Oatley has been quoted in the magazine Scientific American Mind (article Fiction Hones Social Skills) as saying, Reading “can hone your social brain, so that when you put your book  down you may be better prepared for camaraderie, collaboration, even love.”

Most readers know how deeply they can be affected by the books they read.  What they didn’t know before is that when they get involved with a fictional character, they tend to follow their actions as though they were participating in them and develop a deep empathy with their motives and feelings.  Oatley suggests that reading is a form of mind-training – a course in how humans behave and react to each other.  Readers tend to have better social skills because they are better aquainted with the way other people think and they are more familiar with the huge variety of human behaviour than non-readers.

As I read this I thought of just one example. I  remember reading Brick Lane by Monica Ali,  about the experience of a Bangladeshi woman who moved to Tower Hamlets in London to marry an older man – not usually the sort of book which interests me.  As I read it however, I was drawn into the story and by the end of the book I found tremendous sympathy with Nazeem and her husband Chanu.  I became engrossed on the story of how the initially isolated Nazeem was changed by the people she met in London and by the end of the book my understanding of Bangladeshi immigrant culture was so greatly enhanced that I felt real understanding of the pressures faced by immigrants who don’t even speak the language of their host nation.

Oatley’s book is based on experimental research such as setting groups of people to read a novel and then testing their social abilities before and after.  But in the longer term, Oatley found that people who read were better at judging the emotional state of others and also making judgements about social relationships.  Reading fiction trains people in understanding other human beings just in the same way that reading a work of non-fiction can train you in science or engineering.

The author refers to research in which students were asked to read either a novel about the plight of an Algerian woman or an essay about Algerian women’s rights.  Researchers found that the readers of the novel had far more concern about the Algerian women’s rights than those who read the more newsy, third-party report.

But its the internalisation of what people read which was never quite understood before.  Readers personalities are subtly changed by what they read and they become better at relating to other people, particularly those who are very different to themselves.

I can relate to this in my own reading.  Books have taught me so much – how “good” people can be driven to commit a murder (Crime and Punishment – Fyodr Dostoevsky), what its like to be autistic (Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon), how its best to be reconciled to those who do us harm (The Railway Man – Eric Lomax) and countless other books which stay in my mind like icons on the wall of a cathedral.

Keith Oatley has more books in the pipeline and if Such Stuff as Dreams is anything to go by then we will be learning more about the transformative power of fiction and how those of us who sit in a corner with a book may be preparing ourselves far more for interaction with the real world than those who think reading is a waste of time.

Life as A Literary Device, is partly biographical, partly reportage, and partly miscellaneous musing on life.  The book consists of  ”seemingly disjointed snippets of real life, they connect by association alone – the random pieces of coloured glass that from themselves into a pattern if viewed through that wonderful children’s toy, the kaleidoscope”.

Early in the book he writes of being influenced by the Russian writer Valentin Kataev, the founder of a literary style which he called “mauvism” – “a literary device consisting of the complete negation of all literary devices”.  The term mauvism comes from the French word “mauvais” meaning “bad”, and as Kataev himself wrote, “I am the founder of the latest literary school, the mauvistes,  the essence of which is that since everyone nowadays writes very well, you must write badly, as badly as possible, then you will attract attention”.

I am pleased to say that Vitaliev does not write badly – far from it in fact, but he has certainly held to the principle of mauvism in writing a book for the Internet age where  ”one website routinely carries links to many others.  You open a link in a story that you are reading and it takes you away to another story loosely connected to the first one yet years and/or miles away from it;  you then close the link and return to the story you were reading in the first place”.

The result is a book which holds the interest throughout as Vitaliev describes his travels in various parts of the globe, muses on countless contemporary themes and journals his way through marital breakup, unemployment and temporary states of depression.  I am sure that there are hundreds of topics and themes covered in this substantial, 565 page volume, but the book does not seem to be particularly long when you are reading it.

