The Other Side of Normal by Jordan Smoller

via

Reviewed by Christina
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Full Title: The Other Side of Normal: How Biology is Providing the Clues to Unlock the Secrets of Normal and Abnormal Behavior

Published: 2012

It's about:  "In this enthralling work of popular science, respected Harvard psychiatrist Jordan Smoller addresses one of humankind's most enduring and perplexing questions: What does it mean to be "normal?" In The Other Side of Normal, Smoller explores the biological component of normalcy, revealing the hidden side of our everyday behaviors--why we love what we love and fear what we fear. Other bestselling works of neurobiology and the mind have focused on mental illness and abnormal behaviors--like the Oliver Sacks classic, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat--but The Other Side of Normal is an eye-opening, thought-provoking, utterly fascinating and totally accessible exploration of the universals of human experience. It will change forever our understanding of who we are and what makes us that way." (goodreads)

Wow, what a blurb!  I had high expectations for this one.

I thought:  I didn't love it.  And that's a shame, because it's right up my alley: I love pop science, especially when it's in the psychology/psychiatry/neurology department.  And The Other Side of Normal is certainly smart and well-researched.  There's a lot of interesting information about the brain and human behavior here.  It reads a little like an update for those of us who took AP Psych back in the day but haven't stayed up to speed with current trends in the field.

So why was I falling asleep when I read it?  The style itself isn't dull; Smoller writes conversationally and adds appropriate humor, research summaries, and personal anecdotes.  But there are also parts in each chapter where he delves into more of the nitty-gritty:  molecular biology, epigenetics, anatomy.  This book has far more detail about the inner workings of the brain than any other of its type (that I've read) and I'm a little embarrassed that I couldn't always concentrate.  In my (and the author's) defense, I did read this during a busy period of my life.  I was very, very tired most of the time when I finally sat down to read, and a more alert reader might have had no problem.  Still, I can't help but think that in the general populace the audience is pretty small for illustrations like this one:

I did enjoy Jordan Smoller's punny, Dad humor-ish subtitles.  Here are some examples: "Facial Profiling," "The Gland That Rocks the Cradle," "Crocodile Fears," and "Mind Your Pleasing Cues."  Teehee!  I have a feeling that this is one of those books that I'm going to look back on more fondly than what I'm thinking and feeling about it right now.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf or Rubbish Bin?  In between.

Reading Recommendations:  Don't be tired.

Warnings: none

Favorite excerpts:  [About Big Five Personality tendencies in different states]
"North Dakotans seem to be the most outgoing, friendly bunch of traditionalists you'd ever want to know: they topped the list of all states in agreeableness and extraversion but came in last on openness.  On the other hand, Alaska scored at or near the bottom on all five traits, suggesting that the typical Alaskan is a calm but disagreeable and introverted slacker who doesn't like unconventional ideas.  If you're looking for open-minded, enthusiastic, friendly neighbors who are emotionally stable and conscientious, your best bet is to move to Utah."

(I'm amused by that paragraph because I have lived in both North Dakota and Utah.  By the way, I took the Big Five personality test and it told me that the highest concentration of personality traits similar to my own is found in North Carolina.  Guess where I live.)

What I'm reading next:  Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley

Review: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg

Chestnut Lodge, the institution where INPYaRG was unofficially set

Reviewed by Christina

Published: 1964

It's about:  "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is a semi-autobiographical account of a teenage girl's three-year battle with schizophrenia. Deborah Blau, bright and artistically talented, has created a make-believe world, the Kingdom of Yr, as a form of defense from a confusing, frightening reality. When Deborah was five, she underwent surgery to remove a tumor in her urethra, a traumatic experience that involved a great deal of physical pain and shame. During her childhood, Deborah suffered frequent abuse from her anti-Semitic peers and neighbors. When Deborah first created Yr, it was a beautiful, comforting haven, but over time the gods of Yr became tyrannical dictators who controlled Deborah's every word and action." (wikipedia)

I thought:  I'm not sure why I've always pegged this book as a sensationalized account of mental illness written to titillate the masses.  Maybe that first impression is the fault of the cover of the paperback copy I snatched from a beach house a couple of years ago.  I mean, look at it.  It does sort of seem to say "misery porn," right?

It's not that way.  It's an honest, well-rounded, memoirish novel.  It's more nuanced and introspective than I expected.  There is some real poetry in the language of Yr, and Deborah's attempts to translate it for her doctors mirrors the patient's struggle to communicate her world of psychosis.

But I can't say I loved it.  I'm still coming down off my Anna Karenina high, and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden was pretty much a rebound book.  I had a hard time getting into it, and I never really felt emotionally invested in the characters.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.  This is one of my favorite topics, and I'm pretty sure I would have liked it a lot better if I'd read it at a different time.  I don't have any legitimate complaints about it.

Reading Recommendations:  Don't read it right after Anna Karenina, I guess.

Warnings:  I can't really remember anything.  Maybe a swear or two and some vividly imagined violence.

Favorite excerpts:  “She now knew that the death she feared might not be a physical one, that it could be death of the will, the soul, the mind, the laws, and thus not death, but a perpetual dying.”

What I'm reading next:  The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love by Jill Conner Browne

Review: The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

Anne Taintor

 Reviewed by Christina
I read this as part of A Year of Feminist Classics.  Head on over there for some discussion about it! 

Published: 1963


It's about: "In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for The Feminine Mystique, conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising. She originally intended to publish an article on the topic, not a book, but no magazine would publish her article."  (wikipedia)
The book, now a classic, served as the spark for 2nd-wave feminism.  Thanks to its widespread readership and popularity, Betty Friedan was able to connect with other feminists and take measures to change the situation of women in the United States; she started NOW in 1966.

I thought: Wow, was this a reading experience to remember.  Rarely do I read something that makes me examine my own life choices and the culture that influences them.  I honestly feel a little twilight-zone-y after reading The Feminine Mystique.  More about that in a minute.

1st ed.

