Jane Says: Austen's Wit & Wisdom Starts Your Day

"...the Jane Austen Centre in Bath has produced an app providing a daily dose of Austen wisdom, which can be custom-timed to land on your phone whenever you like…"



http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/sep/29/want-a-jane-austen-quote-delivered-to-you-every-day-theres-an-app-for-that?CMP=twt_books_b-gdnbooks

Healthy Choice: Reading is Elemental

How Changing Your Reading Habits Can Transform Your Health

After being rejected from grad school and overlooked for a job promotion, an Apple employee reflects on the benefits and merits of reading.


"My favorite book is War and Peace...But it wasn’t my new favorite book just because it was so compelling. It was my new favorite because it changed something in me. It’s almost impossible to explain why, but after reading it I felt more confident in myself, less uncertain about my future. I became more assertive with my bosses. I got back on the horse, so to speak…"

Which Classic Literature Character Are You?

Another test, in only ten questions.

http://www.zimbio.com/quiz/K3iKcn_Ys0x/Classic+Literature+Character

What Literary Character Are You?

Another literary character test…

Have you ever been so involved in a story that you imagined yourself as the protagonist? Or have you ever read a book where you relate so strongly to a character that you think the author may have used you for inspiration? Or maybe you've just had one of those days where you'd love to be your favorite fictional hero.

Let AbeBooks fuel your fantasy with our fun quiz, "What Literary Character Are You?" Using your responses to the quiz questions, we'll let you know which fictional character from literature you most resemble. How's that for fun?

Think you know your friends? Make sure you do by having them complete the quiz and reveal their character too. Learn more about yourself by revealing your character now...

http://www.abebooks.com/docs/Community/Featured/LiteraryCharacterQuiz/character-quiz.shtml

The Fabric of Our Lives: Fiction in Our Everyday World

There’s no way around it, we experience storytelling in every facet of our daily lives. The minute we close the door behind us, as we leave our cocoon, the world presents a series of events to be witnessed, interpreted, and told by us. There is a compulsion to attach an explanation, a story, to what we see before us. The primary function of storytelling is to help us understand something. It sates our curiosity, and is likely why fiction succeeds, more than non-fiction, in holding our attention.

            As J.J. Rivera can attest, we read other people at work, at school, at play. And, out of all these daily routines, a story will emerge. And, it’s usually a fictional one. It’s in the gestures, faces, and voices we encounter. It’s the kid who picked up milk on the way home, stuffing a gum pack in his jeans before leaving the store. Did he steal the gum or pay for it? It’s the guy walking the family dog after dinner, who meets a woman at a park? Is that his wife or is he cheating? J.J. put in his 7/7 post, you can tell someone is lying because they’re lips are moving. But, as seen in the same post, it can be written too. There was enough ambiguity between the last two sentences about the incident to make one wonder what happened between those two moments. Is this the reason there is only one officer making the report? If more than one officer were to make a report, would there be different stories? Everything is a matter of perspective and interpretation.

            This ability to interpret starts when we were young and being read our first stories. Eventually, we begin to read them on our own. Their narratives and their tropes become familiar. So, after years of reading and witnessing stories, this art of fiction is ingrained in us. Take for instance reality television, which has become a prevalent fixture. It is purely constructed, and hardly real at all. There’s no veracity in the vérité. And, yet, the public gravitate to it. This could explain the acceptance of fictional memoirs. It’s as if we’ve become sanitized to what truth is, as long as your story makes us think, feel, or understand something.

            Or did it really matter what the truth was in the first place? Fiction may not be real, and may not be true, but it lives around us, with us, in us. It’s a part of us, and imparts those universal truths, which help us to understand something about the world and our place in it.

Which Classic Literary Character Are You?

Which Classic Literary Character Are You?
http://www.playbuzz.com/gretab10/which-classic-literary-character-are-you

Sweet Emotion: ‘Atonement’ Characters Upon Reading

            A 2013 Emory University study revealed reading improves language and motor skills for up to five days after reading. It also discovered subjects were able to remember things better, perhaps due to more blood (i.e. oxygen) being funneled to the brain, especially when a narrative arc is involved. This triggers “mirror neurons,” which enable the reader to relate to and empathize with the characters. Additionally, reading about a character’s actions requires the same neural activity in the reader as actually performing the same task. Would this be the same for the characters in story if they read? A look at several characters in “Atonement” suggests they have emotional, and sometimes, physical responses to their readings.

            Briony’s first critical read for “The Trials of Arabella” comes courtesy of her mother, Emily Tallis, who displays looks of “alarm”, and “snickers of glee” later, followed by “grateful smiles” and “affirming nods” which all indicate she enjoyed the play, even giving it a “stupendous” review. Mrs. Tallis’ reactions to the tale of misfortune turned love story follow the arc of the play accordingly. “The Trials of Arabella” also foreshadows much of the narrative for “Atonement” itself.

             

            Though she is not reading at the time, Robbie asks Cecilia how she her reading of “Clarissa” is going. When Cecilia responds “boring,” the novel's narrative inertia reflects her own ennui. But, Robbie, who is rolling a cigarette for Cecilia, prods her to keep reading, that “it gets better.” This makes Cecilia think Robbie can detect “her taste for the full-bodied and sensual,” just prior to him offering and lighting her cigarette. While Cecilia is a proxy for the lead in “Clarissa,” there is no doubt this encounter literally ignites the sexual dynamic between Robbie and Cecilia.

            The sexual motif is further amplified when Robbie begins to write the cursed note to Cecilia. At first he jokes, “I don’t think I can blame the heat.”  Even the mere thought of seeing “Grey’s Anatomy,” after years of studying it, arouses Robbie to fantasize about Cecilia. He types more versions of the note with the book opened to the inflammatory page.

            Later, Robbie hands the note to Briony for delivery to Cecilia. A compulsion to “know everything” leads Briony to read the note. Upon reading it, she feels threatened and “immediately sens[es] the danger contained in such crudity.”  The “order of their household” is in jeopardy, as well as Briony’s own longing for Robbie.

            These passages are short hand for the narrative conflict and illustrate the dynamic between the three main characters, who will each endure personal adversity when they leave the country estate.  It is fascinating to find within these few simple passages that even characters in a novel are swept by emotions and physical stirrings when they read.