Waar is Jacob de Zoet?

Favoriet van de longlist voor de Booker Prize en de enige roman die ik had gelezen, David Mitchells The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, heeft de shortlist niet gehaald. Net zo min trouwens als het meest controversiële boek op de lijst, The Slap van de Australische Christos Tsiolkas (door de een beroerd geschreven rotzooi voor vrouwenhaters genoemd en door de ander een uiterst boeiende roman). Wie het wel gehaald hebben, zijn:

• Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America
• Emma Donoghue Room
• Damon Galgut In a Strange Room
• Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question;
• Andrea Levy The Long Song
• Tom McCarthy C 

Nu David Mitchell is afgevallen heb ik alweer geen enkel boek van de lijst gelezen, alhoewel Parrot and Olivier en In a Strange Room op mijn verlanglijstje staan - maar dat telt niet.

Net als de Britten ga ik me aan een gokje wagen: gebaseerd op eigenlijk niks (behalve dat het me een interessant boek lijkt) voorspel ik dat Damon Galguts boek gaat winnen. Iemand anders betere ideeën?

Lezen is de ultieme ontspanning

Ik wist het wel:

Reading is the best way to relax and even six minutes can be enough to reduce the stress levels by more than two thirds, according to new research. And it works better and faster than other methods to calm frazzled nerves such as listening to music, going for a walk or settling down with a cup of tea, research found.

Psychologists believe this is because the human mind has to concentrate on reading and the distraction of being taken into a literary world eases the tensions in muscles and the heart.The research was carried out on a group of volunteers by consultancy Mindlab International at the University of Sussex.

Their stress levels and heart rate were increased through a range of tests and exercises before they were then tested with a variety of traditional methods of relaxation.

Reading worked best, reducing stress levels by 68 per cent, said cognitive neuropsychologist Dr David Lewis.

Subjects only needed to read, silently, for six minutes to slow down the heart rate and ease tension in the muscles, he found. In fact it got subjects to stress levels lower than before they started.

Listening to music reduced the levels by 61 per cent, have a cup of tea of coffee lowered them by 54 per cent and taking a walk by 42 per cent.

Playing video games brought them down by 21 per cent from their highest level but still left the volunteers with heart rates above their starting point.

Dr Lewis, who conducted the test, said: "Losing yourself in a book is the ultimate relaxation.

"This is particularly poignant in uncertain economic times when we are all craving a certain amount of escapism.

"It really doesn't matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author's imagination.

"This is more than merely a distraction but an active engaging of the imagination as the words on the printed page stimulate your creativity and cause you to enter what is essentially an altered state of consciousness."

Klik hier voor het oorspronkelijke artikel.