Though it's nearly 60 years old now, the basic tenets of The Feminine Mystique are still sound: Housewifery is not fulfilling in itself for most women, especially for women who were drafted into it by societal default rather than making an educated, informed, mature decision.  And yes, it's important to develop one's own identity first, rather than depending on husband/children/home to supply that identity.  Every person deserves to express him or herself through creativity, leadership, and/or meaningful work.  These ideas are not radical to most modern readers; we accept them as basic "right to pursue happiness"-type truths.  But in Betty Friedan's time, these things needed to be said.  They needed to be argued for, and she lays out the history of feminism and antifeminism brilliantly.

The Feminine Mystique will probably be most strikingly relevant (eerie, really) to readers who, like me, come from an especially conservative religious background.  There are still communities in which "career women" are vilified and all women are expected to embrace SAHM-ness as their divinely-appointed role.  That's why I think this book was a healthy one for me to read.  I feel justified in wanting more than I get from staying home with my kids, and I feel better about taking anti-feminist religious teachings with a grain of salt, now that I know a more about the cultural history that may have had a strong hand in creating them.

One of the typical criticisms about The Feminine Mystique is that it is grossly and offensively outdated in its references to and research about homosexuality, and yes- that absolutely stood out to me.  It's very uncomfortable to read.  Another criticism is that it focuses on the plight of middle to upper-class white women, brushing everyone else under the rug.  That's unfortunate, too- there is a heavy dose of privilege here, with housewives complaining about how they want more out of life while other, unmentioned women are living in dire circumstances.  But I justify Betty Friedan's perspective with a little "ends justify the means" philosophy: The Feminine Mystique led directly to 2nd wave feminism, which in turn resulted in changes to improve life for ALL women- not just desperate housewives.  

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations:  I wish I had read this in closer tandem with Perfect Madness, which is a sort of updated version.  If you're interested in the subject and you haven't read either, read them together and tell me what you think!

Warnings: Journalistic/statistical discussions about sex.  Nothing graphic.

Favorite excerpts: “In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination--tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she "adjust" to prejudice and discrimination”

What I'm reading next:  Cairo Modern by Naguib Mahfouz

Review: The Mask of Motherhood by Susan Maushart

Thought I'd add a little personal touch -- this is me at 26 weeks pregnant

The Mask of Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother Changes our Lives and Why We Never Talk About It

Reviewed by Connie

Published: 1999

It's about: The Mask of Motherhood is a series of critical essays examining the physical, emotional, and psychological effects that motherhood has on women. Its premise is that we have a cultural taboo against discussing any of these radical changes, so new mothers are entering this transformational period completely unprepared for what lies ahead. Different essays specifically examine pregnancy, child birth, breast feeding, new motherhood, the juggling act, and marital relationships.

I thought: I cannot believe I only found this book because I stumbled across it in a thrift store and thought it looked interesting. Why has no one ever told me about this book before? Why has no one ever shoved a copy in my hands and forced me to read it?

As an expecting new mother, I have found myself feeling rather ambivalent about the drastic changes that are about to take place in my life and marriage. At times, I am unbelievably excited and can't wait to hold my baby boy in my arms for the first time. Yet there are plenty of other times I am so overwhelmed and overcome by anxiety that I can't sleep for nights on end, and just the sight of a onesie or a pacifier makes me sick to my stomach with worry.

Up until this point, I have found most resources for new mothers unhelpful, to say the least. Most of them are split into two camps -- 1. the motherhood is so beautiful, babies are such miracles, and when the baby comes, all is wondrous and glorious, and there are lots of rainbows; or 2. motherhood is the most difficult and least rewarding thing a woman can ever do; it's really hard, and it mega sucks. The former seems ridiculous and unrealistic; the latter, hyperbolic and unnecessarily negative.

Somehow, this book strikes a cord somewhere between the two. Maushart manages to communicate the extreme and unexpected difficulties of pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering while not stripping motherhood of its due credit or praise. In other words, somehow Maushart is simultaneously brutally honest and empowering and comforting.

Plus, though it's a series of critical essays, Maushart mixes in plenty of personal anecdotes and humor to make this very readable. I don't necessarily agree with all of her assertions, but it is a thought-provoking, well-researched book well worth a read. As it was published in '99, many of the statistics are over 10 years old, but I think the issues discussed are still very much relevant to the struggles of mothers today.

All in all, this book has better emotionally prepared me for motherhood than all other resources I've encountered -- combined.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf. Just as I believe We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love is a must-read for any person who enters marriage or a serious relationship, I think this book is a must-read for any woman considering motherhood. I suspect it would be a useful read for those who are already mothers as well.

Reading Recommendations: Just read it. Just do it. And then give it to all your expecting friends.

Warnings: none

Favorite excerpts:
"Professionally, financially, socially, and spiritually we are primed for achievement. The more we can do, the more we should do. But the more we do, the worse we feel. And the sillier we look. It is surely worthy of note that the word contemporary women use more than any other to describe the management of their lives is the verb 'to juggle.' The women Friedan described felt as if their lives had been tranquilized... For women in the 1990s, by contrast, life is hyper-caffeinated; it's going so fast we can't assimilate it, let alone enjoy it. Yet when things slow down, we go into withdrawal, panicking that we must be somehow missing out. We are indeed the generation of 'women who do too much.'"

"Childbirth is one day, more or less, in a woman's life; motherhood is forever. Yet like gawkers at the empress's new maternity outfit, we steadfastly resolve not to notice. Other observers have noted that we devote more care to the licensing of automobile drivers than we do to preparing adults for parenthood. It's a point worth pondering. Limiting our education for parenthood to prenatal classes is a bit like limiting driver education to defensive strategies for getting out of the driveway. No one would dispute their usefulness, but they can only take you so far."

"To see motherhood properly, I am convinced, is to see it heroically, which means making full acknowledgment of the pain, the dangers, and the risks and taking the full measure of glory for its exquisite rewards. When we consider the inaugural maternal experience -- the journey we call childbirth -- the epic nature of the undertaking emerges with startling clarity. The drama of childbirth foreshadows both the pain and the power implicit in the journey ahead. Thus, it can function as a kind of prism through which the wider experience of motherhood is refracted."