Its very difficult to describe this book, a vast potpourri of thoughts, impressions, reminiscences so perhaps the best way in to describing it is to give a few examples of the topics covered.

The plight of asylum-seekers sent to live in almost uninhabitable blocks of flats in Sighthill, Glasgow:

Covered with graffiti – like the body of a hardened criminal with tattoos – Sighthill was far from a pretty sight.  What struck me most however, was neither dust and litter flying in my face, nor frozen spittle in the lifts or putrid puddles of dubious origin under my feet, but the behaviour of some of its Scottish residents.  Whereas foreigners  were invariably civil, neatly dressed and polite, the “locals”, particularly teenagers, were – with very few exceptions – foul-mouthed, agressive, uncouth and either tipsy or dead-drunk (or stoned).  They corresponded to the image of would-be terrorists better than any of the asylum-seekers of Sighthill.

The growth of “book towns” such as Hay on Wye and Wigtown:

In the tiny picturesque Ardennes village of Redu in Belgium, there are now as many bookshops – twenty four – as there are children and the trade is drawing in 350,000 visitors every year.  Interestingly, before bookshops appeared in its centre, the village was experiencing the same economic woes as Hay on Wye.  Bredevort in the Netherlands also copied the magic “Hay forumula” and now boasts 300,000 visitors a year.

Vitaliev’s love for old guidebooks:

I am proud to have discovered my own way of time-travelling – Baedekers, Murrays, Bradshaws, Cooks – of all of which I am a passionate collector.  To me these pocket-size tattered volumes are full of time travel magic, especially when I find an old London Tube map (with a curtailed pink “Northern line” ending at Highgate), a faded landing card, or just a dried out hundred year old flower in between their tattered pages.  Touching such books is like touching eternity itself, for bygone realities and small practicalities of a distant past come to life in their estranged, meticulous and matter of fact style.  In this respect old guide-books are preferable to fiction:  they provide me with an ossified time carcass, which I am free to fill with the contents of today’s reality.

Not that there aren’t major themes running through the book.  The core experience Vitaliev was going through in the years he compiled this material was separation from wife and family and unemployment.  During this period he was offered at cheap rent, a small cottage in the run-down South Coast town of Folkestone.  Folkestone proved to be a dispiriting place for Vitaliev and he captures the sense of down-at-heel decay which has afflicted the harbour area of the town now that the ferry services have largely departed the town.  The place matched his mood only too well, and having had a similar time of isolation in a small town myself in my early twenties I could relate all too well to these sections of the book while giving thanks that I have never had to endure such a time again.

Each of the book’s countless sections is complete in itself but they all offer interest, for Vitaliev has an enquiring mind which leads him into meandering reflections on most things around him.

This book is going to be a great travel-companion when its released in paper-back.   You can dip in and out of it and not need to remember what went before.

As to the “mauvism” – this theme keeps coming up in the book – and Vitaliev like to categories his own work as following in the style of his Russian mentor.  One of his own descriptions of his work is, “the Badlands of literature” which is true only insofar as he covers a vast miscellany of messy subjects somehow synthesising them into this quite unique volume which is by no mean “stylish” in the usual sense but certainly kept my interest throughout.

Rick is not the first person to write his life story in the context of the books he’s read, but this one is as good as any and was a read both amusing and informative.  I’ll quote from the publisher’s website to list some of the books covered:

Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches the Egg;
Magnus Hirschfeld Sexual Anomalies and Perversions;
Allen Ginsberg, Howl;
J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye;
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land;
Descartes, Meditations;
David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding;
W.B. Yeats, The Collected Poems;
F.R. Leavis, The Common Pursuit;
Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy;
Tom Wolfe,The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test;
Ludwig Wittgenstein,Philosophical Investigations;
R.D. Laing, The Divided Self;
Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch;
D.H. Lawrence,Women in Love;
A.S. Neill, Summerhill;
Roald Dahl, Matilda;
Alice Miller, Pictures of a Childhood;
A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic;
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams;
Carl Hiaasen, Double Whammy;
Peter Wright,Spycatcher; and
Rick Gekoski, Staying Up.

