I read a lot. I’ll post some random book reviews here, and ideally, some links for the books in case anyone is interested enough to pick them up. Maybe, maybe not. Stranger things have happened. If a book is awful, I’ll probably share that, too, although it is rare for me to find something absolutely terrible.
Be Honest—You’re Not That Into Him Either
I have a bookcase full of books, some I’ve finished, some I’m going to get to, that will go in my office someday when I have my own practice. Yes, I plan that far ahead. But I pick up one now and again to read in between reading about serial killers and the like. This is one of them:
Be Honest—You’re Not That Into Him Either: Raise Your Standards and Reach for the Love You Deserve
by Ian Kerner, Ph.D.
© 2005
ReganBooks
I’m not sure why the link formatted that way, but it doesn’t much matter as long as it works!
The title says a bit of what the book is about. It’s about women who spend large amounts of time pursuing men they’re not really into. They pick a guy just to have one, because they feel they’re nothing without a man. They pick a fixer-upper and try to change him—make him dress differently (if it’s easy), or change habits (drinking, smoking), or even change jobs.
Instead of working on themselves, women will make the man complete her. Instead of finding her own job and career and becoming self-sufficient, she pressures him to get a job that will support her. Instead of letting a relationship grow naturally, or die naturally if the red flags are there, or be bold enough to walk away and say that no matter what she feels, it’s not working, she’ll push and push until she’s got herself that elusive husband creature.
One of the worst things the author says you can do is marry someone who’s beneath you, settle because you figure you have to do it now or it might never happen. Much better to be a whole, happy person on your own, who finds a worthy companion, someone who you truly like and admire, to spend time with because you enjoy them.
And it’s okay to not rush things. That might be easy for me to say, I’ve had a marriage, I am never having children again. But it’s far better to focus on a partner who is worth your time than latch onto someone who really isn’t. If you’re looking for fulfillment in others, maybe you should rethink your relationship.
Really, the big thing is to just fix yourself, then not settle. If your life is in order, you should be satisfied with who you are. A man isn’t meant to define you, only to be a good companion. If you can find that, go for it.
The Killer Book of Serial Killers
The Killer Book of Serial Killers: Incredible Stories, Facts, and Trivia from the World of Serial Killers, by Tom Philbin an Michael Philbin, © 2009, Sourcebooks
Look at that! January isn’t even over and I’m almost finished reading a book published this year! How amazing is this?
This book is a fun, quick overview of a variety of serial killers, 35 in total. It’s a quick read, but in many of the chapters, they recommend other books by other authors that will go into each killer in detail. Yes, I am one of the many who has a fascination with serial killers. My personal fascination is in what makes them different from us. (and I have added to my book/movie wish list)
I know, I know, people tell me they just ARE different from us. But what small changes in my life (okay, admittedly, I’m at a disadvantage in the serial killer likelihood category simply because I was not born with a penis) would have changed me from a mostly harmless person to a serial killer? How much is biology? How much is nurture? In most cases, there were family problems, often a single mother with her own serious issues, but not 100% of the time. Some had two parents with a domineering father, but… so do a lot of people. Some people endure far worse and come out without a propensity to harm others. Are some people just born to be psychopaths or sociopaths or dangerous to anyone they encounter?
So what is it that separates serial killers from the rest of us? And would psych care early in life, diagnoses and treatment of schizophrenia (which appears to occur in quite a few serial killers) change their course? Or are they just doing what they need to do?
I’m sure I’ll write about more serial killer books as I read them. This is a purse or backpack book, it’s quick and fast to read, it gives just enough information to whet your appetite and make you feel you know a little bit about the given serial killers, and it is easy to read in a doctor’s office or other waiting area. Sure beats old magazines and twiddling your thumbs. It is interesting enough, but not overly challenging, to read with distractions. These are big factors for my purse book!
Necessary Losses
I read this groovy book:
It talks of how loss makes us grow (not surprisingly, if you look at the title, I suppose). It begins with infancy, with the bond between mother and child, and how having a secure place to return to as well as a secure place to venture from is essential in this relationship, which makes sense. Without a parent to love and support us, it is a lot more challenging to grow. The themes of loss follow logically from one to the next.
But then it ventures into places where people sometimes don’t like to go. It talks about love, but also says that we can’t love without acknowledging that we hate, too. We can’t be all goodness and light and fluffy; we must also balance that with our inherent evil and meanness. It’s all there, and admitting it is key to being whole. Viorst points out that “love is not threatened by the daimonic, but by our denial of it, by our failure to greet it —aggression and all—as our own.”