What I'm reading next: The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

Review: The Einstein Syndrome by Thomas Sowell

I couldn't come up with a better photo idea for this post than my very own late talker.

 Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2002

It's about:  Economist Thomas Sowell coined the term "Einstein Syndrome" to describe children who start speaking later than their peers, despite their being unusually analytically intelligent.  In this, his second book on the subject, he lays out the characteristics of such children and their families using research performed by himself and Stephen Camarata of Vanderbilt University.  (You can read a quick description of said characteristics on wikipedia if you're curious)

Mr. Sowell also describes multiple late-talking yet bright children and adults as case studies before giving a fair amount of advice to parents who believe their children may fit the Einstein Syndrome description.  He cautions against putting too much faith in the "dogma" of speech therapists and school professionals who will be quick to label most late talkers as autistic or developmentally delayed. 

I thought: My father-in-law gave this book to me because my own son, Jude, is a fairly late talker- at two and a half he is just beginning to communicate.  Naturally, his grandfather was interested in the idea that Jude might turn out to be highly gifted in math, science, and/or music like so many of the children and adults described in The Einstein Syndrome.  I, too, wanted to explore the possibility and so I was eager to read the book.

Now that I've learned all about Thomas Sowell's theories, I don't think Jude fits the Einstein Syndrome mold.  But still, it's a fascinating concept.  My favorite part was the chapter hypothesizing why these children talk late:  their unusual brains funnel resources to the sections of the brain devoted to analytical thought, causing those math/science/music abilities to appear earlier and language later.  The tendency appears to be hereditary- nearly all of the Einstein Syndrome children have close relatives who work in analytical fields and/or play musical instruments and/or were themselves late talkers.

But there were a few things that really bothered me about this book.  First of all, Mr. Sowell writes about the research as if it were vast, but the sample of Einstein Syndrome children he and his colleague have contacted is less than 300.  Almost all of these children seem to come from upper-middle class homes;  Among the markers for Einstein Syndrome, Sowell lists "highly educated" (Bachelor's degree +) parents, and relatives with analytical careers (scientists, pilots, physicians).  I think these are markers for an extremely skewed sample.  I kept getting the sense that Sowell came up with the idea for the Einstein Syndrome using his own son as an example, and then all his research revolved around finding other children to suit his ideas.  That's just not even real research.  It is gross confirmation bias masquerading as research.

It's easy for me to think these disapproving thoughts about Mr. Sowell's work because I just didn't like him.  He has an opinionated and forceful manner that comes through quite strongly in his writing.  He seems to think that ADD and ADHD actually do not exist.  He brushes Asperger Syndrome under the rug, too, despite the fact that several of the case studies in The Einstein Syndrome sound like they could be copy/pasted into a book about Asperger.  He writes glowingly about the situation in public schools in the 1960's and earlier, back in the good old days when children with learning disabilities didn't exist and students were just expected to pass or fail with no help from anyone.  I'd bet money that Thomas Sowell LOVES Ayn Rand.  He's an insufferable elitist who mocks virtually all public school teachers, speech therapists, and school psychologists, calling almost everyone without a Ph.D. or M.D. a self-interested and unethical "semi-professional" or "mediocrity."

And, given the fact that The Einstein Syndrome was published in 2002, Thomas Sowell's ideas are also based on outdated ideas about the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders and the highly typical language delay seen in children raised in multilingual homes (a phenomenon Sowell doesn't believe exists).  I'd be curious about an updated edition, and I'd like to hear how the Einstein Syndrome children in his sample are doing ten years years later.  I'd love to read the results of some real, rigorous research about the Einstein Syndrome.  But I'm not sure I could suffer through another book written by Thomas Sowell;  our personalities just do not mesh well.       

Verdict: I'll very grudgingly put it In-Between, since some parents who are concerned about a late-talking child might find useful and/or comforting info here.  But it has WAY too much unhelpful filler opinion material for my taste.   

Reading Recommendations: Keep your cynicism about you as you read.  No need to take Thomas Sowell's word as gospel.

Warnings: none.

What I'm reading next:  The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard edited by Tom Léger and Riley Macleod

Review: Birthing a Mother by Elly Teman

via

 Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2010

Complete Title: Birthing a Mother: The Surrogate Body and the Pregnant Self


It's about: (from the back cover) "Birthing a Mother is the first ethnography to explore the intimate experience of gestational surrogate motherhood.  In this insightful and beautifully written book, Elly Teman shows how surrogates and intended mothers carefully negotiate their cooperative endeavor.  Drawing on anthropological fieldwork among Jewish Israeli women, interspersed with cross-cultural perspectives of surrogacy in the global context, Teman traces the processes by which surrogates relinquish any maternal claim to the babies they carry even as intended mothers accomplish a complicated transition to motherhood.  Teman's groundbreaking analysis reveals that surrogates develop profound and lasting bonds with intended mothers even as they psychologically and emotionally disengage from the babies."
(I couldn't come up with a summary to rival that neat little abstract.)

I thought:  Yes!  Finally, a scholarly look at the surrogate experience!  The world of fertility and birth is such an emotionally charged one, and in my search for fictional and nonfictional texts about surrogacy I found nothing rational until stumbling upon Birthing a Mother on Amazon.  Most published and electronic material about this subject seems to fall clearly on one side of the fence; we have the "babies are a priceless gift from heaven and surrogates are the sweet and selfless angels who bring them" side, and then there's the radfem "surrogacy is by nature exploitative, patriarchal, and morally reprehensible" side.  Elly Teman examines the whole picture from the points of view of surrogates and intended mothers, all the while drawing in cultural, political, religious and feminist perspectives.  Her conclusions are enlightening.

