The 28 study participants […] spent about 10 minutes reading four narratives, each less than 1,500 words, taken from the book “One Boy’s Day.” The words from the book were flashed onto a screen that the participants could read on a mirror in front of their faces.

[…]The researchers coded the four narratives for six types of changes “that people might be monitoring while they’re comprehending” — changes they would notice both in everyday life and possibly in reading, Zacks said. These changes included: spatial changes (when a location changed); object changes (when a character picked up a ball, say); character changes; causal changes (when an activity occurs that wasn’t directly caused by the activity in a previous clause); and goal changes (when a character begins an action with a new goal).

Monitoring such changes in the environment is adaptive, because it likely helped our ancestors to predict what might happen next: where prey might dart to next or what a predator might do. Similarly, today it helps us predict what might happen next in a story.

In other words, “reading a simple verb such as “run” or “kick” activates some of the same regions of the brain that would be activated when we actually go running or kick a ball.”

The Guardian published a related article back in January, which you can read by following this link.

To see the planet desecrated is to behold the undoing of God’s creation.

The above subject was discussed on this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Thought for the Day, presented by Bishop James Jones of the Diocese of Liverpool.

In his discussion, Bishop James made reference to the poem Binsey Poplars by Gerard Manley Hopkins; in which Hopkins expresses his outrage at the felling in 1879 of an avenue of grand poplar trees, which once ran along the side of the river Thames between Oxford and the village of Binsey.

In the poem, Hopkins mourns the loss of his ‘dear aspens’, and condemns man’s unecessary interference with the power and beauty of nature; regretfully noting that ‘Even where we mean / To mend her we end her’. You’ll find Binsey Poplars below, where Hopkins’ fury, sadness, and indignation at man’s arrogance in robbing future generations of the chance to ever know this ‘beauty-been’ is evident.

Binsey Poplars, Felled 1879

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,

Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,

All felled, felled, are all felled;

Of a fresh and following folded rank

Not spared, not one

That dandled a sandalled

Shadow that swam or sank

On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do

When we delve or hew—

Hack and rack the growing green!

Since country is so tender

To touch, her being so slender,

That, like this sleek and seeing ball

But a prick will make no eye at all,

Where we, even where we mean

To mend her we end her,

When we hew or delve:

After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.

Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve

Strokes of havoc unselve

The sweet especial scene,

Rural scene, a rural scene,

Sweet especial rural scene.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1879

Anyone catch Thought for the Day, or have any thoughts on today’s subject?

If you missed it, Thought for the Day will be available on the iplayer shortly.

Renée Hemmings and Sophie Povey reflect–well, maybe enthuse is a better word–on Shipping Lines, the first Liverpool Literary Festival.

Seven days, fifty events, over thirty writers and two thousand literature lovers! The Liverpool Literary Festival has been marked as a great literary event for the Capital of Culture year.

We’ve had many emails already and here are some of the wonderful comments we’ve received:

“It was a memorable event and I am glad I didn’t miss it.”

“My 15 year old niece travelled up here for a weekend of Shipping Lines, missing school on Friday because “it’s educational and my English teacher is going to be SO jealous.”

“Congratulations … for a wonderful weekend. It was a real privilege to attend the literary events and listen to such encouraging and stimulating discussion about books and writing.”

There were many highlights over the week and the busy weekend, including the wonderful workshops and children’s events by Walker Books. The weekend part of the weekend was launched by Philip Pullman on the evening of Friday 7th November, to a packed out audience. The book signing queue at the end of the event took 45 minutes to clear, and Pullman took the time to chat to everyone which endeared him to all. Carol Ann Duffy was also very popular, and the audience was moved by her inspirational reading. And another long book signing queue!

There was something for everyone, whether it was a poetry reading, discussion or panel group.

It was a long road in the preparation of the festival, but the measure of sucess is that everyone had a brilliant time working on it, participating in it and watching it.

Thanks to all that was involved, and if you managed to get to see an event, we hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did.

[Renée, Project Manager for the Liverpool Literary Festival]

The Shipping Lines Festival has come to an end, and oh what an outstanding success it has been! Thanks to the huge amounts of support and effort from everybody at The Reader Organisation and beyond, the week flew past without any hitches, leaving audiences, writers, staff and volunteers feeling fantastic! I was based at the Bluecoat for the majority of the week, and with the welcoming support of Francisco and the rest of the team there, all events ran smoothly. The ‘Scary Scribes’ workshop, led by children’s author Tommy Donbavand, saw over 120 primary school children piling into the performance space for a gory session involving witches blood, a werewolf’s finger and other ‘relics’ too gruesome to mention, but it was a brilliant day and everybody left excited about returning to school to write their own spooky stories.

