JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

because sending ravens doesn’t tell the full story.

Dear Jon,

The DNA test results are in. You are a Stark. . .on your mother’s side.

I am writing this on House stationery so you know I’m not Littlefinger. The information could fill the notebook but the blasted thing has lines and I cannot write on lined paper.

Here is my seal.

House Stark and House Targaryen stationery boxes, Php1679 at National Bookstores.

The Limited Edition Game of Thrones Moleskines have arrived at National Bookstores. No one joined our Summarize GoT for Newbies contest, so they’re all ours. Even the ones with lined pages, which we will use because we love the direwolves. The pocket-size notebook with Summer and Bran (unlined), Php1160. Hodor. We learn about honor and duty from Hodor. Love that causality loop.

Until recently, we’ve only been able to guess about the actual psychological effects of fiction on individuals and society. But new research in psychology and broad-based literary analysis is finally taking questions about morality out of the realm of speculation.

This research consistently shows that fiction does mold us. The more deeply we are cast under a story’s spell, the more potent its influence. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape.

Large Ghost and Jon Snow Moleskine (lined, dammit), Php1580.

But perhaps the most impressive finding is just how fiction shapes us: mainly for the better, not for the worse. Fiction enhances our ability to understand other people; it promotes a deep morality that cuts across religious and political creeds. More peculiarly, fiction’s happy endings seem to warp our sense of reality. They make us believe in a lie: that the world is more just than it actually is. But believing that lie has important effects for society?—?and it may even help explain why humans tell stories in the first place.

Read Why Fiction is Good For You.

Large Drogon and Daenerys Targaryen Moleskine (unlined), Php1580.

Pocket-size lion sigil with Tyrion Lannister notebook, Php1160.

Incidentally, the paperback editions of Stories and Geeks are now in stores.

To introduce the line, they recreated the show’s opening credits.

How they made it using 750 photos and 7,600 paper cutouts.

The result

Night gathers, and now my watch (at the bookstore) begins.

Read Game On: The most obsessively-watched show on television begins its sixth season in our BWorld column, The Binge.

You have just realized that it’s less than 48 hours before Xmas and even if you’re an atheist you like giving and getting presents (or at least not being the buzzkill). Go to the nearest National Bookstore and get these.

Black sketchbook, Php599. Give with gold and silver Sharpies or Dong-A metallic gel pens.

Pierre the Maze Detective by Hiro Kamigaki and IC4 Design, Php879.

Children will find it entertaining; overgrown children will love the design.

Gold Leuchtturm1917 journal, Php949. Obviously we’re keeping this. Shiny!

Daycraft A6 sketchbooks, PU leatherish covers, wide range of colors, Php389 each.

This season’s “I’m tired of thinking, I’ll just take two dozen of those” gift: colouring books for grownups. It’s supposed to relieve stress. In our observation, people who are already stressed will get more stressed if you give them coloring books because it’s more work they will feel compelled to do. This one comes with 8 colouring pencils in a nice tin box so you don’t even have to wrap it, because you’re stressed, too. Php395 only.

The exception in the colouring books category is The Official A Game of Thrones colouring book, and you know it’s for the real fans because the “A” is in the title. Php665.

Leuchtturm page-a-day 2016 datebook, Php1221. You can have the recipient’s name engraved for free. (Every year we get a Moleskine diary but the new designs haven’t arrived so we’re trying something different. Moleskine, where’s the new stuff? We want the Blue Note editions.)

The new Stephen King story collection, hardcover Php1199. The man’s a story factory with consistently good quality control.

We’ve started writing a book-length memoir of our feline companions.

We want it to be different from the two columns we write every week, so we’re not using our trusty Moleskines. For this project, we got these faux-antique notebooks by Paperblanks. The two above are reproductions of a 1688 binding adorned a la fanfare, a hand-tooled pattern edged in gilt.

There are metal clasps holding the books shut.

And look at the spines. They’re ready for the library.

This way if the book turns out blah, the manuscript will still be gorgeous.

Paperblanks are available at National Bookstores.