To add to your summer reading, we are offering James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” as our latest text at work, a tale of an “everyman” who escapes from his daily life through elaborate fantasies of bravado and adventure.  This story was recently part of a seminar at the Maple Heights City Schools in Maple Heights, OH.  When discussing the story, program participants explored the role of fantasy in their own lives, realizing that Walter Mitty may not be as strange as he first appears.

Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio, and made his name as a writer and cartoonist for The New Yorker, where “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” first appeared in 1939.  Like the protagonist of the story, Thurber reportedly had a rich imaginative life, starting in childhood.

The complete story is available on The New Yorker website.  Feel free to share your responses below, as the story lends itself to many fascinating topics.  What are the risks and benefits of our fantasies?  How do we use the imagination to transform our daily lives?  Alternatively, has technology changed our relationship to fantasy?  What if we were to update the story for our present era, and give Walter Mitty a smartphone?

Happy reading!