Julia
I always feel silly writing a review for something that won a major award (like, you know, a Pulitzer). This novel is fantastic, obviously. I think it speaks eloquently, bravely, and humorously to the messiness of moral injury in the course and aftermath of war and geopolitics, while managing to steer clear of moralizing. The narrator is one of my favorites in literature, I think; if it weren't enabling his alcoholism, I'd want to have a drink with him.
I picked this up from one of the lending libraries in my neighborhood. When I lived in Albuquerque, my internship training director had recommended Hillerman's work as an interesting window into Southwestern culture. It certainly made me nostalgic for the Land of Enchantment! This is a pretty standard mystery in terms of plot and pacing, but the characters are interesting and funnily flawed, and Hillerman weaves a great deal of local tribal and political history into the finely-observed details. I'd definitely reach for another Hillerman next time I'm in the mood for a mystery.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is my primary modality for treating folks in individual therapy, and the kind of couples therapy I do (Integrative Behavioral Couples Therapy) has a high degree of overlap with ACT. I was excited to read an explicitly ACT-oriented self-help approach for couples, and was impressed with Harris' book. It's a good length, written accessibly without being cheesy, and has a lot of wisdom. I think some people chafe against the idea of acceptance (e.g., “I just have to accept what I don't like about my partner???”), but the heart of the book (and ACT more broadly) is about values. So, yeah...if staying in your relationship is more important to you than your dislikes, you are going to have to figure out a way to may it work (and Harris provides lots of detail about how to do that mindfully). That's not complacence; that's prioritizing one of your own values above another. But we all get to choose. Anyway, I've used parts of it with patients already, and would recommend it both professionally and personally to most folks.
I got a copy of this from Dr. Maurer himself, who lives in Spokane. He's a very talented clinician, and has skillfully condensed his approach into this great little book. This is self-help that is practical, not platitude-filled. The steps are straightforward, compassionately-described, and evidence-based. I use it with patients often, and also often reflect on its wisdom in my own life.
My current neighborhood has a bunch of those Little Free Library things (https://littlefreelibrary.org/), and when I saw this in one, I couldn't pass it up. My husband asked me to estimate the number of times I've read this book, and I don't know. But a lot of times, and it's always wonderfully nostalgic.
This was so wonderful that I don't have anything original or insightful to say about it. It's a very complex novel, but two of the blurbs summarize it nicely for me: the reviewer at the SF Chronicle said it was “dazzling....Funny and defiant, and simuntaneously so wise....Brilliant,” and NPR's reviewer commented, “[A] knockout of a novel about immigration, American dreams, the power of first love, and the shifting meanings of skin color....A marvel.” I've been listening to the BBC World News podcast lately, and I think the non-US-centric perspective is good for me as an American listener. I loved this novel for similar reasons; Adichie casts her critical and also lyrical eye on the world from a fully intersectional perspective, considering race, class, immigration status, culture, location within cultures, language, gender, and more. I feel enriched for having read it, and it was beautiful.
I first read my mom's tattered copy of this triology in college. 10 years later, I couldn't recall the plot, but knew I was spellbound by it, so dove back in. It's great. Davies managed what seems to be a tricky feat in trilogies - weaving together three novels (novellas?) with different narrators (one narrator appears twice, at different phases in life) and distinctly different feels that shed light on the same captivating plot. Picking a favorite feels impossible, although on the one hand, “The Manticore” introduces the belligerent narrator to a formidable (and formidably compassionate) opponent in the form of a female psychoanalyst, so of course I love that, and on the other, “World of Wonders” links past and present in a way that feels satisfying, but not too pat. But “Fifth Business”! Ahhh! Just read them. Also, notably given my own personal preferences, the female characters are as multidimensional as the males, and Davies has some interesting and subtle thoughts on the cultural phenomenon of masculinity.
