Read fiction to combat insomnia

“Insomnia seems to be becoming increasingly common, and good sleep hygiene … plus a basic understanding of the nature of sleep … can help us to return to a good regular sleep pattern…

The trick is to slip from the real world to the dream one, so lying there rigid with anxiety to achieve unconsciousness is never going to work.

Reading fiction, on the other hand, acts as a first breakaway from reality and gives the mind a first hold on the suppressed state of dream that is so firmly denied all day.

… steer clear of non-fiction books. Read to go into another world, and raise no resistance. Dream actually comes before sleep, and is the way in.”

From:
http://m.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/mar/13/cognitive-behaviour-therapy-suzanne-moore

SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
A new Pope. A new Church. A new world:

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Escapist Literature

“literature is not isolated from the social and cultural framework in which it is set, but takes an active part in constructing it. Literature has a socializing, acculturating function. It can topple regimes and spark changes in ways of thinking that reverberate down generations. …

I think that escapism is probably the most important literary development in recent times. It is properly not an end unto itself, it is a mode, a hook, a literary device to draw readers in. Literary fiction has always seemed unapproachable because it often deals with heavy topics: the human condition, war, slavery, inequality, the like – all within the confines of mundane existence; a mirror unto the imperfections of our own reality. Many people don’t like that. Escapism replaces that reality with one in which we actually want to live in, and thus makes literature accessible. Escapism is not incompatible with literature-as-mirror or literature-as-agent-of-change. In fact, far from being the great enemy of traditional affective literature, it may be its greatest emerging ally, combating the evil forces of reality TV, celebrity gossip and the always-on camera recording the lives of the Kardashians. That is because escapist fiction can, at its best, act as a cradle for good stories and good literature. If the thought of escaping to a world where you can ride broomsticks and cast spells introduces kids to the wonders of reading and good storytelling (and a life of literacy afterward), more power to escapism.”

FROM: http://www.cornellsun.com/section/arts/content/2013/03/01/escaping-through-fiction

SpyWriter Jack King, author of Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault and The Fifth Internationale

Reading fiction aloud is therapeutic

The ”Liverpool-based charity The Reader Organisation … seeks to bring about a “reading revolution” by encouraging people to read poetry and novels aloud to each other.

The Swiss linguist and thinker Ferdinand de Saussure describes language as a form of treasure that is shared with others when we speak. Treasure is also something that can be hoarded. If you keep all the good words – the rich, descriptive, wild long words – to yourself then you retain their high value. Share them with the masses and you end up … with the linguistic means to create a society of equals, which is exactly what the hoarders of social and cultural capital don’t want.

…the benefits of reading in company as described by one woman: “Doctors and stuff aren’t always what you need. Other people can help too.

“The accumulated experience of peers and equals, all of whom have been in the same boat at one point or other, is shared to the benefit of everyone. It’s hard to think of a more powerful, not to mention empowering, sentiment.”

More: http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/01/reading-fiction-friends-therapeutic

SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:

http://www.SpyWriter.com

Read fiction to be a good person

Yet another study finds reading fiction makes us better persons:

“During the act of reading engaging fiction, we can lose all sense of time. By the final chapter of the right book, we feel changed in our own lives, even if what we’ve read is entirely made up.

Research says that’s because while you’re engaged in fiction — unlike nonfiction — you’re given a safe arena to experience emotions without the need for self-protection. Since the events you’re reading about do not follow you into your own life, you can feel strong emotions freely.

The Dutch study found that good fiction—the kind that sucks you in with characters you can identify with—can have a lasting effect on a person’s expression of empathy. Bad fiction, the kind you can’t really get into, has exactly the opposite effect.”

More:
http://www.healthline.com/health-blogs/healthline-connects/reading-fiction-increases-empathy-013013

SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:

http://www.SpyWriter.com

Truth or Myth: Politics and Novels don’t mix

Interviewer: The question of combining politics and fiction has engaged a good many critics, often drawing from them the notion that it’s very difficult to mix the two. 

John Dos Passos: Well, I don’t know. Recently, I’ve been calling my novels contemporary chronicles, which seems to fit them rather better. They have a strong political bent because after all—although it isn’t the only thing—politics in our time has pushed people around more than anything else. I don’t see why dealing with politics should harm a writer at all. Despite what he said about politics in the novel being “the pistol shot at the opera,” Stendhal also wrote contemporary chronicles. Or look at Thucydides. I don’t think his history was at all damaged by the fact that he was a political writer. A lot of very good writing has been more or less involved in politics, although it’s always a dangerous territory. It’s better for some people to keep out unless they’re willing to learn how to observe. It is the occupation of a special kind of writer. His investigation—using blocks of raw experience—must be balanced. Sartre in his straight, plain reporting was wonderful. I can’t read him now. A writer in this field should be both engaged and disengaged. He must have passion and concern and anger—but he must keep his emotions at arm’s length in his work. If he doesn’t, he’s simply a propagandist, and what he offers is a “preachment.”

