(Continued from Part 1)
Writers Gone Wild: The Feuds, Frolics, and Follies of Literature's Great Adventurers, Drunkards, Lovers, Iconoclasts, and Misanthropes - Bill Perschel (2010)
"When Richard Burbidge was playing the lead in Shakespeare's Richard III, he arranged an assignation with a lady for after the performance. Shakespeare heard about it, got there first, and seduced her. When Burbidge arrived and sent word up that her Richard III had arrived, Shakespeare sent a message back that William the Conqueror came first."
This book is basically what the subtitle says: short blurbs about the various deeds and misdeeds of authors, arranged loosely by type in chapters. I thought it would be a fun read - and at times, it was - but a number of the incidents veer towards the serious or depressing rather than fun. All in all, while a little funny or interesting at times, the collection felt somewhat voyeuristic and thus sort of uncomfortable to read. It might be an interesting coffee-table or road-trip read, but I'd recommend just checking out full-on biographies on authors of interest if you're looking for interesting facts on certain figures.
Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself - Melody Beattie (1992[2nd ed.])
"Overinvolvement of any sort can keep us in a state of chaos; it can keep the people around us in a state of chaos. If we're focusing all our energies on people and problems, we have little left for the business of living our own lives."
This is an easy-to-read, widely-applicable self-help book. There are activities and exercises throughout that help the reader really think through and absorb what's being said, and I appreciated that the author encourages community through going to supportive meetings and/or therapy.
The author is obviously a fan of 12-step programs, and her advice, though widely applicable, is written in the frame of having an alcoholic/addict in your life. Thus, if your situation is different or if you're not a fan of 12-step programs like AA, you'll have to do a little mental work to separate that out. Overall, though I'd recommend this book to just about anyone, especially those who have a "difficult person" in their lives.
Related Reads:
Boundaries (Cloud & Townsend)
Kiss Every Step: A Survivor's Memoir from the Nazi Holocaust - Doris Martin (2009)
"I got a chilling reminder of how my life hung by a thread when, one morning, Mrs. Unucka informed me that in the middle of the night she had overheard me talking in my sleep. She couldn't understand what I was saying, but it sounded like some language other than Polish. Oh, my God! I had never expected this... All of my self-training to speak only Polish had not converted into my unconscious mind, which still operated in Yiddish, and I was in grave danger of discovery even in my sleep."
I actually briefly met the author of Kiss Every Step a year or two back at a Barnes and Noble book signing where I picked up my copy. This book was surprisingly better than I thought it would be - I didn't have terribly high expectations as it's a self-published book. Though there are some scattered typos throughout, it's well-written and well-organized as a whole.
All in all, this is a good example of a compiled family history, and its unflinching and detailed accounts from Martin and some of her family members make it worthy of being more well-known and widely-read.
Related Reads:
The Hiding Place (ten Boom)
The Sentinel [Short Stories] - Arthur C. Clarke (1983)
"But Captain Saunders, like all spacemen, was fundamentally a romantic. Even on a milk run like this he would sometimes dream of the ringed glory of Saturn or the somber Neptunian wastes, lit by the distant fires of the shrunken sun."
I'd started this book a few times in the past, but had never got past the first few stories. The stories included here (10 of them, if you include Clarke's introduction/biography) span Clarke's career, from the 40's to the 70's, and all include brief blurbs by author that I found helpful.
I haven't read any of Clarke's novels yet, so it'd be interesting to compare the short stories I've read so far with his other works. While I didn't love all the stories included in this volume (and I probably would've preferred to read his stories in a larger anthology with a greater mix of authors and types), I still found it interesting to read through the collection. I'd call this a good choice for anyone who's a fan of Clarke's, and/or anyone who's interested in how Science Fiction morphed through the 40's to the 80's.
Related Reads:
The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories
Writers Gone Wild: The Feuds, Frolics, and Follies of Literature's Great Adventurers, Drunkards, Lovers, Iconoclasts, and Misanthropes - Bill Perschel (2010)
"When Richard Burbidge was playing the lead in Shakespeare's Richard III, he arranged an assignation with a lady for after the performance. Shakespeare heard about it, got there first, and seduced her. When Burbidge arrived and sent word up that her Richard III had arrived, Shakespeare sent a message back that William the Conqueror came first."
This book is basically what the subtitle says: short blurbs about the various deeds and misdeeds of authors, arranged loosely by type in chapters. I thought it would be a fun read - and at times, it was - but a number of the incidents veer towards the serious or depressing rather than fun. All in all, while a little funny or interesting at times, the collection felt somewhat voyeuristic and thus sort of uncomfortable to read. It might be an interesting coffee-table or road-trip read, but I'd recommend just checking out full-on biographies on authors of interest if you're looking for interesting facts on certain figures.
Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself - Melody Beattie (1992[2nd ed.])
"Overinvolvement of any sort can keep us in a state of chaos; it can keep the people around us in a state of chaos. If we're focusing all our energies on people and problems, we have little left for the business of living our own lives."
This is an easy-to-read, widely-applicable self-help book. There are activities and exercises throughout that help the reader really think through and absorb what's being said, and I appreciated that the author encourages community through going to supportive meetings and/or therapy.
The author is obviously a fan of 12-step programs, and her advice, though widely applicable, is written in the frame of having an alcoholic/addict in your life. Thus, if your situation is different or if you're not a fan of 12-step programs like AA, you'll have to do a little mental work to separate that out. Overall, though I'd recommend this book to just about anyone, especially those who have a "difficult person" in their lives.
Related Reads:
Boundaries (Cloud & Townsend)
Kiss Every Step: A Survivor's Memoir from the Nazi Holocaust - Doris Martin (2009)
"I got a chilling reminder of how my life hung by a thread when, one morning, Mrs. Unucka informed me that in the middle of the night she had overheard me talking in my sleep. She couldn't understand what I was saying, but it sounded like some language other than Polish. Oh, my God! I had never expected this... All of my self-training to speak only Polish had not converted into my unconscious mind, which still operated in Yiddish, and I was in grave danger of discovery even in my sleep."
I actually briefly met the author of Kiss Every Step a year or two back at a Barnes and Noble book signing where I picked up my copy. This book was surprisingly better than I thought it would be - I didn't have terribly high expectations as it's a self-published book. Though there are some scattered typos throughout, it's well-written and well-organized as a whole.
All in all, this is a good example of a compiled family history, and its unflinching and detailed accounts from Martin and some of her family members make it worthy of being more well-known and widely-read.
Related Reads:
The Hiding Place (ten Boom)
The Sentinel [Short Stories] - Arthur C. Clarke (1983)
"But Captain Saunders, like all spacemen, was fundamentally a romantic. Even on a milk run like this he would sometimes dream of the ringed glory of Saturn or the somber Neptunian wastes, lit by the distant fires of the shrunken sun."
I'd started this book a few times in the past, but had never got past the first few stories. The stories included here (10 of them, if you include Clarke's introduction/biography) span Clarke's career, from the 40's to the 70's, and all include brief blurbs by author that I found helpful.
I haven't read any of Clarke's novels yet, so it'd be interesting to compare the short stories I've read so far with his other works. While I didn't love all the stories included in this volume (and I probably would've preferred to read his stories in a larger anthology with a greater mix of authors and types), I still found it interesting to read through the collection. I'd call this a good choice for anyone who's a fan of Clarke's, and/or anyone who's interested in how Science Fiction morphed through the 40's to the 80's.
The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories
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