by Nora Vasconcelos As soon as this year started, I saw many posts on social media asking people “How many books are you going to read this year?“, I also saw some other posts inviting readers to join reading challenges to be fulfilled by the end of 2023, so they would finish certain amount of books through the year. Many people responded with enthusism, and I think it’s good, anything that invites people to read is great, but then I also remembered how much I enjoyed the books I read last year, and how much books helped me get through to the longest and worst part of the pandemic lockdowns ..read more

A. and I. Kruk/Shutterstock.com Michael Smith, Northumbria University, Newcastle Writing about positive emotions may help to reduce stress and anxiety, according to our new study, published in the British Journal of Health Psychology. Earlier research has also found that writing about negative emotions – getting things “off your chest” – can improve your mental health. And it seems to benefit physical health, too. Stress affects your physical health, so it is thought that improvements in mental well-being might stop people becoming physically unwell. Research has shown that writing about negat ..read more

Any kind of writing can help. Yulia Grigoryeva/ Shutterstock Christina Thatcher, Cardiff Metropolitan University Ernest Hemingway famously said that writers should “write hard and clear about what hurts”. Although Hemingway may not have known it at the time, research has now shown that writing about “what hurts” can help improve our mental health. There are more than 200 studies that show the positive effect of writing on mental health. But while the psychological benefits are consistent for many people, researchers don’t completely agree on why or how writing helps. One theory suggests that b ..read more

By Nora Vasconcelos Have you ever wondered what it’d be like if you could live abroad for a year? John and Nancy Petralia did it, and from this question, their dream became a plan and, at the age of sixty something, they told everyone that they would be leaving their home in New Jearsey to live in Italy for a year. What sounded like a marvelous idea then it became true, with all the ups and downs that always come attached to reality. And all those challenges started even before they had packed. Finding a place to live in Italy, was one of those challenges, along with fitting the dream into t ..read more

Their long history and changing future The 2019 Christmas market in Birmingham, UK. Shanae Ennis-Melhado/Shutterstock Aurélie Bröckerhoff, Coventry University and Cristina Galalae, University of Leicester Wooden huts with twinkling fairy lights, festive hubbub, and the aromas of roasted chestnuts and glühwein – this picture-postcard setting is recreated annually across UK towns and cities in December. This year, however, most Christmas markets have been cancelled, meaning that 2020 will be a year without urban festive cheer. But even before the pandemic, Christmas markets in the UK were at a c ..read more

… and some lessons learned It’s been more than a month since lockdown started over here… where’s here? …well it’s many places in the world. But for me here is a very nice place blessed with a nice view. The same as many people, being indoors has been a huge challenge in which all sort of things – toughts and emotions- have to be dealt with at a surprisingly fast pace. I remember when all this started, not so long ago, even when it feels like an eternity now, one of my first toughts was ‘will I still be here when all this is over?” – Hard not to think about your own limits when all around yo ..read more

**All photos: copyright Nora Vasconcelos Twitter @travelingbook ..read more

Mr. Fezziwig’s Ball from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Hand colored etching by John Leech Joan Fitzpatrick, Loughborough University Charles Dickens popularised the traditional, English Christmas in 1843 in his novel A Christmas Carol, when Bob Cratchit and his family sit down on Christmas Day to eat a dinner of goose with mashed potatoes and apple sauce accompanied by sage and onion stuffing and followed by Christmas pudding. It’s a vision that is watched – unseen by the Cratchits – by a fast-repenting Ebenezer Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present who is showing the miser the err ..read more

The thousand and one lives of the paper book. Pixabay Dominique Boullier, Sciences Po – USPC; Mariannig Le Béchec, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, and Maxime Crépel, Sciences Po – USPC We stand amazed by the vitality of printed books, a more than 500-year-old technique, both on and offline. We have observed over the years all of the dialogue which books have created around themselves, through 150 interviews with readers, bookshops, publishers, bloggers, library assistants, 25 participant observations, 750 responses to an online questionnaire and 5,000 mapped sites in France and the francopho ..read more

Peter Rabbit. Shutterstock Paul Wells, Loughborough University Since the days of Aesop, animals have been used as vehicles by which humankind has addressed its moral, ethical and cultural identity. For some, this serves to misrepresent animals, privileging anthropomorphism at the expense of the more sensitive address of animal sentience and welfare. For others, this approach allows humans to circumvent their own social taboos to reveal not merely fresh insights into what it is to be human, but also humanity’s intrinsic relationship to animals, with animals, and as part of nature. Beatrix Potte ..read more