Though I can’t admit to indulging too much in the luxury of buying books myself – being on rather a tight budget, my cost-me-nothing library card is a best friend – it’s really heartening to find that a considerable amount of people are turning to, and indeed turning the pages of books while recession bites. I hope the book love continues as the slow, steady recovery happens. Those behind the poll commented upon how it indicated “a shift back to life’s simplest pleasures” and I think that’s what makes books really stand out amongst other, perhaps more frivolous purchases. Of course reading is rewarding, enlightening and life affirming but at the bottom of it all, it’s enjoyable. I cannot personally think of many easier ways to derive a lot of pleasure and relaxation that to sink into a sofa and absorb myself in a good book. I could quite succinctly sum up what reading does for me in times of confusion or distress using the words of Charlotte Brontë from this week’s featured poem: “Then a calm, solemn pleasure steals/Into your innermost mind;/A quiet aura your spirit feels/A softened stillness kind.” Very apt words indeed, and I find this poem quite peaceful also. Bronte completely embraces life’s simplest pleasures here – in observing nature, hearing a bird singing, watching the skies overhead – and it goes to show, if you have but little in your pocket or purse, you can still find something to amuse, delight and quite likely fascinate you.

Pleasure

True pleasure breathes not city air,
Nor in Art’s temples dwells,
In palaces and towers where
The voice of Grandeur dwells.

No! Seek it where high Nature holds
Her court ‘mid stately groves,
Where she her majesty unfolds,
And in fresh beauty moves;

Where thousand birds of sweetest song,
The wildly rushing storm
And hundred streams which glide along,
Her mighty concert form!

Go where the woods in beauty sleep
Bathed in pale Luna’s light,
Or where among their branches sweep
The hollow sounds of night.

Go where the warbling nightingale
In gushes rich doth sing,
Till all the lonely, quiet vale
With melody doth ring.

Go, sit upon a mountain steep,
And view the prospect round;
The hills and vales, the valley’s sweep,
The far horizon bound.

Then view the wide sky overhead,
The still, deep vault of blue,
The sun which golden light doth shed,
The clouds of pearly hue.

And as you gaze on this vast scene
Your thoughts will journey far,
Though hundred years should roll between
On Time’s swift-passing car.

To ages when the earth was young,
When patriarchs, grey and old,
The praises of their god oft sung,
And oft his mercies told.

You see them with their beards of snow,
Their robes of ample form,
Their lives whose peaceful, gentle flow,
Felt seldom passion’s storm.

Then a calm, solemn pleasure steals
Into your inmost mind;
A quiet aura your spirit feels,
A softened stillness kind.

Charlotte Brontë

(1816-1855)

10.30am – 3.00pm, Tuesday 16th February
19 Abercromby Square, Liverpool, L69 7ZG

This half-day course - a personal exploration of George Eliot’s great novel, led by Jane Davis, Director of The Reader Organisation - has now sold out. The last place has just this morning been snapped up! Apologies to those who would still like to go. But don’t worry: the next Masterclass will take place in April 2010, and promises to be rather brilliant… More details will be announced about this in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out!

The documentary, about the incredible power that reading unlocks in the brain,  also features Philip Davis, editor of The Reader magazine, investigating the ‘Shakespeared Brain’ – how the shapes of Shakespeare’s lines and sentences effect our minds:

This is a dynamic and varied job requiring you to promote, set-up, establish and facilitate weekly Get Into Reading groups in order to promote well-being and good mental health for a range of community members in both Liverpool and Wirral.  Client groups include  Carers, people living in Care Homes, people with a range of physical or mental health problems, and members of the general population who might enjoy  shared reading.

Read more about the job role and how to apply on our website.

Poetry, “a kind of medicine divinely bestowed upon man” (John Keble).

I am currently at the beginning of a doctoral research project that will look at and aim to test the value of the foundations of bibliotherapy that are to be found within the literary tradition. Writers and thinkers such as the Victorian John Keble will be key to this research. Their work provides an existing tradition of thinking around the question of the use of reading to health. In this sense it is an ideal starting point for research.

As I am beginning to discover, current research on reading’s relationship to health covers a broad spectrum of interests. At present research in this area is growing, but is often carried out by individuals scattered across different disciplines, organisations and institutions. We would like to encourage and develop connections between these in order to enable a sharing and learning from each other’s research (and difficulties encountered along the way). If you are engaged in related research, or interested in developing a related research project, it would be really helpful if you could email me some basic details such as your name, how we can contact you, institutional affiliation and your specific research focus.

You can contact me by email (gracefarrington@thereader.org.uk). I look forward to hearing from you.

I admit to being fascinated with diaries as a form for a number of reasons. The diaries of famous historical and literary figures are rewarding on many levels; they quench voyeuristic thirsts, reveal the first sparks of creative inspiration and open up veritable time portals into the public and private past. While the aspect of immortality – and thus leaving an indelible ink stain on the world – that comes from keeping a diary is appealing to anyone’s sense of vanity, I believe the most worth anyone can get from maintaining their own journal comes via its offering of entirely personal, won’t-cost-you-a-penny therapy. Where else can you be as brutally honest as you dare or come across as self-absorbed without having to worry about being seen as utterly egotistical? Venting using the tools of pad and paper is not only socially preferable to smashing your fist against the nearest inanimate object and/or bursting into uncontrollable tears, it’s pretty damn good for your soul. As a therapeutic tool diaries can be especially useful, being ongoing and allowing us to retrace our steps when needs be. In short, they enable us to look back at segments of our lives and learn more about ourselves through ourselves (even if it is only to realise how utterly misguided and completely cringey you sounded as a teenager).

I’ve chosen this particular poem by Thomas Hardy as I think it relates well to the subject – a diary can be very much like a mirror, reflecting us and perhaps reflecting back more than we realise if we care to revisit. In times afterwards, they do produce ‘moments of vision’, letting us in on secrets about ourselves that at the time we might not have consciously considered. It really does make us transparent. The most interesting question is once it has caught all of our thoughts, onto what else will the ‘mirror’ be reflected?

Moments of Vision

That mirror
Which makes of men a transparency,
Who holds that mirror
And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see
Of you and me?

That mirror
Whose magic penetrates like a dart,
Who lifts that mirror
And throws our mind back on us, and our heart,
until we start?

That mirror
Works well in these night hours of ache;
Why in that mirror
Are tincts we never see ourselves once take
When the world is awake?

That mirror
Can test each mortal when unaware;
Yea, that strange mirror
May catch his last thoughts, whole life foul or fair,
Glassing it — where?

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Duffy, who was made poet laureate last year, told the BBC:

Like everyone else, I was very deeply affected by reports from Haiti about the earthquake and its aftermath, and I just thought to myself ‘this is going to take years to put right’. These people will need support for a long, long time to come.

Liverpool poet Roger McGough and recent contributer to The Reader magazine,  Andrew Motion, will be taking part, as well as Jo Shapcott, John Agard, Dannie Abse, Gillian Clarke and many others.

Poetry Live for Haiti will be held at Central Hall, Westminster on Saturday, from 2.30pm. It is hoped the event will raise £20,000 for the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Haiti Earthquake Appeal.