I’m sure we’ve all turned to books in times of need, whether for advice and support or simply for comfort and distraction from the realities of life. 100 Books to Live By is Joseph Piercy’s guide to the books he believes can help with various problems and difficult situations. It’s part of a planned series from Michael O’Mara Books which will also include 100 Poems to Live By and 100 Speeches to Live By.
After an introduction in which Piercy describes the meaning of bibliotherapy – “the practice of using literature as a tool for emotional and psychological healing” – he then provides his 100 recommendations, prefacing each one with the condition or situation it is intended to remedy. Processing a Divorce, Questioning One’s Faith/Sexuality, Feeling Lost in the World, Learning Lessons from the Past and Valuing Friendship are just a few examples. Following each ‘prescription’, we are given one or two alternative remedies – just in case our TBR wasn’t already long enough!
Many of the books recommended here are classics from the 19th and 20th centuries, but Piercy does also include some contemporary titles and translated works to add variety and diversity. Sometimes the book suggestion seems an obvious match for the condition it’s remedying, such as Wuthering Heights for the Perils of Forbidden Love and the Folly of Vengeance or As I Lay Dying for Facing the Inevitability of Death, but other times I was surprised by the choice of book. Piercy explains his reasons for his decisions and you can see that a lot of thought has gone into choosing appropriate books, but be aware that although he does usually avoid giving away major plot points, if you haven’t already read the book you may come across things you would prefer not to know.
As well as the specific ‘prescriptions’ and ‘remedies’, Piercy also includes books he describes as ‘medicine cabinet essentials’ – in other words, they cover several different problems and issues. Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings are some examples of these. His discussion of each book is very short, usually just a page or two, and I think if you were hoping for a more in-depth analysis of bibliotherapy you would need to look elsewhere, but this is a quick, fun read and I can almost guarantee you’ll end up with a long list of titles you can’t wait to explore!
Thanks to Michael O’Mara Limited for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.
She Reads Novels 
That sounds like FUN. It might also help me decide on which book(s) to read next – always a problem for me! I’ll look out for it.
Yes, it can be hard to decide on your next read, especially when there’s always so much choice! This book gave me lots of ideas for future reading.
Sounds slightly similar to de Botton’s “Consolations of Philosophy” in which he looks at Seneca for advice on anger, etc.
I haven’t read that one, but yes, it sounds like a similar idea.
This would be a fun read just to see the 100 books he chooses. Were most of the books ones you’d read?
I’ve only read 28 of them! I would like to read a lot of the others, though.
I’d possibly skim this for measured assessments as to what to consider reading, but I wonder if we dedicated readers are the target audience?
I think it’s probably aimed at a more casual reader, but having said that, I’ve read less than a third of the books he mentions, so still got some ideas for future reading!
I started this but I’m afraid didn’t finish / skimmed it from part-way through. It did rely on big classics – would you really send a friend who was about to make an unwise marital choice Middlemarch to read? I did like that he included some more modern and diverse books but I didn’t find much new in it.
Yes, some of his choices were a bit odd!