The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories

I won’t pretend that this book doesn’t take some work, and at 736 large pages of small text, it certainly does. 

But Booker’s masterpiece is well worth the perseverance (and possibly a ten day holiday to Canada fit it into) for anyone interested in why we tell stories and which ones we tell.  Booker talks through a whole range of tales from archaic myth to modern films, linking them in ways that should have seemed so obvious at the time. 

He also manages to rekindle a desire to re-read a plethora of stories from The Snow Queen to Hamlet and anyone tackling this tome will find it opening up a variety of new ways of looking at stories.  And, unlike many books, the subject matter holds true – the seven plots are explained, examined and illuminated in a style and manner that is ultimately satisfying.

As we grapple with the latest technologies and try to understand the utility of Twitter, FriendFeed and the rest, it’s a sobering reminder that the very first stories relied only on word of mouth and viral marketing – they survived because of the content, not media innovation.