Saturday, January 21, 2012

Louise Rosenblatt 2


"Only if the reader turns his attention inward to his experience of 'the journey itself,' will a 'poem' happen. The reader of a text who evokes a literary work of art is, above all, a performer, in the same sense that  pianist performs a sonata..." (p28)

From The Reader, the Text, the Poem

Louise Rosenblatt


"The reader brings to the text his past experience and present personality. Under the magnetism of the ordered symbols of the text, he marshals his resources and crystallizes out from the stuff of memory, thought, and feeling a new part of the ongoing stream of his life experience, to be reflected on from any angle important to him as a human being?"

From The Reader, the Text, the Poem (1978)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Dostoevsky's Last Night by Cristina Peri Rossi


In light of my bibliotherapy research, I used a readers advisory database (see entry Find Books) to purview what came up on a search for addiction as a subject heading for fiction. Dostoevsky's Last Night was one of the titles that was recommended.

The addiction addressed in Rossi's novel is gambling. The gambler protagonist is in therapy, which suggested a good fit for my intended use. Did reading result in a self-awareness on gambling addiction? I can't really say, as this is not something from which I suffer. I think the premise is an application of bibliotherapy, in that having read Dostoevsky, the protagonist has been made aware and gained insight into his compulsions.

As a novel, I found the work readable but not compelling.

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

SciFi Lovers, Women Writers


Women of Wonder: The Classic Years 1940's thru 1970's'

Edited by Pamela Sargent, published in 1995

List of representatives as follows:

1944 C.L. Moore

1948 Judith Merril

1950 Katherine MacLean

1951 Leigh Brackett

1954 Margaret St. Clair

1956 Zenna Henderson

1956 Marion Zimmer Bradley

1961 Anne McCaffrey

1966 Sonya Dorman Hess

1966 Kit Reed

1967 Pamela Zoline

1971 Josephine Saxton

1972 Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

1972 Joanna Russ

1972 Kate Wilhelm

1973 Vonda N. McIntyre

1973 James Tiptree, Jr.

1974 Eleanor Arnason

1974 Ursula K. Le Guin

1977 Lisa Tuttle

1978 Joan D. Vinge


Tuesday, January 03, 2012

Self help nonfiction mainstream bibliotherapy


 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2012/0103/1224309726517.html

If they took this a step further and recommended fiction titles to read in conjunction with the self help books, a more comprehensive approach would result. The idea with bibliotherapy is to process on an emotional level, not just take in information. The most advantageous scenario would involve informational and emotional reading followed by group or one on one discussion about the characters' journey or struggle in relation to the reader's own. Expressive arts therapy in the form of poetry, music or other creative outlet as a way to help the reader access feelings that may not be rational but are integrated strongly in the psychological complex causing the feelings of distress is the true bibliotherapeutic experience and necessary in order to fully integrate change.