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‘Close reading, as practised in this admirable book, will help us escape from habitual ways of thinking, make us suspicious of easily arrived at certainties and widen our sympathies. Readers, being also citizens, will thus be strengthened in the everyday struggle against fake news and downright lies.’ —David Constantine, Writer and Translator

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‘A highly valuable, timely and scholarly contribution to the current debate around the therapeutic power of literary reading. The book distinctively recovers a tradition of “bibliotherapy” in Western literature and culture as the basis for an empirically tested blueprint of literature-as-therapy for modern-day readers. Serious writing about serious reading.’ —Josie Billington, Professor, Department of English Literature, University of Liverpool, UK

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