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"Fascinating. . . . It blew my mind!" -- Malcolm Gladwell

"If Wonderworks had been around then, I would have sat my son down and read Angus Fletcher’s exploration of the history and the psychology of literature to him, word by word. . . . I hope it will convince others that there are benefits and pleasures that you can get from literature that are unique and valuable." -- Jane Smiley ― The Guardian

"I'm totally obsessed with Wonderworks. It swallowed me whole." -- Bren? Brown, "Unlocking Us with Bren? Brown," Parcast Network

"An intelligent, engaged and erudite attempt to neurologically tackle not just some abstract and simplified 'story', but some of the world’s greatest narratives, from the Iliad to Dream of the Red Chamber, from Disney’s Up to the novels of Elena Ferrante. It speaks to the inner reader in us all, as well as to the inner neurologist." -- Simon Ings ― New Scientist

“Angus Fletcher is that rare critic who actually has something to say, who grabs us by the collar and hopes to shake sense into us. This may be one of the most important and truly useful books about literature written in the past decade. It opens a vista into reading that regards writing as a kind of continual experiment in human and societal engineering. That Wonderworks deserves a wide audience goes without saying. It’s refreshing and remarkable on so many levels.”

-- Jay Parini, author of Borges and Me: An Encounter

"If you are interested in both writing and science this is an unmissable book. . . . Fresh and inspiring."
-- Brian Clegg ― Popular Science

"Reading good books doesn’t just entertain us; it teaches us how to better use our brains and our emotions, as this lively treatise tells us . . . An idiosyncratic, richly detailed, often lyrical invitation to reconsider how and why to read literature." ― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Aristotle’s Poetics was new and brave but was left incomplete. Angus Fletcher finishes it in Wonderworks with some help from contemporary science and an abundance of penetrating analyses. Fletcher endorses storytelling as a foundational technology but he goes beyond that to illustrate its therapeutic value and centrality to cultural invention. Wonderworks is the perfect counter to our season in hell.” -- Antonio Damasio, author of The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling and the Making of Cultures; Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California

“Find one polymath. Take a profound knowledge of world literature. Add a deep knowledge of modern psychology and of neuroscience. Add a cupful of worldly wisdom. Stir in an enchanting prose style. Heat until bubbling. You have just baked a unique, marvelous treat: Angus Fletcher’s Wonderworks.”

-- Martin Seligman, author of The Hope Circuit and Learned Optimism; Professor of Psychology and Director of the Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania

“Drawing upon insights from neuroscience and evolutionary biology, an expert in the art of storytelling explains why literature matters by showing, through lucid examples, the myriad ways that literature’s bag of tricks works with and for our minds. Anyone who has experienced wonder in an encounter with literature will profit from this wise and clever book.” -- Lawrence Manley, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English, Yale University

"Innovative . . . A fresh take on the history of literature and a testament to the enduring power of reading." ― Publishers Weekly

Chapter Page
Preface 1
A Heaven of Invention
Introduction 13
The Lost Technology
Chapter 1 Rally Your Courage 29
Homer's Iliad and the Invention of the Almighty Heart
Chapter 2 Rekindle the Romance 43
Sappho's Lyrics, the Odes of Eastern Zhou, and the Invention of the Secret Discloser
Chapter 3 Exit Anger 57
The Book of Job, Sophocles's Oedipus Tyrannus, and the Invention of the Empathy Generator
Chapter 4 Float Above Hurt 71
Aesop's Fables, Plato's Meno, and the Invention of the Serenity Elevator
Chapter 5 Excite Your Curiosity 83
The Epic of Sundiata, the Modern Thriller, and the Invention of the Tale Told from Our Future
Chapter 6 Free Your Mind 97
Dante's Inferno, Machiavelli's Innovatori, and the Invention of the Vigilance Trigger
Chapter 7 Jettison Your Pessimism 107
Giovanni Straparola, the Original Cinderella, and the Invention of the Fairy-tale Twist
Chapter 8 Heal from Grief 125
Shakespeare's Hamlet and the Invention of the Sorrow Resolver
Chapter 9 Banish Despair 139
John Donne's "Songs" and the Invention of the Mind-Eye Opener
Chapter 10 Achieve Self-Acceptance 153
Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber, Zhuangzi's "Tale of Wonton," and the Invention of the Butterfly Immerser
Chapter 11 Ward Off Heartbreak 167
Jane Austen, Henry Fielding, and the Invention of the Valentine Armor
Chapter 12 Energize Your Life 183
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Modern Meta-Horror, and the Invention of the Stress Transformer
Chapter 13 Solve Every Mystery 195
Francis Bacon, Edgar Allan Foe, and the Invention of the Virtual Scientist
Chapter 14 Become Your Better Self 211
Frederick Douglass, Saint Augustine, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the Invention of the Life Evolver
Chapter 15 Bounce Back from Failure 227
George Eliot's Middlemarch and the Invention of the Gratitude Multiplier
Chapter 16 Clear Your Head 241
"Rashomon," Julius Caesar, and the Invention of the Second Look
Chapter 17 Find Peace of Mind 251
Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and the Invention of the Riverbank of Consciousness
Chapter 18 Feed Your Creativity 273
Winnie-the-Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, and the Invention of the Anarchy Rhymer
Chapter 19 Unlock Salvation 287
To Kill a Mockingbird, Shakespeare's Soliloquy Breakthrough, and the Invention of the Humanity Connector
Chapter 20 Renew Your Future 301
Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, and the Invention of the Revolution Rediscovery
Chapter 21 Decide Wiser 311
Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, Thomas More's Utopia, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and the Invention of the Double Alien
Chapter 22 Believe in Yourself 327
Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the Invention of the Choose Your Own Accomplice
Chapter 23 Unfreeze Your Heart 341
Alison Bechdel, Euripides, Samuel Beckett, T. S. Eliot, and the Invention of the Clinical Joy
Chapter 24 Live Your Dream 353
Tina Fey's 30 Rock, a Dash of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," and the Invention of the Wish Triumphant
Chapter 25 Lessen Your Lonely 367
Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, Mario Puzo's The Godfather, and the Invention of the Childhood Opera
Conclusion 387
Inventing Tomorrow
Coda 391
The Secret History of This Book
Acknowledgments 401
Notes on Translations, Sources, and Further Reading 403
Index 423

This “fascinating” (Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times bestselling author of Outliers) examination of literary inventions through the ages, from ancient Mesopotamia to Elena Ferrante, shows how writers have created technical breakthroughs?rivaling scientific inventions?and engineering enhancements to the human heart and mind.

Literature is a technology like any other. And the writers we revere?from Homer, Shakespeare, Austen, and others?each made a unique technical breakthrough that can be viewed as both a narrative and neuroscientific advancement. Literature’s great invention was to address problems we could not solve: not how to start a fire or build a boat, but how to live and love; how to maintain courage in the face of death; how to account for the fact that we exist at all.

Wonderworks reviews the blueprints for twenty-five of the most significant developments in the history of literature. These inventions can be scientifically shown to alleviate grief, trauma, loneliness, anxiety, numbness, depression, pessimism, and ennui, while sparking creativity, courage, love, empathy, hope, joy, and positive change. They can be found throughout literature?from ancient Chinese lyrics to Shakespeare’s plays, poetry to nursery rhymes and fairy tales, and crime novels to slave narratives.

A “refreshing and remarkable” (Jay Parini, author of Borges and Me: An Encounter) exploration of the new literary field of story science, Wonderworks teaches you everything you wish you learned in your English class, and “contains many instances of critical insight....What’s most interesting about this compendium is its understanding of imaginative representation as a technology” (The New York Times).