The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You (15 page)

I
f you lived on a planet as small as the Little Prince’s planet, Asteroid B-612—so small that if you took a herd of elephants there you’d have to pile them on top of one another; so small that you’d have to take great care, after you’d finished washing and dressing each morning, to dig out any baobab shoots that had appeared overnight lest they take over your planet; so small that one day you watched the sunset forty-four times, just by moving your chair—you’d be living a simple life that would instill in you the habit of carefulness. You would water the one flower that grew on your planet every day, and never forget. You would take the trouble, before you went away on a trip,
to rake out your volcanoes, even the extinct one. Because you would know that it’s the time and care you spend on things that make them important. And if you didn’t take this care, you’d wake up one day to find that everything around you was sad, feeling as unimportant as you made it feel.

Whatever the size of your planet when you begin reading
The Little Prince
, we guarantee it will have shrunk and become much more like Asteroid B-612 by the end. And afterward you will live your life with more care.

See also:
Risks, taking too many
•
Selfishness

Under the Skin

MICHEL FABER

W
hen you pass by those fields in the springtime, do you see frolicking lambs or do you see so many Sunday roasts? Or an uncomfortable collision of the two? Whatever your take on the consumption of animal protein—whatever your religious, political, or ethical stance—this novel will shatter any veneer you might have conveniently placed between yourself and the slab of meat on your plate.

To reveal exactly why Michel Faber’s genre-defying novel is a cure for eating meat would be to spoil the delicious pleasure of savoring it. But we can hint. The unforgiving beauty of the Scottish landscape, with its “glimpses of rain two or three mountains away,” is the only uplifting feature in the deeply disturbing events that unfold. Isserley is an attractive but strange woman who spends her days driving around the countryside. Her job is mysterious, but seems to involve picking up hitchhikers, and her car has been specially adapted for her duties. Disconcertingly, Isserley herself is uncomfortable in her car seat and travels with the heat turned incredibly high. And the people she lives with seem afraid of her.

Essential reading for anyone debating the ethics of the food they eat, for those considering shacking up with a vegetarian and wishing to avoid culinary conflict, or for those who suffer spasms of guilt whenever they bite into what was once a cute, fluffy, innocent creature,
Under the Skin
will continue to live with you long after you finish the final page—and long after you have learned to love tofu.

I
f you suffer from carsickness, hop out and take the train instead. Train journeys offer unparalleled opportunities for immersing yourself in a book. When else does one have a guilt-free few hours to do nothing but read in the anonymous company of other readers and with an ever changing view out the window? Trains are beloved of writers too, it seems, whisking characters off as they do to unknown futures. And there’s always the chance of an unexpected liaison en route . . .

See also:
Nausea

Possession
A. S. BYATT

Murder on the Orient Express
AGATHA CHRISTIE

Stamboul Train
GRAHAM GREENE

Love on a Branch Line
JOHN HADFIELD

The Great Fire
SHIRLEY HAZZARD

Strangers on a Train
PATRICIA HIGHSMITH

Mr. Norris Changes Trains
CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD

The Railway Children
EDITH NESBIT

The Train
GEORGES SIMENON

The Wheel Spins
ETHEL LINA WHITE

Empire Falls

RICHARD RUSSO

A
re you one of those people who will put up with almost anything rather than shake up your routine? Do you rationalize reasons to stay in a horrible job? Do you soldier on in a marriage that features endless bickering and joylessness? Do you ignore the irritations of living in a collapsing flat but make no plans to move out? You are not alone. Tolerating less than ideal circumstances has been humanity’s default
setting since long before Hamlet pondered the virtue of bearing those ills he had rather than fly to others he knew not of. But as scary as it is to contemplate change, avoiding it bears its own dangers. Chew on this thought as you read Richard Russo’s beautiful and forgiving novel
Empire Falls
, about a man in a washed-up industrial town in Maine who, rather than attempt to improve his lot, lets life get away from him.

As a boy, Miles Roby was ambitious and resolved to escape his depressing blue-collar village. But when he’s away at college and his mother gets sick, he dutifully drops out and returns home to run the family business, the Empire Grill. Mrs. Whiting, a rich, manipulative old local woman, owns part of the grill; early on, impressed by Miles’s conscientiousness, she promises to bequeath him her share. But under Miles’s stewardship, the diner, which was “never terribly profitable,” goes into a “long, gentle decline almost imperceptible without the benefit of time-lapse photography.” When the diner starts losing money, Miles, now in middle age, faces losing everything. Mrs. Whiting threatens to alter her will, and Miles’s energetic wife has tired of his paralysis and found a way to evolve. Life is changing around Miles, whether he wants it to or not. By staying in place, he risks being left behind.

If, like Miles, “surviving not thriving” is pretty much your MO, let
Empire Falls
suffuse you with a rueful understanding of the perils of inertia. Don’t let life happen to you. To survive
and
thrive, take a proactive role in what happens next.

See also:
Control freak, being a
•
Single-mindedness

See:
Adultery

The Birth of Love

JOANNA KAVENNA

I
f you’re facing the great unknown of childbirth for the first time, you’re probably keen to prepare yourself mentally. You may have the urge to ask anyone who looks like a mother what it entails and how it feels, and for any tips on how to get
through it with minimum pain and maximum joy. But anyone who has given birth knows that it is almost impossible to convey the experience, as it is, by its nature, unique every time. For a less didactic approach than the latest pregnancy manual, women on the verge of delivering are encouraged to turn to fiction to find out what it’s all about. Besides, it’s a great time to rest on the sofa with a good novel (see: Pregnancy).

The Birth of Love
by Joanna Kavenna tackles head-on the varied nature of childbirth through four interweaving stories. In the present, Brigid is going through her second labor. As we accompany her through ever agonizing contractions all the way to an eventual C-section, we watch her dream of a home birth shatter. In the past is real-life scientist Ignaz Semmelweis, struggling to hold on to his sanity in a Viennese asylum after coming to the horrifying realization that the high rate of “childbed fever” fatalities could have been prevented if only the doctors had washed their hands before examining their patients. Michael Stone, a novelist telling Semmelweis’s story, goes through his own version of birthing pangs as he watches his first novel,
The Moon
, go out into the world to stand or fall on its own merits. And in a laboratory of the future, Darwin C, where people are kept and bred in cells, their wombs closed off and their eggs harvested at the age of eighteen, a female escapee successfully manages to bear a child in the natural way.

Giving birth—or watching a partner give birth—is perhaps the closest any of us will get to witnessing a miracle. Read this novel to prepare yourself for the intensity of the experience, but also so you can appreciate doing it amid the high hygiene standards of today. Kavenna’s graphic and vivid storytelling does not spare the squeamish, but it will remind you that, the minute your baby has arrived, you’ll be so swept away on a tidal wave of love that you’ll forget all the pains of pregnancy at once. Giving birth is a physical, messy, joyous, and agonizing affair, and
The Birth of Love
will help you live the experience to the fullest.