What makes a good book?

A good book evokes a world that, while different from the day-to-day reality of the reader, the reader feels drawn to. In a good book, life and love, desires and fears are made palpable through the style and voice of the narrator.

To the question what makes a good book, there are at least three types of answers. First, what someone thinks is a good book depends on the views on literature held by the reader or group of readers. This opinion on what is or should be good literature is called poetics. For example, someone who thinks a novel should reflect contemporary societal reality as realistically as possible holds a different view of literature than someone who likes fairy tales or fantasy. Or, a reader or book club especially interested in the lives of famous people will prefer to choose a biography or autobiography rather than a made-up story. And, those who like classical, regular, and rhyming poetry will not readily reach for a collection of poems with experimental verses.

A second answer is of a more institutional nature: good books are books to which authoritative readers and institutions, such as publishers, reviewers, teachers, and members of literary juries, attach meaning and value. Their decisions to publish, discuss, teach, and award a prize to a book determine the value assigned to a book in a society. This, according to the field theory of French cultural sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, is mainly about symbolic value, although it can of course be converted into a financial value, for example when favourable reviews boost sales of a book or when a literary prize involves a lot of money.

A third answer is that the value of a book is determined by an individual reader’s personal taste, preferences, and repertoire (all the books they have previously read). Personally, I like books that do not confirm what I already know and believe, but that confront me with a world of imagination that is strange and often disturbing; books that challenge my own ideas about literature and the world. I like books that allow for many different interpretations rather than forcing one specific interpretation on the reader, and that in this way re-energizes the readers’ thinking.

Yes, morning- and evening types really do exist; it’s not just something you talk yourself into. One of the causes is a difference in the functioning of a person’s biological clock. Lifestyle also has an effect, though, making it possible for an evening person to get up a little earlier, and a little later for a morning person.

A morning person wakes up early and easily in the morning, but by evening the curtains close and they want to go to bed early. An evening person, on the other hand, struggles to wake up on time in the morning and often doesn’t really get going until the evening. Performing well or exercising: a morning person likes to do them early in the day, but evening persons prefer to do them in the evening. The differences can be so large that a true morning person is already out of bed when an evening person is just getting in.

Can you switch from being an evening person to a morning person? No, that’s not easy. As an evening person, you can make some lifestyle changes that make it a little easier to fall asleep and wake up on time, but you will never really become a morning person. Is that a problem? That depends on whether you maintain a fixed rhythm as an evening person, because an irregular rhythm is not very healthy. Recent research shows that a regular sleep-wake rhythm is a stronger predictor of life expectancy than sleep duration.

The rhythm of sleeping and waking is regulated by the biological clock in your brain; an area of 100,000 brain cells just above where the optic nerves enter your brain. The cells in the biological clock can produce a rhythm of about 24 hours and tell the body what time it is: that it is time to go to sleep and that it is time to get up. They also generate all kinds of rhythms in your blood pressure, heart rate, and hormone levels to prepare you for falling asleep and waking up. The rhythm of the biological clock is not exactly 24 hours: in morning people, it runs slightly faster, let’s say 23.8 hours, while in evening types it runs slightly slower, let’s say 25 hours. As a result, an evening type does not receive the signal until late that it is time to go to bed or get up. However, you can move the clock a bit as light falling on your eyes in the morning speeds up the clock and evening light makes it slower.

So, an evening types’ biological clock runs slower than that of a morning type. You can adjust your biological clock by being in light and dark at the right time. It is important to maintain a regular sleep-wake rhythm and see as much daylight as possible – at least two hours – each day. For evening types, it is especially important to open the curtains immediately after waking up, eat breakfast in the light, and avoid light in the evening.

Probably. Our stress system is attuned to acute, temporary threats such as a hungry sabre-toothed tiger that prehistoric man had to flee from or fight. Today’s stresses, such as the pressure to achieve, are more prolonged and constant: we are almost always ‘switched on’. As a result, our stress system does not recover as well and we experience more stress-related symptoms.

We often read in the news that we are increasingly experiencing stress. Stress is your body’s response to a threat from the environment. Previously, in prehistoric times, that threat consisted of acute danger, such as the aforementioned hungry sabre-toothed tiger. Nowadays, our stress system is still the same as that of prehistoric man.

In a stressful situation, you first produce adrenaline. This stress hormone triggers the well-known fight-or-flight response: your heart rate rises and your breathing speeds up. Next, cortisol is released. This hormone makes more energy available to the brain and muscle cells, for example, and increases the blood pressure. At the same time, it temporarily inhibits digestion and the immune system, giving you more energy to deal with the threat. When the threat disappears and you relax again, the stress system recovers on its own and the release of stress hormones drops. So stress is not bad – in fact, it is necessary for survival.

These days, however, we don’t need to be afraid of sabre-toothed tigers. The stress that many people experience now is of a very different nature: pressure to achieve, work pressure, or study stress. Even this kind of stress is not always bad: a little stress before an important presentation or an exam can help you to perform better as it increases your focus and energy. But if stress is prolonged, it can get unpleasant. In this case, the stress system no longer gets a chance to recover, which can lead to complaints such as sleep problems, memory problems, reduced immunity, and cardiovascular disease. These are increasingly common – not only comparing prehistoric times with today, but also comparing the 1990s with the 2010s, American researchers found. Perhaps this is because we are constantly exposed to stimuli. You can check your work email anywhere, and otherwise the news websites remind you of all the problems in the world, or social media pressures you to ‘be your best self’. If you get stressed by this, it is difficult to calm down again – the ‘threat’ does not go away and your stress system cannot recover. This is probably why we are more stressed than we used to be, because our bodies cope better with a short, acute threat than with the long-term, constant stress of today.

Would you like to read more? Sapolsky, R. M. (2005). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Henry Holt & Company: New York, NY, USA.

Yes, it’s possible! Dying is not only a biological but also a social process. After a death, the bond you have with a loved one does not suddenly disappear. These relationships change, fade, or intensify, depending on the time and place. Some people talk to the deceased or propose a toast to them on their birthday at their grave. Or they might write letters to keep them updated on everything going on in their life.

What exactly does it mean to ‘be dead’? In the social sciences, a distinction is made between biological death and social death. Biological death takes place when the brain functions are irreversibly, permanently, and completely lost, meaning there is no way back. Social death occurs when a person’s identity fades, for instance when a person is no longer remembered. This can happen after a death, but also during a person’s life, for example due to extreme loneliness, exclusion, or illnesses such as Alzheimer’s.

Often, social death occurs gradually after someone has died biologically. The relationship you have with a loved one does not suddenly disappear, but persists and develops. People talk to their deceased loved ones, for example at a memorial, or experience their presence through material reminders in the home such as photographs and clothing.

The relationships that people have with their deceased are dynamic and change over time. This does not just mean that people may experience more or less intense bonds at different times, depending on their grieving process, but also that the deceased continues to develop socially. For example, you often see birthday cards on graves in the Netherlands that show the deceased getting older, even after death, as someone who died at the age of 47 may be congratulated on their 50th birthday. The deceased are also informed about new members of the family through cards announcing a birth. And then there are the drinks that, as the glasses and bottles on graves testify, are drunk with the dead.

In summary: in social terms, dying is a gradual process and the living maintain relationships with the dead. These relationships change, fade, or intensify, depending on the time and place.