BIBLIOTHERAPISTS: BOOKS AS MEDICINE

In the take-two-books-and-call-me-in-the-morning department, John Lupia writes:

Depressed? Over-the-counter remedies abound, though some are hard to swallow. The 272-page "City of Thieves" by David Benioff, for example.

It is one palliative prescribed by Mano Bouzamour at the recent Frankfurt Book Fair, where he sat at a desk sporting a white doctor's coat and stethoscope. The Dutch novelist, who has no medicallicense, was serving as a "book doctor." After brief consultations with people who lined up in the cold drizzle outside a pop-up clinic, he pulled out a prescription pad and scribbled titles toalleviate readers' woes.

"You need 'The 25th Hour'," he told an enervated university student, referring to a novel by Mr. Benioff.

"Great story. Punchy dialogue. A drug dealer gets sentenced to prison," said Mr. Bouzamour, who recommended any Benioff title to cure listlessness and the blues.

Mr. Bouzamour's act is part of a growing movement among bibliophiles who put the "script" in prescription by treating problems with personalized book recommendations. Unaffiliated withbookstores, these consultants-often called bibliotherapists-talk to clients about issues and suggest books they think can help. Consultations and recommendations go for varying fees, usuallyexcluding the books themselves.

"We genuinely believe novels are a powerful thing," said Susan Elderkin, a U.K. bibliotherapist. "People can glean a lot from a novel that can stay with [them] in a resonant way."

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'Book Doctors' Say What You Need Is a Good Read(www.wsj.com/articles/book-doctors-say-what-you-need-is-a-good-read-1482091512)