The Bookshelf

I read a lot, so I figured I'd make a blog keeping track of what I've read.

[the-readingshelf]

Title: I Hate You -- Don’t Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality Author: Jerold J. Kreisman, MD, and Hal Straus Category/genre: non-fiction, psychology, mental health Pages: 271 (paperback) Summary: People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) experience such violent and frightening mood swings that they often fear for their sanity. They can be euphoric one moment, despairing and depressed the next. There are an estimated 18 million sufferers of BPD living in America today -- each displaying remarkably similar symptoms:

A shaky sense of identity

Sudden outbursts of anger

Oversensitivity to real or imagined rejection

Brief, turbulent love affairs

Intense feelings of emptiness

Eating disorders, drug abuse, and other self-destructive tendencies

An irrational fear of abandonment and an inability to be alone

For years BPD was difficult to describe, diagnose, and treat. But with this classic guide, Dr. Jerold J. Kreisman and health writer Hal Straus offer much-needed professional advice, helping victims and their families understand and cope with this troubling, shockingly widespread affliction. This completely revised and updated edition includes information on the most up-to-date research that has opened doors to the neurobiological, genetic, and developmental roots of the disorder, as well as the connections between BPD and substance abuse, sexual abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, ADHD, and eating disorders, making it a vital reference for understanding and living with BPD.

Comments: This is the first and so far only book I’ve read about Borderline Personality Disorder, so I don’t have anything to compare it to, but I found this easy to read and enlightening. As someone who has been diagnosed with BPD, I feel that reading this book has helped me understand my illness and recognize when and how it comes out in my own life, and being aware of this will hopefully help me deal with it better when those situations arise in the future. I do wish it had included some suggestions for how people with BPD can deal with symptoms, though. I found the language condescending at times, and overall, I think the books reads much, much more like a guide for how to deal with people with BPD than a resource for people with BPD. Finally, I found the analysis/discussion of celebrities and historical figures through a sort of “BPD lense” to be ... not great. I don’t think it’s a good idea to even tentatively “diagnose” someone who you’ve never met, celebrity or otherwise. I also found it all kinds of distasteful to mention Hitler in this book.

[the-readingshelf]

Title: Such a Pretty Girl Author: Laura Wiess Category/genre: fiction Pages: 212 (paperback) Summary: They promised Meredith nine years of safety, but only gave her three. Her father was supposed to be locked up until Meredith turned eighteen. She thought she had time to grow up, get out, and start a new life. But Meredith is only fifteen, and today her father is coming home from prison. Today her time has run out.

Comments: This is a book I have re-read several times since I first picked it up from the library as a teenager, as are all the other books by Laura Wiess that I have read so far. However, the subject matter of her books is always difficult, always potentially triggering, and so my re-reads have been between stretches of time juuust long enough to half-forget the story. As a result, it hits just as hard ever time, but doesn’t tire me out. Such a Pretty Girl follows Meredith as she grapples with the return of her father, a convicted child molester, who victimized her and several others, both boys and girls. Her mother is too blinded by love for the man to do anything to protect her, and it seems that everyone else’s hands are tied in the situation, so Meredith has to take matters into her own hands. The story is heart-wrenching and infuriating, as Laura Wiess’ works tend to be. One thing I feel I should warn you about is that Meredith is in a relationship with nineteen-year-old man.

[the-readingshelf]

Title: I Wrote This For You: Just The Words Author: Iain S. Thomas Category/genre: poetry Pages: 216 (paperback) Summary: The follow-up to the #1 bestseller, I Wrote This For You: Just The Words presents twice the number of entries with over 400 works from the internationally acclaimed poetry and photography project; including several new and never before seen poems. While focusing on the words from the project, new photography launches each section which portray everyone’s journey through the world: Love Found, Being In Love, Love Lost, Hope, Despair, Living and Dying. (via)

Comments: I cried a lot while reading this, which was strange, since I’ve never really cried over poetry before. I guess that must mean something.

[the-readingshelf]

Title: The Full Spectrum: Expanded Edition Author: Various; edited by David Levithan and Billy Merrell Category/genre: non-fiction, sexual orientation, gender identity, LGBTQ+ issues, LGBTQ+ writing, sexual minority youth Pages: 316 (paperback) Summary: When The Full Spectrum first hit shelves, Massachusetts was the only state to have legally recognized gay marriage, “gender identity disorder” was still considered a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association, and LGBTQ characters in popular media – especially media aimed at young people – were rare or nonexistent.

