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• Current

Type: fiction

Status: —

Author: Marta Caminero-Santangelo

Tags: psychology feminism sexuality literature suffering mental.illness ethics

2007-04-05

  & 6 users

• Current

Type: educational

Status: I recommend

Author: Mary Pipher

Tags: nonfiction girl mental.illness

2005-09-30

  & 37 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: I recommend

Author: Mark Haddon

Tags: british novel popular mental.illness

Description: My brother has Asperger's Autism. He wouldn't read this book to tell me if it wasMy brother has Asperger's Autism. He wouldn't read this book to tell me if it was in any way true to his experiences, however I went online and on Asperger's chat boards it appears that families of AA people find that it rings very true to them, while Asperger's patients themselves say that it does not. I think this may be because it is an attempt to novelize the experiences of people who fundamentally do not think in a ficticious or emotive way. I thought it was well written and a bold project for the author to undertake. I would simply reccomend that the reader not take it as an authoratative description of autism, but rather read it more with the intent to appreciate the book as a work of art....

2005-09-30

  & 41 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: favorite

Author: John Kennedy Toole

Tags: humor novel mental.illness to.buy

Description: As appropriate or inappropriate as it may be at this time to mention a book that takes placeAs appropriate or inappropriate as it may be at this time to mention a book that takes place in New Orleans, I've decided to do it.

I first heard about this book from my philosophy teacher who asked if I had read it. It sounded hip and vaugely familiar so I lied and said that I had. Then I immediately went to the library and picked up a copy to read.

This book is more bizarre and fabulous than I could have ever anticipated. The main character, Ignatious J. Reilly is totally anachronistic (he is nostalic for the middle ages), discuting (he eats 12 hot dogs in a sitting) and empathetic all at the same time. He is portrayed flatulently, comically, darky, grossly, and with sympathy. He simply doesn't understand the world around him in the ways that everyone else does -- and in this regard he reminds me a little bit of my brother who has Asperger's Autism. There are ways too in which Ignatious does understand the world around him better than his peers do: because he is more aware of injustice (in a tilting at windmills kind of way), he is also more aware of the evils of racism. This character is so bizarre, and so funny that many times I was actually snorting with laughter. How appropriate....

2005-09-09

  & 1 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: I recommend

Author: Jean Nathan

Tags: art american nonfiction bio mental.illness

Description: I've been reading "The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll," a biography about a children'sI've been reading "The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll," a biography about a children's author and photographer named Dare Wright. The book is a little bit Freudian, but I can't see how it could not be given Dare's life. When Dare's father left them, Dare's mother gave her brother to a relative in the hopes that his father would come get him. The boy was about five years old. Then Dare's mother, a painter, took Dare and went on to become a famous portrait painter (she painted Winston Churchill on commission amongst others). Dare lived her entire life with her mother and never married. When she was in her 20s she met her long lost brother and she and her brother fell in love and made plans to get married before they realized it was inappropriate. Then her brother tried to find an appropriate man for her to take his place, but that didn't work out because he got tired of waiting for Dare, who apparently was scared of anything even remotely sexual (including being kissed politely -- she literally ran away screaming). Anyhow, this woman Dare, goes on to create a series of books based on her doll and the books invariably involved the doll being very forlorn, transgressing a parental authority with a brotherly bear and then getting spanked for it and ending with everyone promsing to always love each other and never leave. The author of the biography theorizes that Dare's fears are caused by her overbearing mother who took nude pictures of her and slept in the same bed with her all her life.

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2005-09-08

  & 4 users

• Current

Type: fiction

Status: favorite

Author: David B.

Tags: french nonfiction autobio graphic.novel mental.illness to.buy

Description: I also have a brother who is freakishly sick both physically and mentally and who may neverI also have a brother who is freakishly sick both physically and mentally and who may never grow up. Reading about someone with a handicapped brother brought me the mundane but comforting realization that I am not alone in the ways that I feel about this. David B. (the author) also views his brother as pathetic, becomes angry with him, is sometimes frightened of him as if he were a monster (a child in a man's body can be hideous) and fantasizes about becoming like his brother only to feel even more confused about the issue.

One passage shows his brother's increasing attempts to compete with him in a way that would be natural for most siblings but becomes unnatural for a mentally handicapped sibling. As David B.'s comic books become more successful, his brother makes sincere but disillusioned attempts to write his own book -- it would be laughable situation if it weren't so sad. I have seen the way that this type of normal rivalry becomes sick, like a parody, in situations where it cannot work. David B. has the same reactions I do, swinging wildly between self-rightousness, pity, vindictiveness and guilt.

A quote from Time Magazine about the book: "As he [the author/narrator] becomes disillusioned with 'doctors who can't heal' and 'parents who know nothing,' he seeks solace in the world of dreams, leading to a lifelong obsession" (see the full article at http://www.time.com/time/columnist/arnold/article/0,9565,1015442,00.html). I do not have a lifelong obsessive relationship with my brother (thank God!), but I imagine that if we were both of the same sex that this might have happened. I do have a lifelong struggle with disillusion and illness, with doctors, with medicine, with the mind, and with the body....

2005-09-07