The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human [Paperback] Author: Jonathan Gottschall | Language: English | ISBN:
0544002342 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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A New York Times Editor's Choice
A Los Angeles Times Book Prizes Finalist
"A jaunty, insightful new book . . . [that] draws from disparate corners of history and science to celebrate our compulsion to storify everything around us."
--New York Times
Humans live in landscapes of make-believe. We spin fantasies. We devour novels, films, and plays. Even sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. Now Jonathan Gottschall offers the first unified theory of storytelling. He argues that stories help us navigate life's complex social problems--just as flight simulators prepare pilots for difficult situations. Storytelling has evolved, like other behaviors, to ensure our survival. Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Gottschall tells us what it means to be a storytelling animal and explains how stories can change the world for the better. We know we are master shapers of story. The Storytelling Animal finally reveals how stories shape us.
"This is a quite wonderful book. It grips the reader with both stories and stories about the telling of stories, then pulls it all together to explain why storytelling is a fundamental human instinct."
--Edward O. Wilson
"Charms with anecdotes and examples . . . we have not left nor should we ever leave Neverland."--Cleveland Plain Dealer
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- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (April 23, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0544002342
- ISBN-13: 978-0544002340
- Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
First, the short version: Excellent book on the power of story. Fascinating and insightful, a must read if you have any interest at all in the subject matter. One of the best books I have read in a long time . . . fresh, original, and enlightening.
Now the long version: The Storytelling Animal is a fascinating account of the power of story. The author has included many original anecdotes and drawn from hundreds of sources to create a compelling account of how stories make us human.
Each chapter covers a different aspect of this strange phenomenon, from dreams to memoirs to the future of storytelling.
* The Witchery of Story: This chapter is covers the power of story throughout history, geography, and our daily life. The quote that begins the chapter is one of my favorites:
"Lord! When you sell a man a book you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, in a real book I mean." Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels.
* The Riddle of Fiction: Why do we need story? What drives us, what sense does it make? While I did not agree with everything the author concludes here, the theories he presents are insightful. The account he gives of children and the pretend play they engage in is well worth reading, one of my favorite parts of the book.
Hell Is Story-Friendly: Why do we crave stories with trouble in them?
"Stories the world over are almost always about people (or personified animals) with problems. the people want something badly - to survive, to win the girl or the boy, to find a lost child. But big obstacles loom between the protagonists and what they want.
As both a nonfiction author and a bestselling novelist, I've pondered certain puzzles for decades.
Why do people find certain ideologies and philosophies appealing, but not others? Why do we so often hold to our points of view dogmatically, intractable to all facts, reason, and logic? What is the source of dreams? Why do certain common myths seem to be indelible and universal, across cultures and throughout history? Why does music conjure in us mental imagery? What is the key to the kind of motivational commitment that impels some people to face and triumph over incredible odds and obstacles? Why do we find certain people, at first glance, overpoweringly attractive, and others repulsive? Why do we love some books and movies, and hate others?
These and many other mysteries of the human mind and personality are central to the concerns of the artist, psychologist, historian, or person plying any field of communication or persuasion. But is there anything that links together all of these seemingly disparate things?
In this brilliant and engrossing book, Jonathan Gottschall reveals the central, essential, and seminal role played by STORY -- or "Narrative" -- in human thought, action, and culture. Moving with seemingly effortless creative ease from riveting personal anecdotes to abstract sociological theories, from baffling historical phenomena to intriguing psychological experiments, Gottschall offers a key to understanding much that has baffled man throughout the ages.
For decades, I had believed that philosophical ideas and ideologies reigned supreme in the culture; but over time, events and experience began to collide with that assumption.
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