Books and Me

by Lionel Shriver (2017) I have a low tolerance for boredom when it comes to fiction.  I need to read something that is either startlingly new or seeringly right within the first couple of sentences or the book is consigned to the darker recesses of my kindle library.  Shriver doesn't disappoint .  She had me within the first couple of sentences.  It's all skewer and no fluff.  She, for example, leaves the reader to flesh out extraneous things like the setting - which will most likely be the last tennis court you ever used, and gets on with the business of dissecting male/female and female/female interactions with an eviscerating accuracy.  The story borders on extremely painful not least because it is so believable, but thankfully, being a novella, one can get through it without becoming terminally depressed. As a final point - albeit a trivial one, I can't help envying Lionel her androgenous name.  Aside from the observant writing, I am sure it pr...

by Amy Morin (2019) While most of this makes great good sense, is well researched and referenced, the format made reading it sequentially a teensy bit tedious and unmemorable.  It is probably best to dip into it, and finding the chapter that is relevant for the moment as it is otherwise pretty difficult to retain all 13 things one must do in order to stay mentally strong. Rating 6/10. 

by Jonas Salzgeber (2019) This should be required reading for everyone on the planet.  It is a gem - a perfect summation of a perfect moral philosophy.  For many of my generation who, somewhere along the line, have lost their religious faith and with it have lost the nuggets of moral wisdom that were buried amongst the rubbish, this is what we have been waiting for. Most of the atheism of the generation of Dawkins and Hitchens was about the repudiation of theism and whilst we could agree whole-heartedly with that, we were left high and dry as regards to how to live our lives without a god of some description telling us what to do. And yet it was here all along!  The Stoics had worked it all out well before Christianity came on the scene, and it is infuriating that on account of the fact that Stoicism sounds all rather miserable and stiff upper lip, I had never thought to look it up before.  But miserablist it really isn't and in this regard, it mis-sells it...

By Jesper Juul (2012) Phew - that was a struggle.  In fact I don't know how I got to the end of this incoherent ramble . Perhaps it was the fact that just as a stopped clock will tell the right time twice a day, the author did get things right occasionally and it was mildly entertaining to seek out these fleeting moments, but more realistically it was probably because the whole thing was mercifully short.  The book didn't present a coherent strategy for parenting with "no", despite seemingly promising to do so on the cover.  Really, there are far better books out there on how to live happily with one's children, and this book definitely suffered for such comparisons, not least because I was simultaneously reading one of these better ones. (Review to follow shortly). 1/10

by Brene Brown (2018) This  book is both a quickish reiteration of themes from Brown's previous books and an extension into the application of those themes to leadership.  Perhaps because it was my first Brene Brown book, I couldn't read it in the flight time that Brene prescribed.  I had to linger over the ideas primarily because it could be quite dense but also because of some key parts of the language which somehow remained obscure to me.   For example,  I finished the book still not being entirely sure I that I know what a "rumble" is. The meaning seemed to mutate a bit depending on context, so I sketched it in as I went along.  These a quibbles though.  The main message of the importance of being aware of one's vulnerability, facing it honestly and dealing with the resulting shame in a way that avoids the noxious pitfalls shame generates is utterly obvious, helpful and healing. You also end up feeling that the world badly needs a ...

by Heather T. Forbes (2010)  Phew, therapy that makes sense!  It sees the problems for what it really are and offers utterly wonderful, compassionate solutions.  It's a peculiar experience - when you finish this book, it all seems so obvious but that's probably because the explanations of the underlying causes of trauma-related behaviour are so right and real that it gives you the impression that it must have been staring you in the face all along. However, clearly this has been a difficult nut to crack and a good chunk of this book describes other nominally therapeutic strategies that are actually no help at all and indeed are often sources of even more trauma for the family. If your young person has been traumatised by something, including past therapy, read this utterly sensible, kind book. Rating: 9/10

By Lisa Damour (2017) It's hard to give an one size fits all rating to a book which is mostly superb but which also contains a few suggestions that are neither easy to implement or to accept, so it is necessary to break it down a bit in this review.  On the very large plus side, the analysis of the problem of raising girls in the First World is spot on, although in this regard, there is probably more to be said about the recent surge in anxiety in young women and indeed Lisa has just written a book on this exact subject  which is due for release in the near future.  On the downside, scattered amongst the often extremely sensible suggestions, there are a few strategies that simply won't work for empowered teens who have grown up with huge spades of confidence in their young years but who suddenly face the brick wall of puberty in the modern, nominally comfortable world we mostly live in nowadays. You do have to wonder if a good old dose of the Blitz wou...

by Susan Quilliam  (2016) This slim book creates the sensation of having spent a couple of sessions with a slightly dodgy counsellor who may have read all the right books which they can proffer up as needed, but who doesn't have much more to offer and indeed can do a complete explanatory volte face if the situation seemingly dictates.   Given that the book is only 99p on Kindle, perhaps that represents value for money, but if you've been around the block a bit, done a smidgeon of reading for yourself (Bowlby et al), and have topped this up with a dose of navel-gazing, there really won't be much to surprise you in this.   Perhaps it's a book for the very young, but then again, it often makes relationships seem so arduous and distracting that one wonders if it will put that readership off for good.  Rating: 2/10