Welcome to my Bibliotherapy Blog. Ever since I was a child, I have loved reading books and immersing myself in a story. Throughout the years, I have come across various writings which have impacted me greatly, and I want to start sharing them in this blog.
Stories affect us all in different ways. I believe it is due to our individual life experiences that one story will resonate more with us than another – we may feel comforted, or we may be deeply moved. Perhaps some stories feel too much like our own painful past that we cannot bear to read them until the end. Sometimes it can puzzle and perhaps disappoint us to realise that a story which has affected us deeply may leave our closest friend unaffected – and yet it is perhaps not surprising, given our varied pasts and our different life stories.
I think the experience of reading or listening to a special piece of writing can leave us changed. Stories can open our horizons, invite us to look at life from a different perspective. For this reason, I think some stories can be very therapeutic. This is not a new concept, and the term ‘bibliotherapy’ is not a new one. But everyone is different and every story is different, even from one language to another. Here are the writings that have changed me, and I am curious to find out if and how they have changed you.
Disclaimer: What you are reading are my personal reflections on writings. They are by no means academic analyses and may, in fact, differ vastly from what the great thinkers of the literary world believe. So, if you stumbled on this blog while facing a deadline for an essay for your literature course, please do not take my reflections as gospel.