Description
Book SynopsisCan reading literature really help our mental health? This book shows how and why - not by instruction or prescription but by emotion and exploration.
Offering case histories of individual readers and reading groups based on the work of The Reader, a charity dedicated to bringing serious literature to neglected communities, the authors showcase how a whole new demographic might get into reading, and in doing so unlock the emotional intelligence and benefits to health and wellbeing which come from our access to written human stories and imagined situations.
Trade Review'I read
Reading:
Arts for Health with deep interest and pleasure, as will anyone who believes in sustaining a culture which recognises the indispensability of serious reading. There is no piety or nostalgia or wishful thinking in the authors' analysis. They provide expert practical advice as to how to engage, transformationally, new readers in situations that others might regard as irretrievably disadvantaged. The combination of passion and practicality in this book will appeal both to the general reader and to the professional.' -- Rt Hon Lord Alan Howarth of Newport, founder and Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing
Table of ContentsChapter 1.
Why Reading? Chapter 2.
What Helps? Chapter 3.
Who Can Benefit? Chapter 4.
How to Engage with Reading? Chapter 5.
What Can
Professionals Do to Help? Chapter 6.
What are the
Challenges and
How to
Overcome Them Chapter 7. Useful Links and Further Reading
