The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You by Ella Berthoud, Susan Elderkin

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    Looking after someone with cancer is difficult, both practically and emotionally. For a start, isolate the emotion you battle with most, and see, for instance: Grumpiness; Guilt; Empathy, lack of; Anxiety; Sadness; Stress; and Worry. These novels will help you to stand back from your particular experience and see that others have been there too. And they’ll remind you that being gentle on yourself is just as important as caring for your loved one.
    See also:
Busy, being too • Cope, inability to • Tired and emotional, being • Waiting room, being in a
CANCER, HAVING
    W hen you’re sitting through chemo, when you’re feeling weak, when your brain refuses to work, when you haven’t the strength for company . . . what you need is a short and perfectly formed piece of prose.
    See also:
Hospital, being in the • Pain, being in • Waiting room, being in a
THE TEN BEST NOVELLAS
    To the Wedding
JOHN BERGER
    Breakfast at Tiffany’s
TRUMAN CAPOTE
    Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
PHILIP K. DICK
    A Simple Heart
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
    Tinkers
PAUL HARDING
    Daisy Miller
HENRY JAMES
    Train Dreams
DENIS JOHNSON
    An Imaginary Life
DAVID MALOUF
    Flush
VIRGINIA WOOLF
CAREER, BEING IN THE WRONG
    The Sisters Brothers
    PATRICK DEWITT
    I t’s no small thing to change career when you suspect you’re in the wrong one. For a start, you’re probably too exhausted from doing your current job to have much time to figure out what you could be doing instead. And the thought of all those years of training and experience going down the drain makes you feel faint. As does kissing that nice silver Audi good-bye. As does the thought of the expression on your partner’s face when you let drop that you’ve had enough of your lucrative career and fancy opening a hat shop instead.
    It would spoil one of the many delightful sentences in this unputdownable novel to divulge the exact line of work the brothers Charlie and Eli Sisters are engaged in. But suffice it to say it is not an easy one to get out of alive. Set during the crazed days of the California gold rush, younger brother Eli starts to admit to himself that he is ill suited to his profession after passing through a doorway around which a hairless old crone with blackened teeth has hung a string of beads—the sure sign of a hex. The beads may or may not have anything to do with it, but from that point on, Eli finds himself increasingly ashamed of who he is and what he does, and develops a tendency to make decisions that surprise his unsentimental elder brother (see:Sibling rivalry). When Providence offers him a fine, strong black horse, he rejects it in order to remain loyal to his trusty Tub, a dangerously slow ride and blind in one eye. Soon he is giving his money away to strangers, newly aware of its power to corrupt.
    When he comes into contact with Hermann Kermit Warm, a man who has allowed his own interests and ingenuity—plus a desire for honest friendship—to lead him to work he is passionate about, he is filled with admiration and envy. As he watches Hermann reap the benefits, both monetary and spiritual, of his labors, Eli has his Damascene moment. Initiating a shift in the balance of power between himself and his domineering older brother, he persuades Charlie that they should join Warm in his work. Then Eli experiences a moment of pure ecstasy, partly because the physical nature of the work is so pleasant (standing in a river in dappled sun, with a warm wind “pushing down from the valley”), and partly because he is being himself—a self he likes.
    Stand with Eli in that river and take inspiration from Hermann Warm. If you, too, could find a way of earning money that brought you spiritual as well as financial rewards—and allowed you to spend your days full of joy—what would it be?
    See also:
Dissatisfaction • Monday morning feeling • Seize the day, failure to • Stuck in a rut
CARELESSNESS
    The Little Prince
    ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY
    I f you lived on a