Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This remarkable and monumental book at last provides a comprehensive answer to the age-old riddle of whether there are only a small number of 'basic stories' in the world. Using a wealth of examples, from ancient myths and folk tales via the plays and novels of great literature to the popular movies and TV soap operas of today, it shows that there are seven archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of storytelling.

But this is only the prelude to an investigation into how and why we are 'programmed' to imagine stories in these ways, and how they relate to the inmost patterns of human psychology. Drawing on a vast array of examples, from Proust to detective stories, from the Marquis de Sade to E.T., Christopher Booker then leads us through the extraordinary changes in the nature of storytelling over the past 200 years, and why so many stories have 'lost the plot' by losing touch with their underlying archetypal purpose.

Booker analyses why evolution has given us the need to tell stories and illustrates how storytelling has provided a uniquely revealing mirror to mankind's psychological development over the past 5000 years.

This seminal book opens up in an entirely new way our understanding of the real purpose storytelling plays in our lives, and will be a talking point for years to come.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Booker, a regular contributor to the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Mail, began work on this massive book over 30 years ago. It is an impressive achievement, in both its vast scope and its readability. Exploring all genres of storytelling-from the Bible and recurring folktales to high and low literature, as well as plays and movies-Booker manages to incorporate the work of such great minds as Dr. Johnson, Jung, and Freud without ever sounding dry. His treatment of the evolution of comedy (a genre notably resistant to explication) since ancient Greek plays is excellent. The third, very interesting chapter offers stories that fail to satisfy our often nebulous sense of good storytelling, showing precisely how and where they fail. Geared more to undergraduates than graduates, this useful overview will prove valuable to writers as well as scholars. Highly recommended for academic libraries, especially those supporting a literature and/or film studies program.-Felicity D. Walsh, Emory Univ., Decatur, GA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Many writing guides have suggested that fiction contains a limited number of basic plots, and Booker offers his version at great length. Furthermore, he claims all of these plots, from "overcoming the monster" to "rebirth," are variations on "the same great basic drama," a Jungian archetypal representation of the development and integration of the mature self. The meticulous detailing of this theory in plot summaries (of everything from Beowulf to Jaws, ancient comedy to modern tragedy, Western culture and Eastern) is an imposing enough task, but Booker is just warming up. In the book's second half, he explains how the psychological shortcomings of modern authors such as Shaw and Joyce led them to reject archetypal truth in favor of writing out their own sentimental and morbid fantasies. The biographical analysis is simplistic, however, and Booker makes numerous errors in the sections on film. The transition from literary criticism to Jungian psychology might be more bearable were it not saddled with an overabundance of academic clich? surprising in a writer of Booker's extensive journalistic background (he now contributes to England's Daily Telegraph). Clearly striving for the intellectual respectability of Northrop Frye, he falls far short, and accusing those who disagree with him of suffering from "limited ego-consciousness" doesn't help his case. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved