The Book Club Review The New Year Reading Reset: Finding fresh inspiration with bibliotherapist Ella Berthoud • #185
Create A Dedicated Reading Nook
- Create a dedicated reading nook to signal your brain it's reading time and reduce distractions.
- Turn off your phone and keep the space solely for reading to protect focus.
Ella's Favourite Shelf Ritual
- Ella keeps a favourite shelf of ~10 treasured books she rereads to comfort and inspire her.
- She dips into these during winter and near her cocoon to reconnect with formative reading moments.
Myths Mirror Seasonal Renewal
- Ella reads Ovid in January because metamorphosis tales mirror seasonal renewal.
- Short, vivid myths offer bite-sized hope that bleak winters will end in rebirth.
New year, new intentions – but if you're in the northern hemisphere, January can feel less like renewal and more like the darkest, coldest stretch of endless winter. Maybe what you need isn't another resolution. Maybe you just need the right book.
Ella Berthoud is an writer and an artist, but most importantly from our point of view a bibliotherapist. She has been prescribing fiction for life's ailments for over a decade. She co-wrote The Novel Cure, a brilliant guide that matches books to every psychological state and is packed with sound recommendations.
Who better then to give me some great suggestions for avoiding the January blues. Join Kate and Ella as they talk about the questions that vex every reader: how do we find more time for reading? How do we escape reading slumps? And how can we read more deeply without it feeling like homework?
Plus of course we're swapping lots of great book recommendations for January and the year ahead. Listen in for a shot of literary inspiration that might be just what you need.
Booklist
The Novel Cure by Ella Berthoud
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed
Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale
Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale
Metamorphoses by Ovid
Humanly Possible by Sarah Bakewell
The Golden Ass by Apuleius
A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter (Jane Degras)
Dálvi by Laura Galloway
The Artist by Lucy Steeds
The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis
Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
Things: A Story of the Sixties by Georges Perec
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Robin Buss)
Find out more about Ella at ellaberthoud.com
Find all the books mentioned in this episode in the Book Club Review Bookshop, on Bookshop UK, the online retailer that supports independent bookshops.
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