Will Self Books

Let's face it. There isn't THAT much difference between a lot of these pop psychology/self-help books. The question is often HOW it's said, rather than WHAT is said. Personally, I find Joy Browne's "wake up and smell the coffee" style entertaining and invigorating, like a splash of cold water in your face on a winter morning. If Fran Drescher was going to play a Psychologist, instead of a Nanny, maybe she would sound like this. Take Joy Browne's advice in good humor, with a grain of salt and ENJOY it!

Heard THE NINE FANTASIES THAT WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE AND THE EIGHT REALITIES THAT WILL SAVE YOU, written and read by Dr. Joy Brown . . . she's a radio talk show, as well as a licensed clinical psychologist.

I have occasionally heard her on the radio and when I have, I've been impressed with her no-nonsense approach to giving advice . . . she rarely gives sympathy; rather, she gives useful suggestions that apply to marriage, personal relationships, career, finances, health,
and all other aspects of your life.

Here, she first presents the fantasies . . . among the ones that most caught my attention were the following:

There's no place like home.
We all assume that everybody else's family is terrific and ours is dysfunctional. Don't believe it for a minute.

Winning the lottery will free me. If money were the key to happiness, millionaires wouldn't have ulcers. They do and it's not.

Good always triumphs.
Life isn't fair. Get used to it. Do the best with what you've got. And no whining.

Dr. Brown then discusses the realities of life . . . these made the most sense to me:

Never tell someone something they already know. Compliment people sincerely and keep nasty thoughts to yourself.

We're responsible for our behavior; feelings just happen. Everybody has bad thoughts. It's bad behavior that separates the good guys from the bad guys.

Romance is the poison of the twentieth century. Unrealistic expectations mean never being satisfied with what you've got, and romance is the ultimate unrealistic expectation.

Reader letters, read and answered by the author, added to my enjoyment of these cassette tapes.

The title caught my eye, so I decided to give this book a read. I am glad that I did. I saw a lot of myself in some of the "call-in's" questions. I thought that Dr. Browne's advice was useful and practical---in other words, good common sense. I really enjoyed the "Soulmate" part of the fantasy half, as well as the "Romance" part of the reality half. I have been fighting some emotional demons of my own lately, and reading these two sections really helped me see my situation from outside of myself. Is there stuff in this book that I've heard before? Yes, but what is nice is that it is written and can be referred to again and again. I also like Dr. Browne's flow in the book---funny, but to the point. It makes it very easy to read. I work and go to school part-time, plus I have a family. I found that I was able to read this book in less than a week at different intervals. I don't know if this is a book that will "turn your life around", but I know that, for me, it's a book that can be used as a good reference tool when I feel those old demons creeping up on me again.

Dr. Bowne's efforts is a disorganized mish mash that often comes across as a stream of consciousness.

It is unfortunate as her syndicated show is insightful open minded and nonjudgmental. (A refreshing change from the nasty preachy and tyrannical psedeuo-psychology that is popular on the airways these days)

She should stick to radio - writing is obviously not her strongest compentency.

A preliminary warning... this book is full of case studies that are specific to the American socio-cultural landscape. Australian readers should take note. The advice that she gives are not without cultural bias either (eg. her advice that you should only "tell the whole truth" to either a priest or a therapist needs to be taken with a grain of salt), though her emphasis that one should live in reality rather than fantasies should be applauded. However this book is so full of "case studies" that little room is left for further elaboration of the points she's trying to make. You can gleam those points from the case studies given as well, but practical life studies should be balanced by some proper arguments. Not what I expect from a properly trained psychologist.

If you're used to popular psychology though (and I obviously am not), you might like this book.

What will be, by Michael Dertouzos, is indeed an interesting read despite his lack of support for his thesis. By the nature of the title and subtitle, the reader is teased with a possible glimpse into our technological future. Perhaps the book should have been titled, What can be. How the new world of information can change our lives. The largest stumbling block toward accepting the title and premise is Deertouzos' careful avoidance of information technology venture capitalism, marketing, and legal environments that determine what actually is designed, manufactured and marketed. If an author infers that technology will actually happen, then they are obligated to explain when and how momentous longstanding roadblocks will be removed. Of course these issues are discussed but in a highly speculative and vague manner. On a positive note, the section What is Wrong with Technology is very clear and makes the book worth reading. I recommend this book. Despite content sprinkled with lofty assertions, Dertouszos prepares the reader for technological issues which will continue to revolutionize our world.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Dertouzos boldly predicted a place where people could freely exchange information and services using a personal computer. Today this place is widely known as the Internet. Dr. Dertouzos, head of the MIT Lab for Computer Science, uses this book to share more of his ideas and predictions of "What Will Be" in the future.
His book, without getting too technical, explains how society will be changed by a new revolution he calls the Information Marketplace. His examples of new networked technologies that will simplify our lives opened my eyes and got me excited about what lies ahead in the future. His idea of a 'Bodynet,' a personal mobile network which enables you to make phone calls, watch the news, and mingle with strangers as you stroll down the block is realistic. But other ideas, such as a database that keeps track of your clean clothes in your closet to help you decide what to wear seems farfetched and even useless.
Overall I was satisfied with the content of Dr. Dertouzos' book. It was clear and concise and provided some humorous examples of how the new technologies will be used. I would recommend this book to anyone that has an interest in how technology will shape society's future.

