Operating out of a little shop in London’s Bloomsbury neighborhood, The School of Life leads adults in the art of living well. We’re not talking tips for crashing Valentino’s yacht: The focus here is on getting the most out of daily life by intellectually engaging in topics ranging from the overarching (relationships and career) to the situational (“How to Be Cool” or “How to Be Alone”). Founded by former Tate Modern curator Sophie Howarth, the school employs a dedicated team of bibliotherapists whose job it is to prescribe books to “patients” based on their reading preferences and life goals. Armed with personal targets just begging for literary pairings, ReadyMade’s editors enlisted bibliotherapist Ella Berthoud to prescribe back-to-school reading treatments guaranteed to improve their lifelong-learning. (To schedule your own bibliotherapy session—available in person, by phone, email, or Skype—email bibliotherapy@theschooloflife.com.) —Melissa Goldstein

Name: Andrew Wagner, Editor in Chief Loves George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. Longs to get out of debt and one day own property.

RX:

Cocaine Nights by J. G. Ballard: “It’s about a holiday community in Spain where people lead cushy lives but are actually really bored. It’s not directly about debt, but a warning toward the idea of long-term complacency.”

The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna: “A journalist goes out one night in his car and accidentally hits a hare. He then takes it traveling with him for a year. Andrew’s favorite Orwell novel is about meeting your true inner self on the streets, and I think he’d enjoy reading about living on nothing in the middle of nowhere.”

A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul: “A key book from the ’60s about a journalist who grows up in Trinidad and comes from a background of having nothing—he desperately wants his own house and independence. It speaks to the side of Andrew that wants to be settled.”

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh: “The central character loves Charles Dickens, but his fate is to be forced to read Dickens to this old man in the middle of Africa for the rest of his life. We can apply it to the commitments of life: It talks about that idea of what is your place in the world and where should you live.” 

Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow: That is also a book about exploring your self and going off on a journey. Henderson feels like there’s a void at the heart of his life, and he’s a really successful businessman but really fed up. He goes and lives with this tribe and gets sucked into being a god-like figure in their lives. It all goes horribly wrong but meanwhile he learns great wisdom from this African tribe. It’s a book about the pointlessness of material wealth and success and how what really matters is what you are being and becoming. It’s a great book for people who are successful in their work and leading a comfortable life and maybe needing to go off on a mental adventure."

Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow: "That is also a book about exploring your self and going off on a journey. Henderson feels like there’s a void at the heart of his life, and he’s a really successful businessman but really fed up. He goes and lives with this tribe and gets sucked into being a god-like figure in their lives. It all goes horribly wrong but meanwhile he learns great wisdom from this African tribe. It’s a book about the pointlessness of material wealth and success and how what really matters is what you are being and becoming. It’s a great book for people who are successful in their work and leading a comfortable life and maybe needing to go off on a mental adventure."

Name: Amy Palanjian, Deputy Editor Loves mountaineering memoirs. Wishes she could relinquish more control and balance her creative life with her work and personal lives.

RX:

Breath: A Novel by Tim Winton: “It’s about two surfers who are obsessed with holding their breath and pushing themselves against the elements—about control and loss of control. It’s intense but very much about letting go and giving yourself up to the forces of nature.”

Shiver: A Novel by Nikki Gemmell: “A female journalist goes to the Arctic for a scientific expedition, but in the end it’s mainly a love story. The descriptions of the ice are really absorbing, and I think it would fit in with Amy’s adventurous spirit.”

Notes From an Exhibition by Patrick Gale: “An artist in her sixties dies at the beginning of the book, and each chapter starts with a blurb about one of her paintings—as if you’re walking around her retrospective. It describes what was going on during her life at the time she did that painting. It’s about that balance, and whether it’s possible to be an artist and a homemaker.”

Derek Jarman's Garden by Derek Jarman and Howard Sooley: “A coffee table book with gorgeous illustrations of late filmmaker Derek Jarman’s garden alongside his diary. He made this amazing garden in this unlikely setting in Dungeness, which is sand and rock and where not a lot can grow. It will also be really inspiring philosophically, I think, because Jarman’s mind is a great mind to be in.”