The chapter that deals with Oedipal issues reminded me of a trip with my parents when I was young. We were on Cape Cod or Martha’s Vineyard, somewhere there, and we were riding in a Volkswagen Thing we had rented, and I said when I grew up, I was going to marry my daddy. I remember my mother laughed. Even now, that embarrasses me. But it’s also normal to plan to marry your parent; we all felt that way at one point or another, we just don’t all remember that moment when we expressed it so vividly. I am also reminded that I want to re-read Oedipus Rex, as an adult.
It also reminded me of Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which might be the worst novel I have ever read. Incest, and a life of promise devolved into drunken waste. I cannot think of one redeeming aspect of the novel, and for me, that is rare. Normally, I so love books. I love story. Were it not for a book club, I would not have finished it. Ironically, my partner in the book club gave up because the book was so hopelessly depressing, and we never picked another book to read (perhaps her life devolved into a drunken waste, too?) I would love to have a reading partner again. I tried last year with another friend. Her suggestion was War and Peace, which I started. I did! I read a lot. And she… didn’t get around to it. She was going to, but… stuff happens, I guess. Oddly, I liked it. I have a thing for Russian authors. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read of Dostoyevsky (reminds me of Dickens, in the portrayals of the cities of his era, a dark and gloomy place, but wonderfully alive in the descriptions—and I do love Dickens). I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read of Tolstoy.
We progress into love, love of lovers, and love of friends. Is it possible that we harbor sexual feelings for all our friends, regardless of their sex or our orientation? As I think over the friends I have who I hang out with, I have to say, there is no sexual appeal there. Are there women who I think are very sexy? Oh, yes. No, not going to sleep with them, but my friends are generally not in that category. Sorry, nothing personal. I have heard that there is no such thing as a male-female friendship without some sort of sexual desire, at least on the part of one person. I don’t believe this to be true (my best friend is a guy, never felt any sexual attraction for him—it would be akin to a relationship with a brother, just not right). But are there male friends with whom I would consider more than casual friendship if they were available and interested? I’d be lying if I said no. Is it all of them? Definitely no. I suspect, though, that many of our friendships have “unexpressed and unconscious erotic elements.” The author adds, “That doesn’t mean, however, that we’re dying to jump into bed with all of our friends.” I suppose if we list the friends we choose, the ones we really want to spend time with, rather than the ones who choose us or come to us when they need support (and we feel bad, so we offer ourselves to them, even though we’d prefer to spend time with other firends), then we might find more of the sexual-held-in-check (which could make us worry about the friends who show up for support when we wouldn’t invite them, about their feelings toward us). But, we can’t look at friendship without recognizing that there is hatred in all love, too; there is competition; there is bitterness, resentment, envy.
The book covers mourning the loss of a loved one (parent, spouse, child). Then it goes on to losing some of ourselves, our youthful beauty and waistline and sex appeal. We have to let these things go, mourn them, and learn to love who we are when we’ve lost them. It talks of middle age, and different responses to dealing with life changes—fighting it or accepting it. As with a lot of psychology, I think there’s a balance here, rather than extremes. We don’t accept it without doing something to improve ourselves, but we don’t keep improving without accepting that we’re getting older. Even she concludes by pointing out that for a lot of theories, it’s not either/or, but rather a bit of both.
The author points out that “acknowledged feelings are easier to control than those we deny.” I wonder if perhaps this holds true for feelings such as lust. Because even though we might get older, we can still experience strong sexual desire. Does admitting we’re feeling it instead of pretending it’s not there help us control our response?
Midlife is supposed to bring about changes, some good, some not good. But I wondered, randomly, if Picasso’s art transformation, from more realistic to the work he’s more known for, happened when he was in midlife, so I looked it up. Sure enough, he was in his thirties before he did any of his cubism or other unusual (new to the world) art forms. Other great artists weren’t so fortunate (Mozart was dead before middle age). But I have read about the female side of the mid-life conversion before. Apparently both men and women rethink and readjust their priorities, their values. Both explore darker sides of themselves and become more whole and liberated. Or at least they can. We can all stay in a safe shell from which we never emerge, but it’s not the most fun place to spend our time. Part of growing up, of not worrying so much about what we might lose because we’ve already lost it, is feeling free to go where we didn’t dare go before. We realize, perhaps, that before we die, we’d like to live.
For those of us who are aging, which really is all of us, the book talks of old age, of how we slow down, but don’t need to stop living. And it talks of how we prepare for death (which, for many of us, I suspect, becomes a more acceptable topic as we age). The book, beginning to end, really is just about what we lose and how we grow from it. She uses poetry, fiction, science, case studies, all to demonstrate her point. The information might not all be new, but it is the first place I have seen it all arranged like this, and it was an enjoyable and interesting (although somewhat long) read.
