Top 5 Books for January 2011
Top Five Books of 2010
- Momma and the Meaning of Life by Irvin D. Yalom, February 2010
I've been a fan of Dr Yalom ever since I read Love's Executioner - a collection of outstanding and true to life psychotherapy tales. Having successfully executed a pateint's life halting love for her former therapist, Yalom picks up the mind altering trail in Momma and the Meaning of Life with a tear jerking battery of what it means to deal with death. From the loss of his mother to a ten-year group therapy project that successfully extended the lives of the terminally ill, this professional retrospective offers some fascinating insights into how we deal with the inevitable. A particularly memorable case is that of Irene - a long standing friend of Yalom who seeks a more professional relationship with the doctor after discovering that her husband has terminal cancer. The Seven Advanced Lessons in the Therapy of Grief that grow out of these years of personal boundary breaking therapy are heartbreakingly frank and ultimately, successful. After years of conversational minefields and seemingly inexhaustible reserves of anger, Irene learns that even accomplished surgeons like herself can't control everything and begins to move forward. It's not a light read by any measure but by documenting the strife and complexity of grief to this degree, Yalom once again delivers the goods.
Momma and the Meaning of Life by Irvin D. Yalom is published by Piatkus Books (paperback; £8.99). It is also available through amazon.com and all good booksellers.
- The Rough Guide to Sex by James McConnachie, March 2010
The in-a-nutshell-promotional-copy for this one portrays this guide as - Hands-on 'how to' advice that doesn't shout "faster, longer, harder, wilder" for the sake of it, but provides in-depth and honest advice on bodies, techniques, orgasms, adventures and accessories. Nothing is too taboo to mention, which makes one wonder just what exactly the research entailed for author, James McConnachie. The evolutionary theories about orgasms are particularly fascinating however, my favourite element of this read has to be the abundance of suggested accessories. In fact this approach to sex as a fun and integral part of our civilisation, is almost enough to make me go out right now and buy McConnachie's first publication - The Book of Love: in Search of the Kama Sutra. How very refreshing!
The Rough Guide to Sex by James McConnachie is published by Rough Guides (paperback; £12.99). It is also available through roughguides.com and all good booksellers.
Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland: More Personal Ads from the London Review of Books, May 2010
The London Review of Books has been publishing brutally satirical personal ads for many years and now the best of the bunch have been brought together in one book by the mighty, mighty David Rose. The ads speak for themselves so I offer you one of my favourites as an example of what you might fall in love with: "What you gonna do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk? I'm gonna get a PhD in Social Sciences and spend Saturday nights alone in Oxted. Desperate Woman, 34, all too aware of the misery caused by poor decision making processes but more than willing to share it with men who don't have high sexual expectations and enjoy female company that isn't their mother (which I'm guessing, pretty much covers most of the male readership of this magazine). Box no. 8820."
Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland: More Personal Ads from the London Review of Books is published by the Scribner Book Company (paperback; £7.99). It is also available through amazon.com and all good booksellers.
- A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakimi, June 2010
Murakami has been labelled as one of the world's greatest living novelists and offerings such as A Wild Sheep Chase go a long way towards explaining why. This tale is one that revolves, shockingly enough, around a sheep. It is however a very special sheep with a star shaped patch of dark fur on its back. Said sheep might also possess unimaginable powers and be in charge of the world as we know it. Murakami therefore takes us on a quest to find it in a plot that is part Poirot, part slap stick and part crazy. There's even a cat with flatulence problems involved and a woman with magical ears - so a great read all round!
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakimi is published by Random House (paperback; £8.99). It is also available through amazon.com and all good booksellers.
- American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, December 2010
This book, thanks in part to the film adaptation staring Christian Bale, needs no introduction. It is of course the tale of Patrick Bateman - a psychopathic Wall Street worker who leads a tempestuous life populated with pockets of comedy, delusion, brutal violence, vanity and bitter professional competition. Rather disturbingly this tale inspired a generation of elitist workers and dog eat dog yuppies in the late 1990s, but it is nonetheless an un-put-downable classic, offering a morbid curiosity inspiring insight in the then, modern man.
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis is published by Pan Macmillan (paperback; £7.99). It is also available through panmacmillan.com and all good booksellers.
