplifting to one reader will seem twee (花哨的) to another and what one finds unpleasant may be reassuring to the next.
For Cleeves, it is happy to see people seek self-discovery in the world of books. Some may respond to children's classic The Secret Garden; others will recognize themselves in Toni Morrison's novels. An ancient idea has found fresh resonance (共鸣).
