Reported in today's Sydney Morning Herald:
'PUT down those self-help books, ditch the trashy novels and read the greatest writers in the English language if you need a lift. The works of Shakespeare and Wordsworth are ''rocket-boosters'' to the brain and better therapy than self-improvement guides, researchers have discovered..................
............ The research also found that poetry, in particular, increased activity in the right hemisphere of the brain, an area concerned with ''autobiographical memory'', helping the reader to reflect on and reappraise their own experiences in light of what they had read. The academics said this meant the classics were more useful than self-help books.
.............. Serious literature acts like a rocket-booster to the brain. The research shows the power of literature to shift mental pathways, to create new thoughts, shapes and connections in the young and the staid alike
Sydney Morning Herald, 14 Jan 2013