{"product_id":"the-secret-life-of-stories-michael-bzsrubzs-9781479823611","title":"The Secret Life of Stories: From Don Quixote to Harry Potter, How Understanding Intellectual Disability Transforms the Way We Read","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow an understanding of intellectual disability transforms the pleasures of reading\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eNarrative informs everything we think, do, plan, remember, and imagine. We tell stories and we listen to stories, gauging their \"well-formedness\" within a couple of years of learning to walk and talk. Some argue that the capacity to understand narrative is innate to our species; others claim that while that might be so, the invention of writing then re-wired our brains. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Secret Life of Stories\u003c\/i\u003e, Michael B rub  tells a dramatically different tale, in a compelling account of how an understanding of intellectual disability can transform our understanding of narrative. Instead of focusing on characters with disabilities, he shows how ideas about intellectual disability inform an astonishingly wide array of narrative strategies, providing a new and startling way of thinking through questions of time, self-reflexivity, and motive in the experience of reading. Interweaving his own stories with readings of such texts as Faulkner's \u003ci\u003eThe Sound and the Fury\u003c\/i\u003e, Haddon's \u003ci\u003eThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time\u003c\/i\u003e, Kingston's \u003ci\u003eThe Woman Warrior\u003c\/i\u003e, and Philip K. Dick's \u003ci\u003eMartian Time-Slip\u003c\/i\u003e, B rub  puts his theory into practice, stretching the purview of the study of literature and the role of disability studies within it. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eArmed only with the tools of close reading, B rub  demonstrates the immensely generative possibilities in the ways disability is deployed within fiction, finding in them powerful meditations on what it means to be a social being, a sentient creature with an awareness of mortality and causality--and sentience itself. Persuasive and witty, Michael B rub  engages Harry Potter fans and scholars of literature alike. For all readers, \u003ci\u003eThe Secret Life of Stories\u003c\/i\u003e will fundamentally change the way we think about the way we read.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Michael Bérubé\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1479823619\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781479823611\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New York University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 02\/02\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.95lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.30h x 5.70w x 1.00d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 11\/01\/2015\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/01\/2015 pg. 100\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 07\/01\/2016","brand":"Michael Bérubé","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":45896723661055,"sku":"9781479823611","price":89.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_06a0c4d3-68df-4afd-95f2-28586d2e1dd5.jpg?v=1721372161","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-secret-life-of-stories-michael-bzsrubzs-9781479823611","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}