Touching the Void by Joe Simpson: "It might well be something that she’s read, if she hasn’t read it, it’s amazing. It’s also about letting go, literally, because Joe Simpson had to let go of his friend and he thought that would be him falling to his certain death. It’s amazing book about extremes and pitting yourself against nature and trying to be desperately in control and finding yourself not in control and being redeemed and rediscovering yourself."

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson: "Set in Venice, it's a really beautiful, mad book that absorbs you: Amy talks about wanting to be absorbed by a book and reading it in one sitting if she can. The Passion is a really intense book that will suck you in: It’s very magical, takes you into new worlds, and is based on the real Venice but with magical elements. I think it sounds like Amy is quite into things that can be beyond normal reality."

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks: "Because she loved One of Ours, it would complement that really well. It would be good to continue that, and get another version of the story: It’s got the modern perspective and the perspective during the war and it’s got an amazing scene where the main character is stuck in a tunnel underneath the earth and it’s absolutely terrifying."
 

Name: Katherine Sharpe, Online Editor Loves Moby Dick. Yearns to grow herbs on her fire escape and publish her own book.

RX:

How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum by Keri Smith: “A manual/art book/sketchbook with exercises about looking around you—it is very much aimed at that idea of making the most of your small part of an enormous city.”

Hotel World by Ali Smith: “A novel about a swimming champion who dies in an accident. It’s written as if it’s short stories—five different voices telling the same story. I always recommend Ali Smith, a real wordsmith, to people who want to write.”

Gould’s Book of Fish: A Novel in 12 Fish by Richard Flanagan: “Based on a true story about a thief who was put in prison for forty-nine years and spent his time painting fish, it’s a rambling, epic, postmodern book that has a lot in common with Moby Dick. What’s happening on the surface is not what’s happening underneath.”

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt: “Because Katherine lives in New York, she might really like this: It’s mainly based in London and the heroine in the book keeps going round and round the Circle line on the tube and having interesting experiences. It’s a very urban, gritty book about being a woman in a city coping with being in a city.”



Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Banks: "Because it’s about the ages of girlhood slash adult womanhood, going from being a teenager up to late twenties, I think it will fit in quite well with Katherine’s age and current existence. She could probably identify with the heroine. I think it would suit her."
 


Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman: "Because Katherine seems to like shorter things to read, like poems and short stories. The author is a neuroscientist and it’s short stories about possible afterlives, each of the forty sections is about one possible thing that could happen to you after you die—it’s like what heaven could be like. They’re all completely different and essentially non-religious."



Soul Food: Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds by Neal Astley & Pamela Robertson-Pearce: "Because she needs to slow down, I thought it would be good if she read more poetry. It's a brilliant collection and has poems from ancient to modern times. It’s the kind of thing you could pick up, read an amazing poem and apply it to your circumstances."

Name: Alexa Fornoff, Assistant Editor Loves The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Wants to be really good at one thing (not passable at many) and to live in the moment.

RX:

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: “Shows you how to make your life flow in a kind of Zen fashion—living in the moment and making the most out of everything. It uses examples from ancient Chinese philosophers, plus more modern thinkers.”

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins: “About a cocktail waitress who is a perfume maker and obsessed with finding the perfect base note. It’s about making the most of your talents and focusing.”

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter: “Fairy tales for grown-ups with the sex and the death kept in. It’s very visceral, intense, and magical but believable at the same time.”

What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt: "This book is a beautiful book. It's brilliantly written and about a husband and wife and their best friends, and it goes from birth to death and it’s about the changing relationships. It’s very much about being surrounded by people that you love and how important that is."

Tove Jansson graphic novels and the Moomintrolls books: "The Moomintroll books are written for children but they deal with really grown-up issues—they work for any age. Jansson’s graphic novels are comic strips that were published in the seventies in Helsinki. They’re the same characters as in the Moomintroll books but were originally published for adults, so they’re dealing with issues about work and society. Jansson book covers are also amazing.”