Group items tagged

Stories,

stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life.

nterprets written words. What scientists have come to realize in the last few years is that narratives activate many other parts of our brains as well, suggesting why the experience of reading can feel so alive.

would have allowed Romeo and Juliet to move around, liberated from locale and parental surveillance. They would have been less worried about their families when they were figuring out where to meet. At the same time, their parents would have felt reassured because they could call their children and ask where they were and what they were doing. But, would Romeo and Juliet have told the truth? A location-aware app would also have been useful for parents in tracking them. Or they might have prowled friends’ Facebook updates or photo albums for clues.

Romeo and Juliet could find each other now because mobility means accessibility and availability. They’d be on each other’s top-five speed dial. And they would probably have had a location-aware app that that showed exactly where each other were: no wandering the streets of Verona looking for each other.

In the novel, Scout lives in fear of a ‘malevolent phantom’, a psychologically disturbed neighbour called Boo Radley, who ultimately saves her life. While it is clear that the character is in part based on a reclusive neighbour, in reality, it was Harper’s mother Frances who was the source of much terror and unhappiness.Suffering from depression and violent mood swings, friends in the close-knit Alabama town say that Frances allegedly twice tried to drown her daughter in the bath. As a result, perhaps, the young Harper was regarded as a difficult and aggressive child who would think nothing of punching other children who annoyed her.