And there was a good enough mix of the familiar and the new to keep my interest throughout.  Rick is basically an academic (ex-lecturer in English at Warwick University) turned rare book dealer, and has many contacts in the world of literature.  And oh yes, he’s been a judge on the Man Booker Prize.  So, as far as literature is concerned I guess he’s qualified to write about books, which he does eruditely, knowledgeably and perhaps above all, humorously.

Rick’s book is not just about books of course, but also about himself, and I have to say, his life has been interesting.  He writes about his childhood in a way which explains his love of reading, and like so many avid readers, their literary imagaination seems to have come alive through gaining access to an adult library at an early age.  I remember at age 14 being able to graduate from the junior public library to the adult library, and finding riches there beyond belief.  My own interest seems to have been in humour (Patrick Campbell, Georges Mikes, Leo Rosten, Stephen Potter), whereas Rick Gekoski seems to have got his rocks off by exploring his parents extensive library of psycho-sexual literature, whether Psychopathia Sexualis by Krafft-Ebing, or Sexual Anomalies and Perversions by Magunus Hirschfield.

Thankfully this stage seems not to have lasted too long and in no time Rick was deep in Holden Caulfield’s life in Catcher in The Rye (ah, EVERYONE I knew back then seemed to read Catcher, but how many young people know it today?).

And then Rick read T S Eliot, The Waste Land, and I just have to agree with his choice and the influence it had on him.  I read it when I was about fifteen and remember spending whole evenings trying to decode is mysteries and to grasp hold of the word pictures it presented to me.  It inspired me to write, and what greater commendation is there than that?  Wonderful stuff: –  and then to discover so much more in Four Quartets, which I soon found was recorded on LP records by Alex Guiness whose rich, actorial voice so enhanced my understanding of Little Gidding.

Isn’t the pleasure of reading a book like Outside of a Dog so much to do with discovering shared experiences, that sense of inwardly saying, “Ah yes”, when the writer enthuses about one’s own literary loves?

Rick progresses through some fairly esoteric stuff on his journey to Silence of the Lambs (and yes, I agree, even Robert Harris deserves a place in the canon because of his creation of Hannibal Lecter, a character so real he must jump off any page that contains a mention of him).  But to reach Lecter we progress through R D Laing, Germaine Greer (this is a very 60s list at this point), and even touches on Hume, Descartes and A J Eyer.

I was quite pleased to see Carl Hiassen in Rick’s list, for we must all have some lighter reads to keep us going (I confess to reading every Lee Child book as it is released), but it was fascinating to read Rick’s encounters with the Cambridge spies – Kim Philby etc, and Rick actually travelled to Moscow to meet Mrs Philby.

This is a very interesting book which must keep any avid reader interested throughout its 300 pages.  I reached the end and could have done with more, and what greater tribute to a book is there than that?   Its a great book to dip into, and also one to read from cover to cover in a couple of days.  I am sure it will remain on my shelves as a regular reference point and I’m pleased I bought it.

At first glance it appears to be yet another of those attractively-produced little books aimed at the Christmas market – the sort of thing which is opened with a laugh but soon bores.  However, anyone who loves books will find plenty to interest here, some light and inconsequential facts (the first spliff in literature, the shortest poem, the longest book etc), but even these, with Sutherland’s immense store of knowledge, are set in a context which illuminate rather merely amuse.  (and incidentally, the first spliff appears in Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines and the longest book is Clarissa by Samuel Richardson and is about a million words long).

