by Nicola Morgan | November, 2021 | Book Review, Nicola Morgan
Welcome to the new series of Positive Psychology Book Club! Each month I will review a fairly recent work of modern contemporary fiction through a positive psychology lens – announcing the book we are reading and giving you a month to read it in advance. However, as this one has turned up unannounced not having told you of these plots and plans afoot, here is how this will work. As this is Month One, I have chosen a book that a lot of people will have read and if not read – seen one of the many adaptations. For the uninitiated, I do provide a brief outline. Every month I will suggest a work of modern fiction to read and at the end of that month, we consider it from a positive psychology perspective. ‘One sheds one’s sickness in books – repeats and presents again one’s emotions, to be the master of them’ – DH Lawrence (The Letters of DH Lawrence) The overlap between reading fiction and PP Yes, we are talking ‘emotional mastery’! That kind of psychological dexterity – to know and recognise our own emotions and to gain understanding and insight of them rather than be led by them entirely. To be mindful and to exercise self-compassion. These are some of the many aims of Positive Psychology. There are, however, more layers to this exercise than that as further we consider some of the major concepts in PP and how these relate to the novel; what it could mean to you in terms of hope, strengths, meaning, or even just the positive emotions of enjoying the process....
