‘Book Doctors’ Say What You Need Is a Good Read

Reader's Advisory

Bibliotherapists recommend tomes they think can help what ails you; finding calm in ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ 

By

Sarah Sloat

Dec. 18, 2016 3:05 p.m. ET

 

Dutch novelist Mano Bouzamour at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Photo: Sarah Sloat 

 

 

FRANKFURT—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 medical license, 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 to alleviate readers’ woes.

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