As a surrogate myself, I did read this book with a certain bias.  It's easy for me to feel that I know the surrogate experience better than any researcher can, since I'm living it myself.  And my insider perspective makes some generalizations hard to swallow.  Ms. Teman extrapolates overarching ideas from interviews she conducted, and sometimes those ideas seemed... stretched.  For example, a good-sized section of the book describes a sub-conscious "body-mapping" process in which surrogates disengage from certain parts of their bodies, especially the uterus, in order to avoid bonding and connecting with the baby.  The theory makes sense in a way, and Teman develops it well, backing it up with surrogates' own testimonies: Israeli surrogates said that they didn't want to touch their own swollen bellies, that they sometimes forgot they were pregnant, that they were uninterested in viewing ultrasound images of the babies within them, etc.  But because I feel pretty confident that I haven't engaged in "body-mapping" myself (I still feel very connected to my uterus, thank you very much), it's hard for me to believe that it's a common, important part of the surrogate experience.  Then again, she does such a fabulous job of pointing out cultural influences, especially Israel's pronatalism, that I can't say for certain that she isn't absolutely right about the subset of women in her research. 

In general, I found Birthing a Mother refreshing and invigorating.  It's probably the most scholarly thing I've read since I graduated from college ages ago; rather than being a narrative or straight up information, it's a collection of well-organized, novel ideas that have been drawn from original research.  And there are SO MANY fascinating ideas!  The inner workings of the relationships that surrogates and intended mothers develop, the cross-cultural aspects that differentiate surrogacy experiences in different parts of the world, the examination of surrogacy as a postmodern form of reproduction, the potential for surrogate exploitation by the body politic... I learned so much from Birthing a Mother.  I came away from the reading experience in awe of the staggering workload Elly Teman must have shouldered for years to produce this book, and I'm grateful to her for it.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.  It's a must-read if you really want to understand the surrogate perspective.

Reading Recommendations: Get ready to dig in and think on this one.  If you're looking for a fluffier surrogacy story, try Then Came You.

Warnings: none

Favorite excerpts: My favorite conclusion, framing a surrogate's pregnancy/birth journey as a quest and addressing the question of whether or not surrogacy is exploitation:
"As Frank suggests in his examination of illness narratives, the 'truth of stories is not in what was experienced, but equally what becomes experience in the telling and its reception.'  The 'high' that surrogates say they feel at the end of the process can be seen literally as an effect of the heights of power they have reached in their experience of the quest.  This high represents the transcendent moment that is produced after the surrogate has disengaged her self from parts of her body, subdued her nature, battled material circumstances, and ascended in the pantheon of creation.  She has been joined together with the intended mother in a unity and has passed the tests of her sacred quest by showing courage and bravery.  Her 'high' is thus an effect of this moment of self-realization, an indescribable moment that may be likened to what Otto termed 'the experience of the holy.'  Consequently, although all signs may point to the surrogate's objectification and victimization, she experiences surrogacy as a liberating process in which she temporarily accesses what was once the feminine domain of creation."

What I'm reading next:  The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox

Review: Total Memory Makeover by Marilu Henner

...Get it? (via)

Total Memory Makeover by Marilu Henner


Reviewed by Ingrid

Published: 2012

It's about: The back of this book trumpets: LIVE THE UNFORGETTABLE LIFE YOU WERE MEANT TO HAVE! LET YOUR MEMORIES BE YOUR GUIDE! Yep, it's a self-help book about how to improve your memory.

I thought: I was willing to deal with this hyperbolic silliness because I was fascinated by Marilu Henner when I heard her interviewed on the Diane Rehm show. Henner has Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, which means she can remember every single day of her life since she was a child.

Henner's premise in this book is that, if you make a more conscious effort to improve your memory by following the steps she provides, you will better recall past mistakes and successes and thus make better decisions in the future. I found that most of Henner's tips where not that helpful - not anything that you couldn't think up yourself if you were to try to think of ways to improve your memory. Keep a journal. Use all your senses to instigate remembering. Focus on one object from your past and let it guide you to more memories you have buried in your subconcious. Etc. etc.

I kept wondering throughout the book if Marilu Henner is really in a position to offer advice about how to improve your memory. She really doesn't know what it's like to have an imperfect memory! She claims that her memory is a combination of nature and nurture, but how can she really know that? (She can't.)

Ultimately Henner's book left me with so many more questions about memory and how it functions than it answered. Most people's memory is imperfect, including my own. How much does interpretation play into what and how we remember? At times I think that memory is way too subjective to be of much use. How are we supposed to know in the more ambiguous situations of our past whether we were interpreting our actions or the actions of others correctly? Or how can we possibly know that what we are remembering isn't in fact an interpretation of the past that will best serve us in the present?

When I was in Paris for the summer of 2009, a particularly difficult time in my life, I discovered Nietzsche. I remembered while reading this book that Nietzsche makes an argument quite opposite to Henner's which begins to answer some of these questions. Nietzsche argues that, because we have no will over it, thinking of the past can disturb and weaken us. In order to have active control of our lives we must constantly take part in a process "active forgetting," a process of molding our past according to our will in the present. Because the past never follows one clear narrative, it can constantly be reinterpreted to fit our present needs. This process of reinterpretation is not self deception. To be "creators" of our past does not mean that we make up facts to comfort ourselves; it means that we take up our past narrative in a new form. There is never a final, true narrative since we are constantly adding to our narrative through life experience.

Nietzsche explains that active forgetting enables us to cope with the hardships of life by suppressing suffering and bad experiences in favor of good ones. It also gives consciousness a paramount place in one's identity in how he/she relates to him/herself as a thinking, rational, exceptional being. Nietzsche claims that it is the "lower" functions of the body and willing that sustains mankind. For example, we actively suppress our bodily functions and instinctive powers and forget them in favor of deliberate actions and knowledge.

Nietzsche writes in On the Genealogy of Morals, "The man in whom this apparatus of repression is damaged and ceases to function properly may be compared (and more than merely compared) with a dyspeptic [see both meanings of the word]--he cannot 'have done' with anything."