I pulled this off the shelf at the clinic I now work in - it's a classic for a reason. Satir wrote this for parents, and I cannot think of descriptions that are more clear, concise, and compassionate than Satir's as she explored communication, self-esteem, and the complex dynamics of family systems. I was going to write that my one quibble is that it's now outdated - a fair amount of heteronormative assumptions, etc. - except that once you get to the last chapter, Satir pointed to divorce, cohabitation and child-rearing without marriage, same-sex relationships, and polyamory and said, “What if all the practices that are now going on, which we have labelled as morally bad, were instead really evidence of the great variations in human beings?” In 1972! Way to preach, lady, and be WAY on the right side of history! Threaded throughout the book is the compelling idea that, in whatever form they take, families are how people are made, and the fate of the species thus rests on how supportive families are, and how supported they are, as well.
I love it when poets write prose. Karr's language is just so, so good. This was also interesting to read just after George Sanders' Tenth of December, which I was so ambivalent about because of its darkness. Cherry is, if anything, darker, because the things Karr experienced and bore witness to are real, but I felt uplifted that a mind like hers can emerge from an adolescence like that and live to tell the tale so evocatively.
This is 4 stars for me instead of 5 is more related to personal idiosyncracy than anything else. I feel baffled reading the blurbs on the back cover: famous people are saying, “This is great comedy, threaded with tragedy!” and I'm all like, “This is great tragedy, threaded with comedy.” The just-slightly-futuristic and definitely dystopian tilt of many of these stories made them hard for me to stand because of how painfully accurate they seemed about certain aspects of our current world, even when I also really loved them. My tolerance for dark fiction is generally inversely proportional to how clinically raw my therapy caseload seems to me at the given moment, so that's that (I couldn't finishing watching “Chappie,” last night, for Pete's sake, because it was like watching child abuse, except with a robot).
What Sanders himself has to say about his darkness, though, is why I am glad to have read this collection (the following excepted from a conversation with David Sedaris at the back of the book):
“To some readers, this makes the stories seem a bit cruel. Of course, there is cruelty in the real world. And I'd argue that my stories are a good deal less cruel than the real world at its cruelest. We only need look at the newspaper or the history books to see that, over and over, things far too cruel to write have happened and are still happening. But I think what these readers may be feeling is that my stories are crueler than many other stories. And I think that's true...mine tend toward the cruel. And this may be - I mean, I think it is - a bit of a technical flaw, a sign of limitation on the part of the writer, a failure of subtlety....I'm trying to grow as a writer in such a way that I can produce more nuanced versions of the world. But I hope that in these new visions I retain some memory of the fact that cruelty is real - and it does its victims (and we are all its victims, to varying degree) no good to pretend that all thoughts of cruelty are extraneous, or gratuitous.”
A dear friend recommended this as honeymoon reading, and as soon as I was a chapter in, I was just so, so appreciative of how well she knows me :) As she told me, it's a mash-up of Austen's dry humor (set in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars) and delicious magical realism. I could not believe this book had been kicking around for just over a decade without me already enjoying it. I suppose someone's mileage might vary based on their level of appreciation for Austen and/or magical realism, but that would really leave me questioning whether they read for transportative pleasure or masochism. Life's short, but not too short to read these 800 pages.
During my first year of grad school, we had this awesome object relations therapist who taught a year-long course on psychotherapy to our little cohort - we talked about everything from nonspecific factors to existential therapy. Jim recommended this book at the end of the year, but I just got around to reading it (7 years later...oops). I'm really glad I've kept it & carted it along on two big moves. McWilliams is a treasure. She is a tremendously gifted writer, who is so humorous and compassionate about the art of therapy (both the art of giving and of receiving!) that I would bet a great deal of money that she is also a tremendously gifted therapist. Psychodynamic isn't my home orientation, but a lot of it speaks to me, and I think this is a “must read” for all clinicians.
A beautiful quote:
“Analytic therapy has, as Lichtenberg (1998), and others have emphasized, a kind of self-righting mechanism that iterates towards authenticity” (p. 42, on faith in therapy).
A quote that made me laugh outloud in self-recognition:
“Like many therapists, I am an unregenerate voyeur: I love to witness what is private, hidden, concealed from public view. I read People magazine. I gossip. I savor the juicy anecdote. I thought, when I began my training as a therapist, that this lamentable yet robust part of my personality would be deeply nourished by this work. I regret to report that feasts for one's voyeurism lose most of their spice when one cannot share them with others” (p. 264-265, on occupational hazards).