The highlight of my week has to be Simon Armitage’s poetry reading on Saturday, the second sold out event that day after Roger McGough in the morning. He was very pleased to be at the festival, and thrilled the audience with incredibly moving readings – most notably ‘You’re Beautiful’ and ‘Causeway’. All the events were incredible though, and just skimming over some of the evaluation forms, it is clear that this opinion was shared by all. So well done everybody! Muffins all round!

[Sophie, Event co-ordinator for the Liverpool Literary Festival]

Come along to The Foresight Centre between 1-2.30pm on Friday 7th November and find out!

The Reader Organisation are holding a free lunchtime event, inviting you to experience our work first-hand and to discover more about our aim to start a Reading Revolution. 

Over an informal lunch, we will be reading a selection of poetry and discussing the unique power books hold in a digital age – in exchange for your thoughts and opinions, we’ll provide you with food!

This event is not only a fantastic opportunity to find out about the work of The Reader Organisation: it also provides an occasion for people from all across the University of Liverpool and from a wide range of local arts, health, regeneration and cultural organisations to meet, make new links and exchange ideas. Most importantly, Food For Thought offers the chance to take part in an enjoyable and stimulating lunch break.

This event is part of Shipping Lines Liverpool Literary Festival.

Tickets are FREE: Please contact Casi Dylan (casidylan@thereader.org.uk/0151 794 2291) to reserve your place.

Welcome to the first blog post for the Shipping Lines Liverpool Literary Festival. The programme has been confirmed and we have an exciting line-up of events and writers.

Philip Pullman, Roger McGough, Carol Ann Duffy to name but a few of the writers coming from across the UK and abroad to speak at the festival. For a full list of writers please see our website …

As well as writer readings, panel discussions, lectures and workshops, we also have a variety of community events, and a family programme as part of the festival, to engage, entertain and encourage our young readers. All our family events are free to make it easier for families to attend the festival. We have a number of schools’ events also, so please do get in touch to enquire about any remaining slots.

Our website has a full programme of events, plus a complete list of writers with a brief biography. Please visit www.liverpoollitfest.org.uk for all information about the festival, including booking tickets, venues, and if you are not local to the North West, some information about visiting Liverpool.

We will be featuring specific events in future posts, so keep checking in for more information about the festival. Tickets have already been sold which is terrific, and events such as Philip Pullman and Howard Jacobson are going fast. We have ticket discounts available such as buy 5 for the price of 4, so take advantage of booking early. We also have discounts for The Reader Magazine subscribers. Please get in touch for details.

Please get in touch if you would like more information by emailing me at events<at>thereader.org.uk.

And don’t forget you can sign up for email updates on literary festivals in the North West by clicking this link right here.

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I have just come back from one of our much loved Food for Thought events and have enjoyed privilege of yet another stimulating couple of hours of lively debate and discussion! Today’s selected short story was Tobias Wolff’s ‘Powder’, which was read along side Elizabeth Jennings‘ moving poem ‘Father to Son’ and Vernon Scannell’s challenging piece ‘Incendiary’.

What I found most impressive about ‘Powder’ was its creation of a new found movement of discovery within such a short space of time; that is, a short space of time not only within the form of the story, but rather the actual narrative moment of one morning in the life of a somewhat estranged son and his father on Christmas Eve. The son thinks that he knows all there is to know about his father, and appears wearied and tired by what he does know: his is a father who, for all his good intentions, seems to be unable to stop himself from getting caught up in his own enthusiasm for reckless adventure often at the expense of his other commitments which have to do with the ordinary responsibilities and routines of everyday life for parents, children, and the family. Although what is really wonderful about the story is that the son, when compelled to follow his father in a hazardous drive through snow and blizzard, comes to realise a much needed sense of fun and adventure in himself as he rediscovers his father as someone who he can look up to and admire because, rather than in spite of, his “rumpled” nature. The best bit of the day for me was when a lady on my table said that the story had given her hope that relationships between father and son, when strained and paralysed by those awful and seemingly impenetrable silences, do not have to stay that way and can, actually, change.
By Clare Williams

