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Bibliotherapy
September 24, 2008
Don't you hate it when other people steal your ideas? For years, I went around saying I wanted to become the Book Problem Lady, modeled on the Problem Lady column that used to run in the
The Village Voice. Like that, except that I would answer readers' book problems. I imagined questions like this: "Dear BPL, I'm going to my boss's house for dinner. He doesn't drink or smoke cigars and I want to take him a house gift. I worry that our politics and tastes are so different, I can't risk offending? What book should I take?" Or, my favorite Q: "I'm going off on a trip to visit my illicit lover. What should I read during the journey?" A: If either of you is married, and especially if you're taking a train, do NOT read
Anna Karenina."
Ok, so it was a goofy, kind of cheeky idea -- and, no surprise, when the author Alain de Botton "stole" it (he didn't really) he ramped it up a lot on the intellectual scale. The result is
Bibliotherapy, a special section of his actual, brick-and-mortar, new School of Life, located in London. De Botton, author
How Proust Can Change Your Life, among other high brow classics and his cronies in academe will offer, for a modest price, a period of "bibliotherapy," during which their experts examine your reading experience (even if you haven't read a book for pleasure in years) and give guidance and counsel about what to read next and when. The object is not to preach to the choir of academe, but to make books, all books, supposedly, more accessible to mainstream readers.
A note: No word on how many copies of Botton's
On Love have exited the UK's book shops since the program was inaugurated, but one blogger does list Anna Karenina, though s/he neglects to talk about the train. . . .
Posted by Sara Nelson on September 24, 2008 | Comments (1)
