Jun 01 2008
Hello world!
Books, books, and more books–this is my life. I read literature, fiction, memoirs, thrillers, whatever sounds interesting at the time. I keep a running Wish List on Amazon so that I can remember titles until I can afford to buy them. In the past few months I have made a conscious effort to get rid of books after I read them. If I think I might like to repeatedly loan one out or revisit it myself, I keep it. Otherwise, I give it away. Buh-bye overcrowded bookshelves, buh-bye! Only problem is, my memory sucks, and several times I’ve re-bought books I’d already read. Hate it when that happens. I review stuff on Amazon, although I like to keep it short and sweet. You can find those reviews under the same user name “Bookish in Sac.” I’m a virgin blogger, so this is kind of a trip for me. The goal is to illuminate a little of what’s on the page and all the rage.If you, like me, are always looking for new stuff to read, I have a couple of suggestions. If you have a Google homepage, you can select San Francisco Chronicle Books, and also Washington Post book reviews to appear on your homepage. I also love the NY Times Book Review, which is available by mail or electronically. Sometimes the ads are the best part if you’re looking for mainstream stuff. Whenever I read a magazine–from Oprah and Marie Claire to Oxford American–I keep my laptop handy so I can add anything I read about to my Wish List. I may not live long enough to afford and read the entire Wish List, because it is ever-expanding, but I’ll die happy trying.This morning I finished Switching Time by Richard Baer, an account of a doctor’s treatment and integration of a woman with 17 personalities. It was great. Probably the best account of DID (disassociative identity disorder)/MPD (multiple personality disorder) I’ve read since Sybil. It was really easy to get into, not textbook-y, and chronicled the specific integration of each alternate personality, including the abusive circumstance that caused each one to be “born.” He didn’t exploit the abuse for sensational value–although it’s pretty damned sensational any way you look at it! This woman endured unfathomable abuse at the hands of her father and grandfather almost from the time she was born, including being tied up, beaten, pricked with pins, raped with a variety of instruments, and ritual abuse in back rooms and a funeral parlor by members of the father and grandfather’s so-called cult. The origin of MPD/DID is a splitting off of personalities to deal with extreme abuse: the more abuse, often the more personalities needed to cope. It’s always amazing that these people survive at all, let alone go on to integrate and lead productive lives. Fascinating stuff.Speaking of sensational abuse–this time self-inflicted–check out Nikki Sixx’s Heroin Diaries. It’s a fast read, being in diary form, but it’s also a very cool book. Pages are thick and glossy, all colored in red, black and white. Kind of like a scrapbook, with drawings and bits of lyrics included, and statements from other people who were around to flesh out his story. Slash–who appears a bunch of times in the book and is reputed to be the inspiration for Aerosmith’s Dude Looks Like A Lady–has his own memoir out that sounds pretty interesting. I’m a total voyeur when it comes to strange and unusual lifestyle.Later.