I loved the chapter on food, “Literary Baked Meats” which describes the gastronomic preferences of various writers and left me wanting to go to the Savoy to have an Omelette Arnold Bennett (a wish which is easily denied on discovering that it costs about £50 – and can also be made at home). Sutherland has found are many food-based “curiosities”, not least discovering foods which were first mentioned in literature and then went on to become products in real-life. For example, the early science-fiction novel The Coming Race (1871) by Bulwer-Lytton shares the “hollow-earth” theme of Jules Verne’s Journey To the Centre of the Earth, and describes a life-giving fluid under the earth’s crust called “vril”.  Scottish manufacturer John Lawson Johnston saw a business opportunity there and added “Bov” (for beef) to the front of Bulwer-Lytton’s “vril” and as they say, the rest is history.

Stories like this kept me entertained while on holiday in France a couple of weeks ago.  I enjoyed the chapter “Tools of the Trade” in which Sutherland gives his readers such information as the first book written on a typewriter (Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer) and the first authors to use computers (with Desmond Bagley and Arthur C Clarke being the main contenders).  I have to say, that for the latter category, I remember reading an article  by Terry Pratchett in a mid-80s computer magazine about his use of the Amstrad PCW.

There are 13 chapters in the book including Mammon in the Book Trade (interesting examples of product placement in novels), Name Games (including pseudonyms and the stories behind their choice), Literary Records (worst novelist ever, longest time to write a book, most misquoted etc).  These are not presented in list format but are well-written self-contained pieces.    Sutherland acknowledges the help of Messrs Google and Xerox but I don’t think anyone without Sutherland’s vast literary knowledge would have been able to come up with such a comprehensive set of topics or researched them to the same depth as him.  I found this a very satisfying read which will occupy an important place in my “books about books” category.

In How to Read a Novel, John Sutherland certainly tells his readers how to read a novel, but also covers many other topics about publishing and the book trade.  Beginning with the presentation of the book (dust-jacket, cover design, author photograph etc), he moves on to show how these have all developed over time to become a key marketing tool – packaging is all, in the book trade as well as for those who sell baked beans.

John Sutherland well understands how difficult it is to choose a book to read among the vast numbers available in bookshops or online and gives his views on reviewers, advertising, back cover recommendations, best-seller lists and competitions.  His considerable background as a reviewer, columnist, academic and Booker prize judge enable him to provide a huge amount of inside information to help readers navigate a bookstore without being taken in by the marketing hype of the industry.

Throughout the book, Sutherland describes the history of novel publishing, but in a humorous and entertaining way which draws the reader along with him.  The book is witty and amusing as well as being informative.  Where necessary, he focuses in on specific books, and shows how particular novels were land-marks of their time, which led to many others following.  The book is almost a mini-history of the novel and shows how public tastes have changed over the years.

The title of this book may put off those who think they can read novels perfectly well without requiring outside help.  However, this book goes far beyond its remit and would be of interest to anyone who loves books and want to read a little more intelligently.  It also will help them understand the subtle ways in which the book trade influences the public but also sometimes gets things totally wrong.  I am pleased that Sutherland shares my own incomprehension why certain novels flourish (for example, those about mediaeval conspiracy theories!) while others fade away without trace.

I would recommend this book to anyone who reads novels – they will not be disappointed with the few hours spent within its covers and will want to keep it on their shelves as a reference guide.

As I read it, I began to wonder how this differed from a newspaper column, or even an Internet blog.  After all, there are countless coloumnists who write reflectively in the Sunday supplements or the weekly magazines, and even more bloggers who put their thoughts down almost daily on anything that comes across their path.  In the end, I felt that Anne Fadiman’s essays are perhaps written over a longer period and took longer in the gestation, giving them a depth and consistency across the topics which other media writers may not achieve.

Ann Fadiman is of course highly qualified to write such a book, being Writer-In-Residence at Yale University.  The books closes with a comprehensive list of academic references and other notes, and suggests that this is rather more than chance ramblings, but a well-researched set of thoughts born out of a long period of reflection.

The books is beautifully produced, and perhaps this is part of its appeal.  Its not a book to hurry through, but rather one to make last over several weeks, and return to again and again.  Any book-lover would appreciate it on their shelves, and it would make an unusual gift for anyone who likes reading and is prepared to try something a little different.