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[A] concise, fresh, and deeply informed look at how we read. - STARRED Kirkus

Arguing that the idea of intellectual disability has been for writers and can be for critics an extremely productive nexus for thinking through big questions about narrative and irony, The Secret Life of Stories pushes us further, brilliantly defending the arts and humanities. Berube's mind for literary analysis is a powerhouse. This little book is a rare treat. -Susan M. Schweik,author of The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public [A] concise, fresh, and deeply informed look at how we read. -STARRED Kirkus Reviews Michael Berube has long advocated for the importance of the humanities in higher education and in public culture more generally. In The Secret Life of Stories, he puts that advocacy into practice, demonstrating to readers the multifaceted pleasures of reading. With dazzling ideas about narrative and disability, interwoven with personal stories and delightful readings of a variety of texts, The Secret Life of Stories is a joy to read. An extraordinary book. -Robert McRuer,author of Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability Michael Berube's son tells us that 'in a story things have to happen for a reason'-as fine a definition of narrative as Aristotle's. That is also true of great literary criticism: it helps us understand why things happen, in literature and in life. This generous, expansive, brilliant book has deep insights for all of us. The Secret Life of Stories is precious-for all the right reasons. -Cathy N. Davidson,Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, CUNY, and author of Now You See It: How the Brain Scien Michael Berube's The Secret Life of Stories is that rare book that manages to speak to its specialized academic audience while imagining and addressing a much broader readership. Berube...has crafted an accessible, if still rigorous, study of the way fiction grapples with intellectual disability. -Slant Magazine An enlightening examination. -Library Journal

Berube's timely and significant contributions in The Secret Life of Stories emboldens scholars of the humanities to study more deeply intellectual disability and its function in narrative. An enjoyable and thought-provoking work that will encourage continued engagement with intellectual disability * Disability Studies Quarterly * Michael Berube'sThe Secret Life of Storiesis that rare book that manages to speak to its specialized academic audience while imagining and addressing a much broader readership. Berube...has crafted an accessible, if still rigorous, study of the way fiction grapples with intellectual disability. * Slant Magazine * The Secret Life of Stories...gives a reader the feeling of sitting in an engaging seminar with a witty, candid, and empathetic leader. It reviews literary disability studies in a way comprehensible to those new to the field, even as it invigorates and extends that thinking for current disability studiesscholars....Berube offers therefore just the right voice to model ideas that make the case for disability as both a matter of social justice and of artistic innovation, marking the maturity of the field even as it works to move it in new directions. * College Literature * [A] concise, fresh, and deeply informed look at how we read. * STARRED Kirkus Reviews * Michael Berubes son tells us that & in a story things have to happen for a reasonas fine a definition of narrative as Aristotles.That is also true of great literary criticism: it helps us understand why things happen, in literature and in life.This generous, expansive, brilliant book has deep insights for all of us. The Secret Life of Storiesis preciousfor all the right reasons. -- Cathy N. Davidson,Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, CUNY, and author of Now You See It: How the Brain Scien Michael Berube has long advocated for the importance of the humanities in higher education and in public culture more generally. InThe Secret Life of Stories, he puts that advocacy into practice, demonstrating to readers the multifaceted pleasures of reading. With dazzling ideas about narrative and disability, interwoven with personal stories and delightful readings of a variety of texts,The Secret Life of Storiesis a joy to read. An extraordinary book. -- Robert McRuer,author of Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability The Secret Life of Storiesis certainly a landmark text in literary studies of disability and in literary criticism more generally. It will change the way you think about disability. * Canadian Review of Comparative Literature * An enlightening examination. * Library Journal * Arguing that the idea of intellectual disability has been for writers and can be for critics an extremely productive nexus for thinking through big questions about narrative and irony, The Secret Life of Storiespushes us further, brilliantly defending the arts and humanities. Berubes mind for literary analysis is a powerhouse. This little book is a rare treat. -- Susan M. Schweik,author of The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public This volume is important for connecting disability studies with literary scholarship. * Choice * [Berube has] picked out select booksthat I can imagine him either teaching or just reading for pleasure, identifying themes to explicate, and taking as much delight in the retelling of key episodes as he does in the deeper analysis. * Los Angeles Review of Books *