New York Times-bestselling author David Levithan (Every Day; Will Grayson, Will Grayson) and author Billy Merrell have expanded their groundbreaking collection of original writing from gay, lesbian, bisexual, straight, transitioning, and questioning young people. The poems, essays, and stories included within cover topics such as coming out, first kisses, breakups, breakdowns, faith, family, and friendship.

This edition of The Full Spectrum includes writing from young voices and an updated introduction discussing many of the leaps and bounds made by LGBTQ activists in recent years – as well as the challenges still facing the queer community today.

Comments: I read the original edition of The Full Spectrum when I was a teenager, probably more than ten years ago now, when I was starting to explore my own identity. It was one of many books that opened my eyes to the LGBT community and their struggles. Back then, the book did not contain stories by/about nonbinary or asexual people. I almost cried when I discovered that this extended version does. I’ll never know how reading those stories might have impacted me as a teen, but reading them now served to remind me why representation is so important. Nevertheless, this books will always be important to me, and I will always recommend it.

[the-readingshelf]

Title: Lolita Author: Vladimir Nabokov Category/genre: fiction Pages: 361 (paperback) Summary: Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is a dark and daring story of obsessive love and transgression. Humbert Humbert’s lust for his pubescent step-daughter, Lolita, shocked readers when it was first published in the 1950s; yet the novel was also celebrated for its beautifully lyrical writing. Almost fifty years after its first publication, Lolita remains a powerful tale of perversion and love gone wrong.

Comments: It’s a book about a pedophile. No amount of sugar-coating in the summary is gonna change that. When I first heard about this book, I was immediately put off. Why would you want to read about a grown man lusting after a child, especially from his perspective? Then I heard that people apparently sympathize with Humbert Humbert and/or see Lolita as at least partially responsible for what happened to her. I wanted to read it myself to see if I could see why anyone would think these things. All I saw was a despicable little man who grew more and more despicable the further I read. The “beautifully lyrical writing” only serves to highlight that, as do the breathtaking American landscapes Nabokov paints into the reader’s mind, but for which Humbert shows only disdain. I was filled with this low-boiling dread the whole time I read this book, and yet I couldn’t put it down. There is nothing exactly graphic in it, yet I cannot fathom why anyone would think it was a good idea to make a movie out of it. On a different note, do you have any idea how long it took me to find a copy of this book that didn’t have a little girl on the cover?

[the-readingshelf]

Title: The Travelling Cat Chronicles Author: Hiro Arikawa (translated from Japanese by Philip Gabriel) Category/genre: fiction Pages: 247 (paperback) Summary: It’s not the journey that counts, but who is at your side. Nana is on a road trip, but he is not sure where to. All that matters is that he can sit beside his beloved Satoru in the front of his silver van. Satoru is keen to visit three old friends from his youth, though Nana doesn’t know why and Satoru won’t say.

Set against the backdrop of Japan’s changing seasons and narrated with a rare gentleness and striking humour, Nana’s story explores the wonder and thrill of life’s unexpected detours. It is about friendship, solitude, and knowing when to give and when to take. Above all, it shows how acts of love, both great and small, can transform our lives.

Comments: I finished reading this just a few minutes ago, and I have probably been crying for well over an hour. Never before have I read a book that warmed my heart so much in the same moments as shattering it. Nana the cat’s voice is full of exactly the kind of attitude you’d expect from a feline narrator, and that makes his growing love for Satoru throughout the story all the more charming. Perfectly woven through their journey are flashbacks that give you snapshots of Satoru’s life, and the lives of the friends he visits. Add to that beautiful descriptions of various areas of Japan, and this book is ultimately a feel-good read despite how heartwrenching it is. If you love cats, if you’ve ever loved a pet, you’ve gotta give this book a shot.