More: http://www.ibna.ir/vdciv3azwt1awz2.ilct.html

SpyWriter Jack King || “A new King of thrillers on the horizon” || Author of Political Thrillers || http://www.SpyWriter.com

Why we read fiction

“One of the attractions readers often cite as their explanation for their passion for books is the opportunity for escapism they offer. But sometimes … the new realities we encounter bear little or no relatoin to the realities we’re leaving behind.

The question of why we read is a huge one, but the classic (if often armchair) argument of fiction as escapism does in fact hanker after an element of truth. These are other realities, other layers of experience we dip into, and we dip for a reason or reasons

Fiction and fact are the other worlds we can immerse ourselves into, the virtual reality headsets we can don to evade being unable to deal with the absolute horror of our universe – of time having moved inexorably on, of being unable to go back, without losing our minds.”

More: http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Biblio/Detail.aspx?blogId=1156

SpyWriter Jack King “A new King of thrillers on the horizon” http://www.SpyWriter.com

Novels Influence the Young

“the popularity of a young adult novel … satisfies a more covert, noble cause. It gets the twelve to eighteen year old crowd reading whether it an actual book or an e-reader. Reading leads to learning and learning creates a desire in the young adult to seek more knowledge in expanding vocabulary, improving comprehension and teaching them how to write effectively. They may even inspire to be the next great author to rise out of the ashes of what many consider today’s lost youth. The old adage “reading is fundamental” is a basic truth. The young adult that can read and comprehend has a much better chance at surviving the test of life and becoming a productive member of society than one that doesn’t read well.”

More: http://www.melodika.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=548461&Itemid=50

SpyWriter Jack King “A new King of thrillers on the horizon” http://www.SpyWriter.com

Politics and religion divide, literature unites

“Politics or religion cannot unite, they only divide people. Only literature can act as a binding force… language may be regional but literature is universal. Language is not a barrier, it is our strength” … Books are “treasure houses of words … literature ignites culture. A writer begins the book and the reader finishes it. I think all books are left incomplete, as a writer takes the reader into the subject and leaves him to draw his own conclusion”…

… whereas politics and religion offer divisive demagoguery.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Vijayawada/only-literature-unites-people-pratibha-ray/article4265211.ece

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Books expand the world

“I have been told that many schools have changed their core reading curriculum to include more modern commercial novels…

I believe there are serious consequences to the exchange of commercial writing to classic literature in curriculum. We are graduating students from American high schools, some on their way to four-year universities, with a limited and vapid literary foundation of vampires, werewolves, and wizards. This ignorance means that they will neither be able to complete a New York Times crossword puzzle or receive mercy from an English professor who’s been teaching before Stephenie Meyers was even an idea in her parent’s heads. At its worst, this American generation will go forth in a world with a great dearth of general knowledge, undoubtedly inferior to their contemporaries overseas who have had a more meaningful education, that will detract from many aspects of their lives.

Literature is not just an exercise in creative expression, it reveals and resolves, it engenders compassion and understanding, it expands our world far beyond the borders of the written page.”

From:
http://blogcritics.org/books/article/fantasyland-the-limited-world-of-todays/

SpyWriter Jack King “A new King of thrillers on the horizon” http://www.SpyWriter.com

Sick society without literature

Can reading fiction cut selfishness, stop growth of mass-shooting psychopaths? One thing appears certain: reading fiction gives rise to empathy, and empathy leads to a more compassionate society.

“Schools don’t exist as job-training camps. They exist to educate students. To be truly educated, students need to graduate with more imagination, not less. They need to face questions about what it means to be a human being — they need to stop sleepwalking, if they’ve started it already — and they need to start learning how to love strangers. We all know that becoming properly educated is a lifelong endeavor. But Washington gives students a huge disadvantage if it leads them to think that memorizing data and processing facts is 70 percent of living well.”

From: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335520/goodbye-liberal-arts-betsy-woodruff?pg=1

“Based on the results of the post-reading exercises, Johnson concluded that the more immersed the readers were in the story, the more empathy they felt for the characters. In addition, he found that the heightened empathy led to an enhanced ability to perceive subtle emotional expressions such as fear or happiness. Individuals who experienced higher levels of empathy were also nearly twice as likely to engage in pro-social, or helpful, behavior as individuals experiencing low levels of empathy.”

From: http://news.blogs.wlu.edu/2012/02/21/washington-and-lee-professor-finds-that-reading-fiction-leads-to-empathy-helpful-behavior/

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