Joanna Biggs A LIFE OF ONE'S OWN

Nine Women Writers Begin Again

Biggs has truly used reading as a way to heal. In the ideal bibliotherapeutic scenario, she has read, processed and re-envisioned herself in light of her reading experience.

Some quotes. (Reading digitally allows for snapshots of pages  ut page numbers are more or less irrelevant given the size of typeface as well as the device can change pagination.)

Revisiting a book this way is a shortcut, some might sight a cheat, but I see it as another lifehack in this brave new digital frontier. Yea, we may eventually be faced with fallout, but in the meantime, let's enjoy all the ways it enhances our experience.

Authors explored:

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin

George Elliot

Zora Neale Hurston

Virginia Woolf

Simone de Beauvoir

Sylvia Plath

Toni Morrison

Elena Ferrante

and the author makes nine : )

BookTherapy

$50 online certificate?

https://www.booktherapy.io/en-us/collections/online-bibliotherapy-courses/products/bibliotherapy-literature-and-mental-health?goal=0_ed359f248a-8dad64535a-357157300&mc_cid=8dad64535a&mc_eid=2dd2dc4883

Pure Gold

In his classic bibliotherapy treatise, THE STORY SPECIES, Joseph Gold says in his Appendix II: Literature is the most important tool in the kit for constructing identy and building the whole story that connects the "I" to the "not-I" across space and time...but writing does something that cannot be achieved in any other way. Literature is a major source of building materials...(re)construction is how writing functions in the healing process (because) the brain cannot process the reading of material we have written in the same way as it processes the writing of the material in the first place: Outside-in is not the same to brains as Inside-out. Language, as an organizing principle, produces the controlling activity experienced in story formation by the writer. Writing creates a brain association that was not there before. We feel better when we move emotion to our language center, where we can name and control it. Writing is being seen and heard, and even though we are the one who has written, we must decode and interpret the writing. When we write about how we feel, we are both learning and clarifying how we feel. Writing is an exercise in self-efficacy and self-knowledge. Health and balance require us to move away from overwhelming emotions toward organized objective reality. Feelings converted into language, establish order and control. Through the medium of lanuguage, chaos and confusion is tamed and can be used as an informative, manageable reference tool. How does writing therapy work? 1. Emotion moves between different areas of the brain--subjective versus objective--as it becomes language. 2. Objectivity creates a sense of "otherness" and provides distance necessary for critical analysis of experience. 3. Recording emotions frees us from carrying the sometimes overwhelming load of their chaotic influence, through the writing process, thus acknowledging and releasing them as history.

plots

https://www.vulture.com/2016/08/encyclopedia-of-every-literary-plot-ever.html

Caitlin R. Kiernan LiveJournal

https://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/

Bibliotherapy? OK...sure, why not.

https://www.capegazette.com/article/bibliotherapy-sessions-start-march-9/254097 Utilizing a self-help book is not what I normally think of when I think about bibliotherapy, but sure, could be. This group is charging $175 for four sessions where they will be reading: Thich Nhat Hahn’s “Peace is Every Step: The Path to Mindfulness in Everyday Life.” It's being offerred by a Delaware wellness organization whose intentions are good. Using self-help books as bibliotherapy, as opposed to using literature, has been proved once again to be more digestible by the mainstream. Or maybe, people are as likely to want to read a work of literature for their health as they are to want to eat their vegetables.

Free eBooks

https://www.techworm.net/2022/11/5-best-z-library-alternatives-in-2022-to-download-ebooks.html

Reading Wallace Stevens: The Palm at the End of the Mind

I. Look in the terrible mirror of the sky. Oh, bend against the invisible and lean To symbols of descending night; and search The glare of revelations going by! Dreaming feet Mythy mind Music is feeling, not sound In witching chords. Whispered refrains Like willows swept by rain. Death is the mother of beauty; from her, Alone, comes fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. She searched The touch of springs, And found Concealed imaginings. She sighed, For so much melody. Upon the bank, she stood In the cool Of spent emotions. She felt, among the leaves, The dew Of old devotions. Death is the mother of beauty, mystical. Beauty is momentary in the mind-- The fitful tracing of a portal; In the flesh, immortal. The body dies; the body's beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminable flowing. The sun ... sets ... pacing Death, ... knowing Grieves. Opening roses The mind supposes Floating colors; Closes. Noon a turning-- a Burning a Yearning For endless summer. Changing autumn mellows Moons glance When night comes Coloring The cry of peacocks. It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing. And it was going to snow. I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes. I was of three minds: Three blackbirds In a tree. I know a blackbird Is involved In what I know.

Alan Bennett

Brilliant...

https://books.feedvu.com/fullbook/writing-home-pdf-alan-bennett.html?page=2

Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow...

https://www.amazon.com/Tomorrow-novel-Gabrielle-Zevin/dp/0593321200/ref=asc_df_0593321200?tag=bngsmtphsnus-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80058314545423&hvnetw=s&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=m&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583657839528169&psc=1

So many things I enjoyed while reading...

learned about William Morris design known as "the Strawberry Thief."

and some cool quotes to give you a taste 🍓...

"Love is both a constant and a variant at the same time."

"Dead was OK."

"You can watch if you want. I'm going to play until the end of this life."

"There is no purity in art."

And discovered:

Tsuguharu Foujita, artist

and

Terry Riley, composer

https://youtu.be/aX96z7AuICs

Left to My Own Literary Devices

https://prestigeprose.com/literary-devices/