Certainly Marilu Henner would disagree that too much remembering has made her gloomy and pessimistic (or constipated ...). But we must realize that Henner and Nietzsche have different ideals in mind when they make their arguments. Henner's ideal is to gather the largest possible pool of information from which we can draw from in the present - the more, the better. For Nietzsche, the act of favoring certain knowledge and discarding other knowledge works to perfect our will and experience in the world. And, of course, Henner is writing a self-help book and Nietzsche is writing philosophy. So there's that.

Marilu Henner didn't explore memory as much in depth as I hoped, but I don't think her book was completely worthless. I liked how she encouraged the reader to live consciously and deliberately in the present. This, she claims, will help us to better remember the present when it becomes the past. As to how to do that, though, she doesn't specify enough to satisfy me.

Verdict: In between. It's worth a skim but I don't think it will really change your life.

Reading Recommendations: If you want to explore memory more in depth, I recommend digging into some Nietszsche (On the Genealogy of Morals) and Proust (In Search of Lost Time.) Both write extensively about how remembering (and forgetting) can make our lives rich, meaningful, and purposeful.

Warnings: Cheesy humor. Too many pop culture references. Catch phrases.

Favorite excerpts: "Opening up your receptors now will not only allow you to recreate great past experiences; you will also develop new ones with greater detail. When you go through a first date or something equally exciting, you are in a heightened state of awareness, and as a result you will relive it in your mind several times--whether it was good or bad! You will be able to turn a lot of average days into something more special, because you will go into every experience with a more sharpened level of awareness, which will undoubtedly lead to better recall."

What I'm reading next: The Man Who Quit Money by Mark Sundeen

Review: The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R. Sacks

Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2007

Full Title: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness

It's about:  Elyn Saks, a brilliant professor and scholar, describes her inner schizophrenic life in this surprisingly inspiring memoir.

I thought:  I loved this book.  I think I should modify my Top Seven Inspirational People post, bump it up to eight and add Elyn R. Saks.  This lady is, first of all, incredibly intelligent.  She cares for others immensely and has dedicated a huge chunk of her career to developing material that argues for the rights of people with mental illness.  And, luckily for me (and all of us!) she wrote this honest, brave, and important book. 

The Center Cannot Hold is a perfect example of the idea I tried to get at with my Mental Illness in Fiction Reading List.  It is a text that attempts that noblest goal: to encourage human empathy in the reader.  Ms. Saks hopes to dispel the awful stigmas associated with schizophrenia- those enduring prejudices about people with thought disorders being dangerous, absolutely hopeless cases, people who can be discarded from functional society and labeled "crazy."

Anyway, I'm a big fan of this author and her work.  Here are a couple of interesting tidbits that struck me and/or changed my mind about something:

• HIPAA.  I am now a believer in it.  It used to be not illegal for health care professionals to discuss patients' histories with other people!  At one point, an E.R. tech actually told Ms. Saks the name of another student at Yale who had suffered a psychotic episode.  And soon after that, a hospital told the school's administration about Ms. Saks' condition, effectively withdrawing her from law school without her consent.  (This was also before the Americans with Disabilities Act.) 
• Speaking of consent, holy moly!  It apparently didn't exist for many American patients in the 1980's.  Ms. Saks was unwillingly committed to a hospital, restrained and in solitary confinement for days at a time, and force-fed medications.  I don't think I'm overstating this when I say: WTF?!?!  Contrast that with the laissez-faire attitude toward psychotic people in England during the same period, when Ms. Saks (who clearly needed antipsychotic medication) was allowed to stay in the hospital if she and her demons wanted to, but she didn't really receive any treatment other a recommendation for psychoanalysis.
• Psychoanalysis, if you ask me, is generally a bunch of hooey.  I thought pretty much everyone believed this, so I was surprised when Ms. Saks described her own very positive experiences with it.  And she did soften my attitude a bit.  She argues for (and demonstrates her own need for) a combined regimen including medication and some sort of talk therapy.  And that, I have to admit, does make sense. 

SO.  If you have any interest at all in this subject or if you're hoping to relate more closely to people with schizophrenia, PLEASE read The Center Cannot Hold.  It's an vivid, insightful, and hopeful book.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf.

Reading Recommendations:  In some very basic ways, this reminded me of Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl and An Unquiet Mind.  I liked it WAY better than either of them, though.

Warnings: Nothing I can remember.  Maybe one or two swears that I glossed over?  Nothing to deter you, really.

What I'm reading next:  The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

Review: Perfect Madness by Judith Warner

Anne Taintor

Reviewed by Christina

Published: 2005

Full Title: Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety

It's about:  This righteously angry treatise explores the societal and historical pressures that create a burden of stressful expectations for middle-class mothers in America.  Ms. Warner explains how evolving parenting trends and cultural attitudes toward motherhood have culminated in our current unhealthy situation.  Working Moms and stay-at-homers alike tend toward perfectionism, continuous self-sacrifice, and ever increasing control-freakishness.  The author tells how we got here, why it's wrong, and how to fix the situation. 

I thought: Well.  I thought this was a pretty fascinating read, despite the fact that it not everything in it rings true for my generation of mommies.  The book is only seven years old, but the women quoted are closer to my mother's age than my own and the then-current statistics and situations Ms. Warner uses are from the period when I was in high school and college.  But still, I get it.  I feel for these women and their families: the endless list of "should"s, the constant procession of meaningless tasks day after day, the pain of feeling pressured to give every part of yourself to your kids.

There's some annoying melodrama in the writing style: someone's "words crackled like lightning" and sentences like "When the mommy light fades, will [the children] shiver in the dark?"  Ughhhh.  I have to fight not to snicker and/or roll my eyes when I read things like that, even if I do agree with the author's general premise and most of the arguments she makes.  People get worked up so easily about the "Mommy War" issues; there's really no need to try to pointedly ramp up the reader's emotions.  I am also not wild about the red and black cover that seems to scream "DANGER!" and "WARNING!" 

