Authors Electric

                                                                                   There's a cool web of language winds us in.                                          Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:                                          We grow sea-green at last and coldly die                                          In brininess and volubility. (Robert Graves) What would Jill have said?   This is what the members of our poetry group now ask during ou...

Reading for Healing   In January this year I met author, Bijal Shah, on Zoom to discuss  Bibliotherapy: the healing power of reading  which was soon to be published. For an hour we discussed her book and my interest in bibliotherapy, and she agreed to send a copy for me to review. As my AuthorsElectric readers know I have written a number of pieces on the subject in the past so here goes:    I had originally encountered Bijal through a course called "Book Therapy" that had appeared online in the midst of the pandemic lockdown of 2020 and which my wife, had bought for me as an Xmas present. Bijal’s course was linked to a thesis by Kelda Green who had investigated the link between Seneca, and Stoicism and modern psychological therapies. Kelda Green had connected these to the writings of a variety of classical authors, particularly George Eliot and Wordsworth. The work of both writers had been invaluable aids to me at various points in my life and, as I sat at...