By Nick Hayden
September 18, 2015
Beware, I am now going to write on something I only know a bit about–bibliotherapy. What is it? It’s prescribing specially chosen books to help you deal with what ails you, whether that be anxiety or depression or fear of death. There’s even a neat book to help you find the “medicine” you need.
Now, I haven’t had the opportunity to peruse the book linked above or do any deep study on bibliotherapy, but I find it fascinating that such a thing even exists. The fact that studies show reading fiction improves empathy, social understanding, and happiness are not surprising to any book lover. What’s surprising is that such a thing as a book lover exists.
Think about it. We write and read, create and consume, entire worlds that are completely fake. We cry and cheer with men and women who aren’t real and will never be real. Our eyes scan over symbols on a white page and we live elsewhere.
And this isn’t considered madness. In fact, this is what helps keep us mentally balanced. It’s not witchcraft, but a sort of necessary magic.
I know that after a busy week, if I can find an hour to sit down with a good book, I feel the restorative power of fiction–sometimes it’s an escape, sometimes it’s something more challenging, like The Sound and the Fury, but in both cases, it settles me and engages me and encourages me.
Reading, in some way, is spiritual. It connects us with one another, with ages past, with truths acted out, with an order we long for and answers to questions we haven’t quite figured out how to ask. As a Christian, this makes perfect sense, the power of words to communicate deep things. The Bible communicates the person of God, and Jesus himself is called the Word of God, the encapsulation of the fullness of God in the form of humanity, in some faint resemblance, perhaps, to how the letters t-r-e-e capture the reality of a tree.
So, perhaps what modern society needs is not more drugs or psychoanalysis, but more time alone in a corner with a well-crafted story.
If that doesn’t work, at least I have an excuse to mark one more novel off my to-read list.
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