Perfect Madness is an interesting combination of forms: one-third personal essay, one-third informal history of American motherhood and feminism, and one-third reporting on and quotations from the interviews Ms. Warner held with hundreds of mothers.  The end result is 100% RANT, but since it's a rant I agree with, I didn't mind in the least.  I loved the parallels between mothering styles of the past and those of today, especially the comparisons between 1960's perfecto-moms and today's supermoms.  I think the similarities have even increased since this book was published, thanks to Mommy Blogs and the new coolness of craftiness.  And I completely agree with Judith Warner's argument that society (read: lawmakers) needs to step in and actually support families with more than lip service.  

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf!  It's not perfect, and it needs an update.  But it's still a well-written, well-researched, well-argued tract on an important subject.

Reading Recommendations: Obvs, moms will probably like this the best.  If you dig opinionated reporting and care about the lives of middle-class mothers, it's a pretty quick read.

Warnings: One chapter discusses marital sex in some detail.  One rather surprising swear word that I remember.

What I'm reading next: Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner  (my very first chick lit!)

Review: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

via

Reviewed by Connie

Published: 1927

It's about: To the Lighthouse centers around the Ramsay family as they visit their beach home in Scotland along with their friends and acquaintances in 1910-1920. Little happens, but there is much philosophical reflection and plenty of introspection.

I thought: Virginia Woolf is a literary goddess. Who else can capture the intricacies and subtleties and idiosyncrasies of the mind with such accuracy and truth? To the Lighthouse is yet another powerful example that despite (or is it because of?) her self-proclaimed "madness," Woolf understands the psychology of thought better than any other author to date.

Reading To the Lighthouse feels like reading your own mind. This book is a perfect example of my definition of "literature" -- psychological insight over plot. Little happens in this book, or in any of Woolf's books I have yet encountered, and yet its pages are remarkably profound.

I read this book much more slowly than I read other books, because I savored every last word. Should you decide to read this, I highly recommend doing so when you are at your leisure, and when you have a fully loaded pen ready to underline the crap out of that book.

Verdict: Stick it on the shelf

Reading Recommendations: If you are not a fan of stream of consciousness, or you're looking for an exciting, fast read, this is not for you. If you are looking for something beautiful and quiet and brilliant, then by all means, pick this book up.

Warnings: none

Favorite excerpts:
"How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking one felt, or disliking?"

"And, what was even more exciting, she felt, too, as she saw Mr. Ramsay bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay sitting with James in the window and the cloud moving and the tree bending, how life, from being made up of little separate incidents which one lived one by one, became curled and whole like a wave which bore one up with it and threw one down with it, there, with a dash on the beach."

"A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her; and sometimes they parleyed (when she sat alone); there were, she remembered, great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a chance."

"No, she thought...children never forget. For this reason, it was so important what one said, and what one did, and it was a relief when they went to bed."

What I'm reading next: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Reading List: Mental Illness in Fiction

Welcome to this week's installment of our newest feature here at The Blue Bookcase: Reading Lists. Every week one of us (or a guest blogger) will post on one of his or her favorite topics and provide a list of books he or she is familiar with on that topic. At the end of each post we will invite you to throw out any suggestions of books, fiction or non-fiction, that you have read or know about on that topic and we will add them to the list on that post.
These lists are not comprehensive by any means, but may be useful in helping you find your next read.

[This has turned out to be not that weekly of a thing, but it's still fun! You can find all the Reading Lists in the tab above titled as such.]

This week, Christina is compiling a list called: Mental Illness in Fiction.

Picasso: Blue Nude

When I was about fifteen I bought an old psychology textbook from a library book sale on a whim. The book was published in like 1990, and I'm sure a lot of the information inside was already long-since outdated when I read it in the late 90's. But that didn't make the chapter on mental disorders any less intriguing to me. I was simultaneously fascinated and terrified by the symptoms of psychosis, personality disorders, mania and depression. And I will forever be scarred by the cruelty described in the section on the history of mental health institutions and treatments.

But even more startling and memorable were the artwork samples included in the text and the excerpts of interviews with people suffering from various disorders. I read that chapter again and again, and thus began my interest in the experience of mental illness.

I've read some memoirs that deal with mental health issues (Prozac Nation, Autobiography of a Schizophrenic Girl, When Rabbit Howls, An Unquiet Mind, Girl Interrupted) and they are powerful. There's nothing like a first-hand account. But at the moment I'm more interested in mental illness as an aspect of character development; I don't come across this as often in my reading. So that's why I'm choosing to limit this list to fiction. I can't wait to get your recommendations! Here we go.

**EDIT: I just want to clarify that in writing this post I was absolutely not motivated by a desire to present mental illness as entertainment. Literature should be a venue for empathy, not exploitation.



The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides
Bet you didn't see this one coming! Yeah, I'm kind of obsessed with this book. Here's my review. One of the main characters, Leonard, has bipolar disorder (or, as it was known in the early '80's when this book is set, manic-depression). Eugenides really beautifully shows how Leonard relates to his illness and how the illness effects those around him.


Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
Though I thought it was kind of a cop-out when the author suddenly switched to his point of view for a chapter, I loved Kit. His break with reality and the earlier foreshadowing of his mental instability were especially interesting within the historical framework of this novel. I felt the suffering he felt, and I loved the way 19th century New Englander townspeople responded to him. Here's my review.


A Fan's Notes by Frederic Exley
Ok, so this one is just barely fiction. The narrator is a depressive alcoholic who spends time in and out of psychiatric institutions. There's a really great review of this one over at BookSlut. A fictional book about the author (called Exley) also has some mental health issues going on.


The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
How could any discussion of mental health and literature be complete without Sylvia Plath? This is one of my favorite books, and the best book about depression I have ever read. Read it and weep.


One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Another classic. It's been ages since I read it so I don't even remember which disorders are represented, but I appreciated the inherent commentary on institutionalization and treatments that were popular in the 1950's.


*Edit* 1/5/2012 I just remembered two others: Jane Eyre and Hamlet.


