Kevin's Watch

Shaun das Schaf wrote:Sybil, Flora Rheta Schreiber.

Not sure why, was a buck so I picked it up. Heart-warming story of childhood torture and DID.

Is this the book the Sally Field movie was based on?

Yep, that's the one. I haven't seen it, have you?

Seen the movie, never read the book.

It was the role that changed the way I viewed Sally Field. Several years before Norma Rae.

"Sybil hold your water..."

rereading World War Z

I read Sybil when I was a teenager. Freaky. I remember not liking how the movie compressed her healing process into like 5 minutes.

Reading A Feast For Crows.

That's fantasy, not gen lit.

--A

Reread Exit Music a Rebus novel by Ian Rankin. Quite good.

u.

Let's Pretend This Never Happened, by Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess)

just reread And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie. I last read it back in summer camp some 33 years ago.

still very enjoyable.

sgt.null wrote:just reread And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie.

What I am not currently reading - at least anymore - is a small book called The Examined Life by practicing psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz.

I started the book, in which Grosz distills the experiences of thirty years in the couch business, with the best of intentions and was immediately taken with his portrayal of the strange and cofusing things that we do when things begin to fall apart for us. His treatment of the case histories he presents, and what sense he was able to make of them is non-judgemental and concise. It is in our nature to be interested in the odd and bizarre, the more so when we see little bits of ourselves creeping into the narrative, but as I progressed I became increasingly uneasy. I began to feel like a voyeur taking a prurient interst in the tragedies of other human beings lives.

Grosz assures us that all names have been changed etc to preserve peoples annonymity - but thats not the point is it. These stories do not belong to him. These are the intimate details of peoples lives, people who came to him for help and paid hard cash for it. They were not revealed so that Grosz could prepare a 'smorgusboard' of the weird and wonderful and enrich himself in the process. They were not handed over with all rights to their future use waived. They were private disclosures made by people often at the extremity of their ability to cope with their own internal being and as such should have remained firmly within the walls of the room where the disclosures were made. Since the books release it has been featured as book of the month on Radio 4 - a major UK station - with weekly readings there from, has sold itself into the best-seller lists and has achieved loud acclaim from the reviewers. OK - Grosz's subjects have been protected from recognition, but thats not the point is it. The point is that they know who they are. They will recognise them selves, and in my view they will rightly feel they have been betrayed.

Currently reading "Up the Down Staircase"
(aka "Up the Staircase Leading Down" and a whole host of other titles in different languages.)
Why didn't I know this book existed?!?!
This author is hilarious; the book is kind of amazing.

Appreciated your impassioned concern about the ethics of that dude writing a book such as you describe, peter.

Never heard of this book Linna - will check it out.

Yesterday I read And Now We Are Going To Have A Party, a memoir by science fiction author Nicola Griffith.

peter wrote:Never heard of this book Linna - will check it out.

Neat! I wasn't aiming that specifically at you, but, thinking about it... I do think you specifically would enjoy it.

Want me to post more of a 'blurb'?
Or some quotes from the book like a "trailer"?

(I ask this because I find that I often need more motivation once I consider reading a book.

The best motivation is if someone checks it out of the library for me.
And like, leaves it on my couch.
Open.
To an interesting page.)

The authors name would be helpful Linna - the rest I can do. Yes, it's easy to get your interest piqued by things people post on here and think "yes - that sounds good", but then your day happens, and then the week, and then..... .

Right, that!

The author is Bel Kaufman!

Just checked it out on Wikipedia - sounds good Linna. Have a strange feeling I just may have seen the film adaption many moons ago. Wikihunt done I'll nip over to ebay and see what gives.

Right now I'm listening to Foreverland Is Dead by Tony Bertauski

It's kinda ... slow. But dreamlike. I dunno if any of the rest of you have read (or even heard of) it, but the basic idea is that a bunch of mid- to late teen girls wake up with no memories in a shack on an otherwise deserted farm. They don't know who they are, where they are, or what they're doing there. The only reason they know their names is because it was written on a tag in their underwear.

So, yeah, kinda slow and dreamish. Not a lot of action. But, having said that, I'm enjoying it in an odd way. I don't think I could read it in book form, but as an audiobook, it's not too bad.

We'll just see how it ends.

You Don't Know Me but You Don't Like Me - Nathan Rabin