100 Books to Live By
Literary Remedies for Any Occasion
With an easygoing style, Joseph Piercy recommends one hundred notable works of world literature through the medicinal lens of bibliotherapy.
As a mental health practice, bibliotherapy centralizes writing and literature as a means to help people process difficult emotions and reduce stress, the book says. It bases its one hundred reading recommendations, plus one accompanying alternative each, on each title’s potential to heal, address, negotiate, or embody various states of mind. Its five sections encompass broad areas of well-being, including personal and relationship concerns. And its reading recommendations are akin to prescriptions, curative to particular interior conditions.
The conditions the book addresses range from specific life events to more abstract mental states: For divorce, Piercy suggests Anne Carson’s The Beauty of the Husband; for feeling “lost and uncertain,” Björn Natthiko Lindeblad’s I May Be Wrong and the fourteenth dalai lama’s The Four Noble Truths are named. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings are held up as as essentials, or works with “universal themes about human life [that] offer essential values and enrichment.”
Each book recommendation is treated with conversational concision, including a brief contextual description of the author and their work and a quotable line from the work that represents a taste of the author’s style. This approach makes the collection pleasant to peruse, whether it is consumed from cover to cover or at random. Further, the recommendations are diverse, coming from writers across the globe and at different points in history, spanning classic, canonical, and contemporary literature.
The self-help companion 100 Books to Live By answers the bibliophile’s perpetual question of “What should I read next?” from a mental health perspective.
Reviewed by
Mike Good
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
