How to Read Minds: A Review of Refiguring Minds in Narrative Media by David Ciccoricco (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015)

In Refiguring Minds in Narrative Media (2015), David Ciccoricco employs an impressive range of contemporary science on cognition, memory, and emotion to update our narratological theory so that we might be better equipped to read minds in printed fiction, digital fiction, and video games. In doing so, Ciccoricco expands the remit of the burgeoning field of cognitive literary studies, which despite its recent growth remains largely focused on print fiction published before the 20th century. Refiguring Minds is an exemplary work of cognitive literary studies which showcases both the field’s weaknesses and its strengths. While Ciccoricco sometimes tends towards reductionism — a problem in any scientifically-inflected field of literary study — he also enriches our understanding of the cognitive processes in fictional characters and in ourselves as we engage with those fictional minds.