Bibliotherapy and books that inspire

Anyone heard of bibliotherapy? I certainly hadn’t until I heard a fascinating programme on radio 4 (where else) about it. Bibliotherapy, is an expressive therapy that uses an individual's relationship to the content of books and poetry and other written words as therapy (apparently).

It got me thinking about books that had left an impression on my life and why, so I thought I’d list some of them here:

1. Enid Blyton – Famous Five and Malory Towers, in fact all of Enid Blyton’s books
I was a voracious reader as a child and I’d always have about 4 books on the go at any one time. I totally lost myself in the vivid worlds Blyton created. My 8 year old daughter, much to my delight is now reading the Famous Five herself (the original versions full of Dick, Fanny and lashing of ginger beer of course) and I am loving how engrossed she too becomes in the adventures.


2. Sylvia Plath – the Bell Jar
Couldn’t get Plath out of my mind for a long time after I’d read this plus her poetry. Such a complex individual who shared her innermost feelings through her writing.

3. Aldous Huxley – Brave New World
I read this when I was about 17 on a post A level girls’ holiday to Ibiza (how very incongruous) and was blown away by his vision of the future (in between the sangria, sand and….lack of sleep).

4. Khaled Hosseini - A thousand splendid suns
Cried, cheered, could hardly bare to turn the page on occasion. Learnt so much about the culture and people of Afghanistan.

5. George Orwell – 1984
I read this initially at university and then again recently in my book club. Meant so much more to me second time round and saw so much more meaning in it as an adult rather than the relatively naive politically unaware critique of my 18 year old self.

6. Thomas Hardy - Tess of the d’Urbervilles
Another uni text, I think I was left feeling frustrated and depressed for poor old Tess as well as introducing me to the odd sounding literary technique of ‘pathetic fallacy’ (which you probably need to be careful how you say, which is perhaps why I haven’t forgotten it!)

7. Jeanette Winterson – Oranges are not the only fruit
I love the way Winterson writes and love her honesty and wit in her semi-autobiographical novel. Also in awe that she wrote it at just 25.

8. Jilly Cooper – Riders
I was horse crazy as a child and teenager and totally fell in love with Rupert Campbell Black and the racy Cotswold horsey life Jilly portrayed in this book.

9. Elizabeth Taylor – In a Summer Season
The writer, not the actress, who I am ashamed to say I’d not heard of before a programme about her on radio 4. Heralded as 'One of the most underrated novelists of the twentieth century'. Immediately bought this book and marvelled at the subtleties of her characters as she exposes the often suffocating repression of the middle classes of the early 1960s and the age old contradiction between what people say and what they really think.

10 Irving Stone – “Lust for Life” and the “Agony and the Ecstasy”
Two works of ‘faction’ (rooted in fact but with fictional elements and an imagined dialogue) about Vincent Van Gogh and Michelangelo respectively that I implore you to read. I honestly never wanted to get to the end of either of them. Transports you to their worlds in technicolour and allows you to climb inside their heads to witness their genius in a way that is utterly captivating.

What books have left a lasting impression on you?