Tobias Wolff, author of ‘Powder’, the story that formed part of today’s reading for Food for Thought, is one of the world’s finest contemporary short fiction writers. From his collection The Night in Question, it tells the tale of a boy’s perception of his father and the changing dynamic of their relationship, or at least the son’s change of attitude. In only five pages and in what is essentially only a ‘drive home’, Wolff portrays an essentially irresponsible and arrogant man, whose incautious behaviour means that he and his son nearly miss making it home for Christmas. Yet as the story progresses, the son begins to accept his father’s behaviour , “I stopped moping and began to enjoy myself”, realising that accepting the circumstance and his father for who he is leads him to acknowledge, “I actually trusted him.” It was remarkable how may different feelings this story prompted in the readers that were sat at the table with me: some believed there was an impending disaster as the father and son drove through the dense snow; some drew on resonances with Wolff’s own memoirs; others were quick to highlight aspects of the relationship between father and son in relation to their own experiences, as parent or as child.

The blankets of white snow and the portrayal of silent moments in the story were echoed in Elizabeth Jenning’s poem ‘Father to Son’, “I know/ Nothing of him”. This poem, which speaks of the lack of understanding between parent and child, identifies how you can yearn to feel a connection to someone but lack the understanding to be able to, “We each put out an empty hand,/ Longing for something to forgive”. Vernon Scannell’s ‘Incendiary’ seemed antithetical in tone to the other texts as it was provocative and volatile, “that one small boy should set/ The sky on fire and choke the stars”. However there is a presiding sense of poignancy towards the poem’s end, “would have been content with one warm kiss/ Had there been anyone to offer this”, that puts the onus on each one of us to ensure that children do not grow up without being shown love. Each of the texts provided a different attitude towards relationships and each person around the table had their own unique insights: it is at events like this that words on the page really do come to life, bringing our own experiences and thoughts to what’s written in front of us and willing to share them with others.
By Jen Tomkins

We sat down to sandwiches, large slices of cake and three pieces of work for discussion: ‘Powder’, a short story by the American writer Tobias Wolff that describes a father and son relationship in which the boy has taken on the role of adult as if to protect himself from his father’s irresponsibility and chaotic lifestyle. ‘Father to Son’, a poem by Elizabeth Jennings which explores a situation in which there is no understanding, or common ground, between father and son and another poem ‘Incendiary’ by Vernon Scannell in which a small boy with no parental love or authority causes massive damage to property.

We began, spontaneously with Elizabeth Jennings’ poem. Everyone found it bleak but knew it to be possible and real:

We speak like strangers, there’s no sign
Of understanding in the air.
This child is built to my design
Yet what he loves I cannot share.

It was the sheer distance between the two with ‘no sign’ of ever being able to close that made it so sad and the incomprehensibilty of how this most fundamental relationship could become so sterile. We spent at least twenty five minutes exploring the complextity of the situation of the poem which ends without resolution:

We each put out an empty hand,
Longing for something to forgive.

Turning to ‘Powder’, we all felt we needed to look for something positive in what seemed to be another broken down relationship between father and son. It is a great and brilliantly written account of a brief moment when, against all odds, the son is able to let go of built up fear and resentment and allow himself to feel pride, trust and love for his Dad.

My father was driving. My father in his forty-eighth year, rumpled, kind, bankrupt of honour, flushed with certainty. He was a great driver. All persuasion and no coercion. Such subtlety at the wheel, such tactful pedalwork. I actually trusted him.

The story is only five pages long, but packed with thought and feeling. Much food for thought and discussion. Unfortunately, after this, we didn’t have room for ‘Incendiary’ and left the table feeling fuller than sandwiches and cake alone could account for.
By Angela Macmillan

We spent much of our discussion time thinking about the relationship between the father and son in the short story ‘Powder’. We were all interested in their individual characters, which caused us to sympathise with both of them at different moments in the story. We talked a lot about the apparent ‘distance’ between the them, how the fact that they are very different personalities effects their relationship as much as the damage that has been done through the lack of trust the boy has in his father and the broken promises he remembers. This idea is echoed in the Elizabeth Jennings poem, ‘Father to Son’ where the two “speak like strangers” yet appear to be separated through their difference from each other, “what he loves I cannot share”, rather than a specific, identifiable disagreement. This problem seems much deeper and less temporary somehow, as the aching “Longing for something to forgive” in the final line crushes the hope that talks of “shaping from sorrow a new love” in the previous stanza.
By Katie Peters