[the-readingshelf]

Title: Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee Author: Dee Brown Category/genre: non-fiction, Native American history, American history Pages: 487 (paperback) Summary: The American West, 1860 - 1890: years of broken promises, disillusionment, war and massacre. Beginning with the Long Walk of the Navajos and ending with the massacre of the Sioux at Wounded Knee, this extraordinary book tells how the American Indians lost their land, lives and liberty to white settlers pushing westward. Woven into an engrossing saga of cruelty, treachery and violence are the fascinating stories of such legendary figures as Sitting Bull, Cochise, Crazy Horse and Geronimo. First published in 1970, Dee Brown’s brutal and compelling narrative changed the way people thought about the original inhabitants of America, and focused attention on a national disgrace.

Comments: I originally purchased this book a couple of years ago, and had to stop reading halfway through. This book is heartbreaking, infuriating, and absolutely essential, particularly for white Americans. Now if only I could get a similarly thorough and comprehensive book about Canadian Natives.

[the-readingshelf]

Title: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century Author: Timothy Snyder Category/genre: non-fiction, history, European history, social justice, current events Pages: 126 (paperback) Summary: History does not repeat, but it does instruct. In the twentieth century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism and communism. These were movements in which a leader or a party promised to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and rejected reason in favour of myth. European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances. History can familiarise, and it can warn. Today, we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to totalitarianism in the twentieth century. But when the political order seems imperiled, our advantage is that we can learn from their experience to resist the advance of tyranny. Now is a good time to do so. Comments: This is a concise, very readable book (I read it in two sittings) and is kind of a crash course on tyranny and how to resist. Most, if not all 20 lessons could probably be expanded upon to fill at least one book of their own, but here you get the essentials, the big picture, and pointers you can put to use in your own life. It’s a good place to start if you’re looking for ways to deal with the current state of the world or to get an idea of the lessons from history that we should be paying attention to right now. Although it is very America-centric (for obvious reasons), I would recommend it to people all around the world.

[the-readingshelf]

Title: The Cyber Effect: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behaviour Changes Online Author: Mary Aiken Category/genre: non-fiction, cyberpsychology, psychology, sociology Pages: 385 (paperback) Summary: The way we behave is changing. Technology has infiltrated every aspect of our lives -- from relationships, to the way we shop, from our political systems to the the minds of our children. In The Cyber Effect, Dr Mary Aiken .. one of the world’s leading experts in cyberpsychology and ‘the real-life spook behind CSI Cyber’ (Daily Telegraph) -- explains what is happening to us, how it works and what we can do about it. Packed with vivid stories, eye-opening insights and surprising statistics, this book offers a fascinating guide through a new future that it’s not too late to do something about.

Comments: Please read this book. But read it critically. It’s easy to give something like this the sarcastic “durr hburr technology is bad fire is scary and thomas edison was a witch”, and there are, in my opinion, places where it gets a bit... fear-mongery... but there is also a lot of good information, particularly in regards to social media, that would benefit literally everyone who uses any social media platform. At the very least, it’s a thought-provoking book.

[the-readingshelf]

Title: If This Is A Woman: Inside Ravensbrück: Hitler’s Concentration Camp for Women Author: Sarah Helm Category/genre: non-fiction, history, World War II, the Holocaust Pages: 823 (paperback) Summary: Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and the architect of the Holocaust, oversaw the construction of a special concentration camp just fifty miles north of Berlin. He called it Ravensbrück, and during the years that followed thousands of people died there after enduring brutal forms of torture. All were women. There are a handful of studies and memoirs that reference Ravensbrück, but until now no one has written a full account of this atrocity, perhaps due to the mostly masculine narrative of war, or perhaps because it lacks the Jewish context of most mainstream Holocaust history. Ninety percent of Ravensbrück's prisoners were not Jewish. Rather, they were political prisoners, Resistance fighters, lesbians, prostitutes, even the sister of New York's Mayor LaGuardia. In a perverse twist, most of the guards were women themselves. Sarah Helm's groundbreaking work sheds much-needed light on an aspect of World War II that has remained in the shadows for decades. Using research into German and newly opened Russian archives, as well as interviews with survivors, Helm has produced a landmark achievement that weaves together various accounts, allowing us to follow characters on both sides of the prisoner/guard divide. Chilling, compelling, and deeply unsettling, Ravensbrück is essential reading for anyone concerned with Nazi history. (via)

Comments: Hard to read, yet hard to put down. This is an aspect of WWII of which I was previously unaware. Provides details of prisoners and guards alike and allows for incredible insight into their lives and mindsets. This is one book I think everyone should read.