Ah... I know I'm forgetting some good ones! I'll add your recommendations (and your reviews, if you link 'em) below.


Your Recommendations:
"The Yellow Wallpaper" (short story) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - recommended by Connie of The Blue Bookcase
Miss Entropia and the Adam Bomb by George Rabasa - recommended by Melody at Fingers and Prose (title linked to her review)
Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan - recommended by Laura at Devouring Texts
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky - recommended by Laura at Devouring Texts (title linked to her review)
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys - recommended by Meg at The Terrible Desire
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk - recommended by Meg at The Terrible Desire
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenburg - recommended by Sherry at Semicolon
Lisa, Bright and Dark by John Neufeld - recommended by Sherry at Semicolon
Sights Unseen by Kaye Gibbons - recommended by Sherry at Semicolon (title linked to her review)
The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst - recommended by Christine-Chioma of The Blue Bookcase

Do you consider yourself particularly well-read on a certain topic? Or maybe you find yourself drawn to books about specific people, places, or things? We would love to have you write a Reading List post for us! If you are interested please email us at thebluebookcase@gmail.com.

Review: Nothing by Blake Butler

Reviewed by Ingrid


*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Published: 2011

It's about: Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia is a memoir about Blake Butler's own insomnia, but also so much more - it includes quotes from literary works, scientific journals, even wikipedia. It reads like a new, hip version of a scholarly article with unexpected footnotes.

I thought: I was excited to recieve this book because I knew of Blake Butler from HTMLGiant and was eager to see what his book would be like. As it turned out, this book was difficult to read, which held me up quite a bit at first. It took so much mental effort to try to understand what Butler was getting at. For example:

"Days are what and what are days. Where. Days go on beyond the want. In silent corridors they go on building--a what around the what-space that sits with silence and does exactly what it is--which is nothing--and therein must go on beyond however you might think you'd make it stop."

About half way through I let go a little bit and read faster, glazing over the difficult sentences  just "taking it in," you might say, in kind of a hypnotized way. I began enjoying it so much more. For a book about insomnia, this seemed pretty conducive.

Ultimately I liked the idea of this book, but it didn't grab me like I hoped it would.

Verdict: In between. The subject matter and footnotes are interesting, but the writing is quite abstract and not very accessible.

Reading Recommendations: Check this one out if you're in the mood for something avant-garde.

Warnings: Some swearing, some discussion of masturbation.

Favorite excerpts:
"The French surrealist writer René Daumal died at thirty-six in 1944. Up to the day he died, he was working on a book. The book remains unfinished, left open in the fifth of a projected seven chapters. The book, titled Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing, concerns the reckoning of a mountain concealed on earth ... the novel, after defining this event of voidspace, follows a small crew of eight people who set out in a ship called Impossible to locate [an] opening unto the mountain ... Mount Analogue, the novel, ends therein in mid-sentence, at a comma, just as the expedition begins to ascend upon the mount--the narrative sucked into the white space of its ending, transported from the page into the blank. Daumal had been working on the sentence the day tuberculosis took him out, snuffing his mind inside his body, as if the text had stopped him, or better, as if the novel continued on into himself. As if he, in his body, had come unto a hole."

"Among all [the] shapelessness, there are certain moments that emerge from in a lull - that seem to give context to the rotation of the nights around it, despite their equal utter perimeterless architecture--time aging also among time. Maybe my earliest memory of any all seems to initiate the space of all waking as mirror hall: I am standing in the kitchen of my house, before it was built onto; my mom in the bathroom running me a bath; outside it was dark and in the house was dark too beyond a dim glow in the kitchen where I was, though the light inside the bathroom there held so much bright, a light as white as neon milk, and Mom was in there sitting by the tub shape in the light's shell; the bathwater in the tub was running and she was stirring the body of it with her one hand, the other hand flat on her lap  aimed toward and looking down through the short hall to where I was, and she was telling me to come in to where she was with her but I couldn't hear her for some reason in the night ..."

What I'm reading next: I just finished Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, and I think I'm going to read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens next.

Review: The Upside of Irrationality, by Dan Ariely

Reviewed by Christina
[I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.]

Complete Title: The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic

Published: 2010

It's about: Ariely, a behavioral economist, explains some of the irrational things people do:
Why don't big bonuses make people work harder?
Why is it so hard to get people to support the most desperate causes?
Why does food taste better when we cook it ourselves?

He argues that some of our irrational behaviors are actually good for us individually and for humanity in general; hence the "upside" in the title.

I thought: I enjoyed hearing Dan Ariely on an episode of Radiolab a while back (unfortunately I can't find that episode now) so I jumped at the opportunity to review his second book. And I'm so glad I did, because I really enjoyed it.

This book is different from any other social science nonfiction I've read in that the information is presented in a very casual and personal way. Most research-based writing describes the research and then describes the results. That's fine; it's what I'm used to and it gets the point across. Mr. Ariely is a researcher himself, and in describing some of the studies he and his colleagues have performed, he adds a personal touch by explaining the experiment from the participants' perspective. I loved this! It made the experimental process into a story, and personalized the research and the results.

Ariely also illustrates his points with quite a lot of examples from his own life, which also contribute to the personal tone of the book. When he was a teenager, a terribly unfortunate accident left 70 percent of Mr. Ariely's body covered in burns. He speaks candidly about the unspeakable frustration, depression, and humiliation he suffered during his extended hospital stay following the accident, and the continuing pain that he will carry all his life. The sections about his awful experience read a little like a memoir, but one that is firmly grounded in research and ideas.

This is just a little thing that probably no one cares about but me, but I like it so much that I have to mention it: organization. Upside is perfectly organized. The chapters build upon one another and ideas flow smoothly. It's lovely. And impressive.

I can't think of much nonfiction that I believe to be universally interesting. We all have different interests and passions, and who am I to guess what you will or won't want to know more about? But The Upside of Irrationality is about the most basic human behavior, and I can't really imagine a person who wouldn't want to know more about the way our emotions effect our lives and especially our decision making. Plus it's such a readable, enjoyable book- it makes perfect sense that it is a bestseller.