This volume is important for connecting disability studies with literary scholarship.-Choice Michael Berube's son tells us that `in a story things have to happen for a reason'-as fine a definition of narrative as Aristotle's. That is also true of great literary criticism: it helps us understand why things happen, in literature and in life. This generous, expansive, brilliant book has deep insights for all of us. The Secret Life of Stories is precious-for all the right reasons. -Cathy N. Davidson,Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, CUNY, and author of Now You See It: How the Brain Scien Michael Berube challenges readers to rethink their understanding of both intellectual disability and narrative storytelling...argu[ing] for a new understanding of disability in literature-one that applies not to characters, but to narrative itself. [...] The Secret Life of Stories acts as a kind of intervention, demonstrating to both disability studies scholars and literary theorists more broadly the potential for reading social identities through a narrative lens, and it does so, more often than not, using children's texts as the crux of the argument...Berube is one of the first scholars to think through intellectual disability in a full length academic text. That he does so using children's literature as his foundation makes this work a first for both fields. -The Lion and the Unicorn Berube's timely and significant contributions in The Secret Life of Stories emboldens scholars of the humanities to study more deeply intellectual disability and its function in narrative. An enjoyable and thought-provoking work that will encourage continued engagement with intellectual disability. -Disability Studies Quarterly Michael Berube has long advocated for the importance of the humanities in higher education and in public culture more generally. In The Secret Life of Stories, he puts that advocacy into practice, demonstrating to readers the multifaceted pleasures of reading. With dazzling ideas about narrative and disability, interwoven with personal stories and delightful readings of a variety of texts, The Secret Life of Stories is a joy to read. An extraordinary book. -Robert McRuer,author of Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability An enlightening examination. -Library Journal The Secret Life of Stories is certainly a landmark text in literary studies of disability and in literary criticism more generally. It will change the way you think about disability. -Canadian Review of Comparative Literature [Berube has] picked out select books that I can imagine him either teaching or just reading for pleasure, identifying themes to explicate, and taking as much delight in the retelling of key episodes as he does in the deeper analysis. -Los Angeles Review of Books [A] concise, fresh, and deeply informed look at how we read. -STARRED Kirkus Reviews Arguing that the idea of intellectual disability has been for writers and can be for critics an extremely productive nexus for thinking through big questions about narrative and irony, The Secret Life of Stories pushes us further, brilliantly defending the arts and humanities. Berube's mind for literary analysis is a powerhouse. This little book is a rare treat. -Susan M. Schweik,author of The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public The Secret Life of Stories ...gives a reader the feeling of sitting in an engaging seminar with a witty, candid, and empathetic leader. It reviews literary disability studies in a way comprehensible to those new to the field, even as it invigorates and extends that thinking for current disability studies scholars ... .Berube offers therefore just the right voice to model ideas that make the case for disability as both a matter of social justice and of artistic innovation, marking the maturity of the field even as it works to move it in new directions. -College Literature Michael Berube's The Secret Life of Stories is that rare book that manages to speak to its specialized academic audience while imagining and addressing a much broader readership. Berube...has crafted an accessible, if still rigorous, study of the way fiction grapples with intellectual disability. -Slant Magazine

[A] concise, fresh, and deeply informed look at how we read. -STARRED Kirkus

Author Information

Michael Bérubé is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State University. In 2012, he served as the President of the Modern Language Association. He is the author of several books, including Employment of English: Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies (NYU Press, 1997), The Left at War (NYU Press, 2009), What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?: Classroom Politics and “ Bias” in Higher Education (2006), and Life as We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child (1996).

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