If you’re in a rut of any sort, the BBC Culture website has a novel (no pun intended) approach to solving life’s problems. Their Textual Healing site is a literary twist on the agony aunt column. People are writing in with their problems and getting a reading list to help them with their woes. Books are suggested to help with loneliness, unhappy families and lovesickness. 
There are some good tips in there so it’s worth a look even if you’re feeling great.
In 2013, psychologists at the New School for Social Research found that literary fiction enhanced people’s ability to register and read others’ emotions.
As the site says “They may not promise transformation in seven easy steps, but gripping novels can inform and motivate, short stories can console and trigger self-reflection, and poetry has been shown to engage parts of the brain linked to memory. Sometimes an author helps by simply taking your mind off a problem, immersing you so fully in another’s world and outlook that you transcend yourself, returning recharged and determined.”
So is it time to give yourself a fresh start or make a decision? A good book might help. At the very least, you’ll discover some great new titles. A great new approach, read yourself happy, read to cure lovesickness or even read to help you commit (I hope that’s not the crime genre!).
