Reading books seems to be more effective than listening to music, or walking, when it comes to reducing stress.
Reading worked best, reducing stress levels by 68 per cent, said cognitive neuropsychologist Dr David Lewis. Subjects only needed to read, silently, for six minutes to slow down the heart rate and ease tension in the [...]

While many latter-day historians may be a fine job of researching history, they have lost the knack of story telling, or writing in a way that history students find engaging or readable.
Most people, it seems, are not interested in reading history, at least not the history written by academic historians. Although some blame this [...]

A new edition of William Golding’s classic novel “Lord of the Flies” featuring the illustration work of Sam Weber, is to be published next month.

Why are the books of Charles Dickens still part of many of today’s school curriculums, almost 140 years after he died?
These are all wonderful reasons to read Dickens. But these are not exactly the reasons why I read Dickens. My search for an answer continued but never with success, until one year the little [...]

Titles covering politics, shooting stars, and Einstein’s E=MC2 equation, are among suggestions on Seed Magazine’s August “Books to Read Now” list.
And as an aside, yes, it’s August already.

13 titles make it onto this year’s Booker Prize long list. The narrowed down “short list” featuring just six titles will be announced in a month or so.

61 essential postmodern reads: but now to answer the question, how exactly do you decide what is a postmodern book?
The thing about postmodernism is it’s impossible to pin down exactly what might make a book postmodern. In looking at the attributes of the essential postmodern reads, we found some were downright contradictory. Postmodern books have [...]

Reading hasn’t always been the silent, solitary, activity that many of us are probably used to.
The development of the way people have read mirrors the pattern of a child’s learning. In the ancient world, they read out loud and in company. In the Middle Ages, monks in their scriptoria would murmur quietly to themselves as [...]

The cover of the latest print edition of Opium Magazine has been printed with special inks, that if left exposed to sunlight, will over the next one thousand years reveal a nine word short story.
The printing process in question is a simple but, as usual with Keats, pretty clever idea. The cover is printed [...]

Movies to See Alone. In much the same way that novels can only be enjoyed alone (reading is after all a solitary experience), there are also occasions when movies are best viewed alone.
People who really love movies, and from time to time I am one of them, are always trying to get that [...]