Ideas

The Enright Files - Bibliotherapy

Bookstores are full of self-help books. But many of the best ones are not on the self-help shelves. They're in the literature section. Bibliotherapy doesn't promise quick fixes to life's biggest problems, but encourages reflection and self-examination through absorbing the life lessons imparted by the world's great novelists, poets and playwrights. Michael Enright speaks with Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin,...
photo credit: <a href='https://www.flickr.com/photos/cronncc/4231631472/'>Curtis Cronn</a>

Bookstores are full of self-help books. But many of the best ones are not on the self-help shelves. They're in the literature section. Bibliotherapy doesn't promise quick fixes to life's biggest problems, but encourages reflection and self-examination through absorbing the life lessons imparted by the world's great novelists, poets and playwrights.

Michael Enright speaks with Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin, co-authors of The Novel Cure, spoken word artist Kim Rosen, author of Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words, and with writers Sarah Churchwell, Elizabeth Winder and Lorna Crozier about Sylvia Plath.