I picked this up at the local bookstore because it was $6, and the cover looked vaguely familiar. After reading the blurb on the back, however, which gave the impression that it was just another riff on melodramatic college experiences, I was worried it was going to be like Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons (which...ugh). Or even worse, Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot (because I love Eugenides and there is a unique sadness to reading a not-great novel written by someone whose writing you typically love). Instead, The Art of Fielding was perfectly charming. Every bit of it. Not earth-shattering, but wasn't trying to be. Nicely poignant, and felt like a treat to read.
Alice Munro might not think of herself as a feminist author (http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/on-dear-life-an-interview-with-alice-munro), but she sure reads like one, in the best possible way. I also sometimes struggle with collections of short stories - if a novel's theme is like hitting a big gong and letting the reverberations ripple out into the air over the course of the book, sometimes a collection of short stories feels to me like someone keeps hitting a smaller gong over and over again. I did not have this struggle with Munro, despite my previous experience of her being restricted to single stories at a time in The New Yorker. I don't think I could ever get tired of what she has to say, and the thematic consistencies across her stories feel like meaningfully different variations on answers to her larger questions.
My partner hiked a portion of the PCT similar in length to what Strayed tackled, and I've heard lots of stories about his experience, so reading this had an oddly familiar feel to it. I'm honestly not sure what else to say about it, which is perhaps why I'm stuck at three stars and not four. I'm glad she had the experience, glad she wrote about it, and actually also glad that the movie about it was made (more movies with female protagonists, Hollywood - MORE!!), but the most moving things I think Cheryl Strayed has written include stuff like this: http://therumpus.net/2011/04/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-71-the-ghost-ship-that-didnt-carry-us/
This is one of those books that I am hesitant to attempt to review at all, other than to describe it as heart-rending. Finkel has given a great gift to these service members in bearing witness to what it was like to be in the worst part of Baghdad during a terrible part of a terrible war. Reading this now, against a backdrop of grim ISIS-related headlines, merely underscores the importance of the book, and the importance of not growing numb to the plight of an area of the world still very much war-torn.
I started this book somewhat begrudingly, as it was “recommended” reading for my fellowship. I finished it gratefully. Solomon's work is one of the most compelling pieces of non-fiction I have encountered. It's long, but that is because, as he explores parent-child relationships from a number of poignant lenses (from physical disability to musical prodigiousness), Solomon approaches the subject and all of his interviewees with great compassion, honesty, and an exquisite eye for philosophical, psychological, and ethical nuance. Highly, highly recommended.
How can you not love Jane Austen? I think I'd read both S&S and P&P twice before deciding to tackle her novels in their entirety, and loved them both even more the 3rd time. Mansfield Park is one of my least favorites, but in Austen terms, that means I was still fully engaged and entertained. My personal verdict is that Elizabeth Bennet is the most wonderful Austen heroine, not to mention one of my favorite protagonists of literature generally, and the sparkle of the dialogue in P&P is unparalleled.
The honest truth is that I re-read this for the same reason I re-read The Corrections. I'm moving again soon, and these are big, fat books that I figured I'd be better able to relinquish after revisiting.
I was glad to re-read this. I Know This Much Is True is kind of schlocky, in the sense that Lamb clearly wants to deal with All. The. Big. Issues. and enable his readers in experiencing All. The. Big. Feelings. It's also kind of unschlocky, in that I think he succeeds admirably well, despite his intention to do so being clearly evident.
The spoiler alert below isn't related to the end of the novel, but I put it in because it does relate to potentially triggering content.
For example, on a fellowship interview this spring, an interviewer asked me about a novel that had influenced my clinical work. The first thing that popped into my head, nearly a decade after first reading this, was how Lamb created a narrator who rapes another main (and beloved) character, and the rape felt believable, strongly increased both my empathy for and anger (but not disgust) at the narrator, and Lamb's treatment of all of that didn't feel like a gratuitous portrayal of violence against women as a mean to an emotional end. It just felt like the way life really (often tragically) happens. I think about that a lot when working with people who have perpetrated violence instead of (or in addition to) being on the receiving end of it. We need to really understand both the aftermath of sexual violence, and what leads people to commit it in the first place. .
So, I think this is a good novel to read if you feeling like reading something that will likely make you cry, but not likely to make you feel as if you've been manipulated into crying.