Books for Every Mood

Suggestions for therapeutic reading.

In his taut, eloquent introduction to The Journals of John Cheever, the author’s son Ben recalls that his father “used to say that a fine piece of prose could not only cure a depression, it could clear up a sinus headache.” Such allusion to the medicinal benefits of good writing made me think of a passage in Christopher Morley’s 1919 novel, The Haunted Bookshop, the second of two delightful adventures that feature bookseller Roger Mifflin as protagonist. In the passage in question, Mifflin offers insight into the therapeutic application of his professional skills via a placard posted on a bulletin board among a collection of “clippings, announcements, circulars, and little notices written on cards in a small neat script.”

RX

If your mind needs phosphorus, try Trivia, by Logan Pearsall Smith.

If your mind needs a whiff of strong air, blue and cleansing, from hilltops and primrose valleys, try The Story of My Heart, by Richard Jefferies.

If your mind needs a tonic of iron and wine, and a thorough rough-and-tumbling, try Samuel Butler’s Notebooks or The Man Who Was Thursday, by Chesterton.

If you need “all manner of Irish,” and a relapse into irresponsible freakishness, try The Demi-Gods, by James Stephens. It is a better book than one deserves or expects.

It’s a good thing to turn your mind upside down now and then, like an hour-glass, to let the particles run the other way.

Such faith in the power of books is, despite the very real diversion delivered by the novel’s capering plot, the animating spirit of The Haunted Bookshop. “I can see just by looking at you that your mind is ill for lack of books but you are blissfully unaware of it!” says Mifflin at one point, as he sets about writing a prescription. 

Those of us who are inveterate readers, of course, have well-stocked shelves of elixirs, stimulants, palliatives, and consolations, and trust that there’s a book for every mood.  I had fun with this idea in the 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die Page-A-Day Calendar for 2020 in a feature called “Books for Every Mood.” Below, I’ve posted some examples, including a couple of previews from the 2021 edition of the calendar (which, by the way, goes on sale in August).

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Calendar blocks excerpted from 2020 and 2021 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die Page-A-Day Calendars by James Mustich. Copyright James Mustich. Published by Workman Publishing.