Registrieren

Have you ever looked at someone's bookshelf and thought, "This tells me a lot about them"? Maybe your sister reads nothing but romance novels. Your colleague is obsessed with murder mysteries. Your best friend is into fantasy worlds, while you reach for biographies or history books. It turns out these choices may not be random at all. New research from Dr Valerie van Mulukom of Oxford Brookes University has found that the books we are instinctively drawn to can offer surprising clues about our personality. More specifically, they may reflect our deepest concerns, fears and the questions we're trying to make sense of.The researcher found that people tend to choose books that match their underlying "existential insecurities," the things that quietly occupy our minds. In simple words, the stories we enjoy may help us process the worries we carry. During her study, Dr Valerie used how often someone might engage with a certain genre to match it up with one of the following four clusters:Epic other-world adventures (action, adventure, science fiction, fantasy)Everyday life and human relationships (comedy, romantic, drama, family, musical)Threat and danger (true crime, crime/mystery/thriller, horror)Facts and histories (documentary, biography, historical)Here's what your favourite genre could be saying about you.