Verdict: Stick it right up there on the shelf!

Reading Recommendations: Anybody who likes Malcolm Gladwell will like Dan Ariely.
There seem to be quite a few amazon reviewers who think Ariely's first book, Predictably Irrational, is even better than this one! I just added it to my wishlist.

Warnings: There is one quoted editorial (written by some public official) that has a couple of swears. Dan Ariely's own swears are few and cutely hidden behind asterisks.

Favorite excerpts: "... If we place human beings on a spectrum between the hyperrational Mr. Spock and the fallible Homer Simpson, we are closer to Homer than we realize. [But] I hope you also realize the upside of irrationality- that some of the ways in which we are irrational are also what makes us wonderfully human."

What I'm reading next: Of Mice and Men for the upcoming Steinbeck Classics Circuit tour and then The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, by Katherine Howe. Also still reading Quarantine: Stories, by Rahul Mehta

Literary Blog Hop: July 21-24

Welcome to the Literary Blog Hop hosted by The Blue Bookcase!

This blog hop is open to blogs that primarily feature book reviews of literary fiction, classic literature, and general literary discussion.

How do I know if my blog qualifies as "literary"? Literature has many definitions, but for our purposes your blog qualifies as "literary" if it focuses primarily on texts with aesthetic merit. In other words, texts that show quality not only in narrative but also in the effect of their language and structure. YA literature may fit into this category, but if your blog focuses primarily on non-literary YA, fantasy, romance, paranormal romance, or chick lit, you may prefer to join the blog hop at Crazy-for-books that is open to book blogs of all kinds.

Instructions for entering the Literary Blog Hop:

1. Grab the code for the Button.



<a href="http://www.thebluebookcase.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/IngridLola/LiteraryBlogHop-1.jpg" alt="Literary Blog Hop" width="150" height="150"></a>


2. Answer the following prompt on your blog.
(Suggestions for future prompts? Email to them us at thebluebookcase@gmail.com)

Discuss Bibliotherapy. Do you believe literature can be a viable form of therapy? Is literary writing more or less therapeutic than pop lit or nonfiction?

Our answer comes from Christina:

Reading has always made me feel better. But until this last week, when a friend pointed me toward the Bibliotherapy wikipedia article, I didn't know books were used purposefully in therapy. Since then, I've been thinking a lot about how the right book at the right time can make a difference in a person's life.

With that first question, my immediate instinct is to answer that yes, of course, literature is absolutely a viable form of therapy. As a depressed teenager, Reviving Ophelia and Prozac Nation improved my outlook on life more than I ever could have expected. Other girls and women had experienced what I was experiencing, and reading their stories helped me realize that I didn't have to feel alienated or embarrassed or ashamed about what I was going through. In a lot of ways, those books were my first steps toward healing. I can imagine that there are a lot of other situations where a book might provide that first improvement: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety surrounding major life changes, maybe some mood and personality disorders.

The therapeutic setting is one of only a handful of situations where I don't think Literature Proper really has much on Pop Lit and informational nonfiction. I mean, if you're a book snob (like so many of us here at the Literary Blog Hop) obviously good writing is going to speak to you more than poor writing. But taking a more general view of the literate population of the world, it's the message and the story that will make a difference to someone who is hurting, not necessarily the literary devices or style of prose. If I were a counseling psychologist would I only recommend Literature to my clients? Nope, I'd recommend whatever they were likely to read and appreciate.

Is literature really going to solve everyone's problems? Probably not. And is it the only or best solution in most cases? Probably not. Is it going to cure psychosis? No. And the last thing I want to suggest is that depressed people just need to read more good books. It took years of antidepressants and counseling before I really came out of the dark (to use one of many horrible clichés about depression) and every person's situation is different. But I love the idea of books as a part of therapy, and I wish I were better at recommending the right books to the friends who really need them. I wish I could change people's lives by recommending the right book. That's a beautiful thing.


3. Add your link to the Linky List below.Happy Hopping!
*PLEASE NOTE: if you do not answer the question and link back to The Blue Bookcase in a post on your blog, you will be removed from the Linky list.

Review: The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

Reviewed by Ingrid

This book is the July selection for A Year of Feminist Classics

Published: This book was first published in French as Le Deuxième Sexe in 1949. The first English translation by H.M. Parshley was published in 1953. A new English translation by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier was published this year, 2011. I read the complete text of the Parshley translation and also bits of the Borde/Malovany-Chevallier translation.

My copy of the Parshley trans.

It's about: Woman. Yep, you guessed it. This book is famous because it was the first book published that completely focused on Woman - her biology, history, psychology, the way she is portrayed in mythology and literature, and her experience in contemporary society. Simone de Beauvoir's famous line from this book is, "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." She shows how gender is more of an acquired characteristic than an inherited one. She also discusses how women can break out of gender stereotypes and become independent.

I thought: First, let's talk translations. There's been a lot of talk about the English translations of The Second Sex. Many have claimed that the Parshley translation is poor and incomplete, as Parshley made significant cuts to the text and also mistranslated de Beauvoir's philosophical language. The new translation was much needed and seemed promising, though it has been criticized for being "excessively literal" and even "unreadable." In hindsight, many have found the Parshley translation more accessible.

The reason I read the Parshley is pretty simple - because I bought it and started it before the new translation came out just last month. After comparing the two and reading the above articles, I came to the conclusion that, for my purposes reading this book just for myself, with a pretty elementary understanding of philosophy but also a desire to actually read through the whole thing, the Parshley translation suited me just fine. I frankly didn't pay much attention to de Beauvoir's philosophical bits on women, I don't think I would have noticed or cared if certain words were mistranslated. That didn't seem to be the point of the book anyway - her point is to show how society has shaped views on women. It certainly isn't some complicated Existentialist tract. You don't need to know anything about philosophy to enjoy this book.

Read more »