About the Book

Humans live in landscapes of make believe: we spin fantasies, we devour novels, films, and plays--even our sporting events and criminal trials unfold as narratives. Yet the world of story has long remained an undiscovered and unmapped country. It's easy to say that humans are "wired" for story, but "why"? Jonathan Gottschall shows how explorers from the sciences and humanities are using new tools, new ways of thinking, to solve the riddle of fiction. In this delightful and original book, he offers the first unified theory of storytelling. Gottschall argues that stories are a way of rehearsing life's complex problems (studies show that people who read fiction are more empathetic). He explores the deep pattern in children's make-believe, and what that reveals about story's prehistoric origins. He shows how a story was partly responsible for the Holocaust, how schizophrenia is an example of the story mind run amok, and how all successful fiction is inherently moral. In doing so, he answers a question central to our existence: What does it mean to be a storytelling animal?

Product Details

Media: Hardcover Book, 272 pages

Language: English

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

Edition: Unknown

ISBN-10: 0547391404

Publication Date: Apr. 10th, 2012

ISBN-13: 9780547391403

Dimensions: 5.40 x 8.50 x 0.90 inches

Shipping Weight: 0.80 lbs

• Categories: and Reading Literary Criticism Evolution General Popular Culture Social Science