The joys of reading novels<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a while since I wrote a post for this blog\u2014eight years, in fact. My last was titled \u201cMoving On,\u201d and here I still am, moved on and coming back. In those eight years, I have continued to live with my husband on an off-grid island 100km off the northeast coast of Aotearoa New Zealand, and have continued to write novels and have gone backward rather than forward when it comes to learning how to write them.<\/p>\n
The more years that pass, the more workshops I do (mostly as a student, sometimes as the teacher) and, on the plus side, the more novels I read. My old blog posts were about \u201cbrains, books and being happy,\u201d but the focus of my new posts will be mainly novels (by both women and men, many recent publications but some published years ago) and why reading them is good for us, from the point of view of someone who is interested in psychology, mental health, well-being, and happiness<\/a>. All of us, I hope! <\/p>\n I belong to NetGalley, a platform where publishers and authors upload advance reader copies (ARCs) of their books and audiobooks (fiction and nonfiction) months before they are published, and members can request them. If their request is granted, it is hoped that they will review the book and post their review on as many platforms as possible (Goodreads, Amazon, etc.). Any avid reader can register as a reader or reviewer member of NetGalley. There is also a UK branch. So far, I have reviewed 318 books, which marks me as an active member and gives me \u201cProfessional Reader\u201d status. Now I often receive e-mails from publishers asking if they can send me a digital ARC.<\/p>\n But, of course, I also purchase many books myself because I am addicted. If I read a great review or listen to one of the excellent author interview podcasts available\u2014the UK Waterstones podcast is my favorite\u2014while walking our beach, AirPods allowing me to also hear the sea and the birds perfectly clearly, I\u2019ll likely have the book on my Kindle that same day. Like many readers, I love print books, and my study, where I am writing this, is also our library (photo above).<\/p>\n Public libraries are precious, but not everyone has a library nearby. Living here and reading as many books as I do, if I purchased every book in its printed form, we may have to sell our house, and then where would we put them all? Also, books published in the U.S. or UK can take a long time to make it into NZ bookstores. So I admit, I love my Kindle.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think it matters how you consume a book: print, e-book, or audiobook. It is still a book. E-books tend to be much cheaper and thus less likely to be a barrier to those with less money. That can only be good.<\/p>\n And for the author, it is far better to have a thousand readers than 20. One of the arguments of traditional publishers is that purchasing print books will provide the author with more money. This is often not true. The royalty rate an author gets on an e-book is usually much higher than on a print book, as the surge in successful self-published authors who make a living from their books attests.<\/p>\n So why do we read novels, or if we don\u2019t (perhaps because we don\u2019t have time), why might we try to fit reading a novel more frequently into our days\u2014or nights? First and foremost, we read novels for pleasure, pure and simple. A way to escape for a while, or a way to relax yourself to sleep. So don\u2019t feel every novel has to be more than that.<\/p>\n But often the novel we can\u2019t put down or continue to think about long after we have reluctantly closed the book is a story that draws us into the minds of the characters, helping us to feel what they feel, perhaps echoing feelings and situations we have experienced in the past or are experiencing in our current lives. This empathy that we feel is perhaps the most remarkable \u201cemotion<\/a>\u201d that stories can foster. That the written word can be such a powerful stimulus for empathy depends on the reader\u2019s ability to imagine those worlds and the characters and their lives that are described on the page. (And the author\u2019s ability to turn their own imagination<\/a> into words.)<\/p>\n When we watch a TV drama, our imaginations don\u2019t have to do so much work; many of you will know how easy it is to tear up when someone on the screen cries, even more so if it is the news and a real story. But perhaps a written story can be even more powerful because we can read it at our own pace and stop and reflect on it. <\/p>\n Imagination Essential Reads<\/p>\n Becoming immersed in a story told from the perspective of someone completely outside of our own experience helps us understand diverse perspectives. Historical novels can immerse us in a past era, while science fiction can immerse us in the future. Funny stories that make us laugh, especially those gems that result in fits of giggles, have multiple positive effects on our bodies and mental health. Fully engaged laughter<\/a>, the sort you couldn\u2019t suppress if you tried, has been linked to about a 30 percent reduction in cortisol, a hormone<\/a> related to stress<\/a>. Laughter also releases feel-good brain chemicals like dopamine<\/a> and serotonin. <\/p>\n Novels that we find difficult to stop thinking about, the ones we want to talk about with our friends and book clubs, are the stories that challenge or support our belief systems, provoke discussion, and sometimes change our behavior. They are the novels that we learn from; fictional characters who find ways to cope with shame<\/a> or loneliness<\/a>, loss or grief<\/a>, can show us new ways that, in time, we too might try. And characters don\u2019t have to be human; they can be a dog or a horse or ET. But human characters, animals, and aliens whose feelings we can empathize with aren\u2019t the only ways a well-told story can evoke empathy or grief. I have found myself in tears when reading a story about a dying coral reef.<\/p>\n