I didn't know anything about Michael Dertouzos prior to discovering and reading this book. It's a presentation of a man's visions of our world's digital future. However, he is not just any man. Dertouzos has been director of the MIT Computer Science Lab for several decades, and has been a leading party in many discoveries and innovations that took place in MIT, or with collaboration to it. He has for many years been a most active participant in the evolution of computers, networks and the Internet itself, thus being the most suitable one to try to envision a picture of our networked world as it will be in the near future.

Dertouzos presents quite interesting aspects about how our future will be shaped by all networked electronic equipment, be they computers, TVs, or mobile devices. He shows how more and more uses of the Net will gradually evolve, uses that most of us have not even imagined possible. He calls the Internet a global "Information Marketplace", since he shows how it will grow to include all human activities, not necessarily linked to computers as we know them today.

The only hitch I can find in Dertouzos's reasoning, is the time he is talking about. While he says that most of the innovations he talks about will start showing up and rapidly evolve in the next 10 to 20 years, I believe that this time is short. My opinion is, it will take quite some more time for all of Dertouzos's dreams and aspirations to come to life and full use.

I wouldn't like to reveal anything more about what's mentioned in this book. I'm not a good summary-writer, so I wouldn't want to spoil your experience of learning What Will Be!

This book provides some wonderful examples of what society will be like in the future.

I especially enjoyed the idea to create software which will be smart. What a concept?

Dr. Dertouzos has given us all much to think about in this book. There isn't a person in the world who won't be impacted by the great changes that may occur. Everyone should read this book and then figure out how you want to be changed. It will be a better future for all of us if we take active roles in the Information Marketplace.

Paula White is a dyanmic minister and her book did not dissapoint. It is a must read for women of all walks of life and men to.

Paula White is but another "peddler" of the pseudo-Gospel (that is false Gospel for the fools who read her book) in America. The false Gospel that thinks Jesus is some cosmic genie in the sky, or a slot machine waiting for his lever to be pulled.

But the people who listen to false teacher such as Paula White are those who are consumed by a truncated and narccistic world view that does not recognize that God is with the poor in their card board boxes, God is with the poor 2 billion in our world who don't have clean drinking water. God is not interested in you have a happy life. God is interested in you following his Son, Jesus, who is Lord over the whole cosmos. This Jesus calls all who would follow to a discipleship that is marked by a path of suffering, joy, desperation, confidence, and most of all a way of living that pours oneself out to the abandoned and vulnerable of the world.

People were not crucified in the 1st century for preaching a gospel about individual hapiness. The problem is that most of American citizens are ignorant fools, drunk on materialism. READ Matthew 24 and 25 and then look at Paula's false Gospel!

Paula and Randy White recently announced that they would be divorcing. Please pray for them and continue to support Paula White Ministries.

Anyhow, this book was written when Paula and Randy were happily married (and has no information about their divorce). The book is excellent and very well written. I have read through the entire work book for "Deal With It" and am now reading the book. It's excellent, fascinating, entertaining, and makes a lot of great points. Putting the past behind us is mandatory if we are to press forward and succeed. For those reviewers who are giving this book bad reviews, you are obviously looking at it with a negative perspective. The whole purpose of the book is to get you out of "living in your past" and moving on to "the plan that God has for your life." This book is very well written, there isn't anything misleading about it, Paula is honest, and if you will read this book without having a pre-judgment against it because you think Paula White is rich and famous, then maybe you would actually get something out of it. Paula works hard, she deserves everything she has, and just because you are jealous that you aren't rich does not mean that you should give Paula's book a bad review. If you would quit being negative and started being positive, may all of you who gave this book a bad review could actually get somewhere in life.

How about Paula's marriage? Couldn't she deal with that? Apparently not, seeing how she is getting divorced. Malachi 2:16 clearly says that God hates divorce. Matthew 5:32 and 19:9 says that Paula White has now become an adulteress. 1 Timothy 3:2 says that a pastor should be blameless. The Bible is also clear that a woman is never to have the role of pastor (1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-12).

That being said, Mrs. White should resign her position immediately and leave the ministry full-time. If she stays, which I'm sure she will find some justification to do so, she will be a disobedient pastor. What a shame that someone who professes Christianity would let her pride get in the way of what God says.

Were you able to sum up Paula White's understanding of God it would actually form a black hole sucking up knowledge from those nearby. Jesus spoke of her in scripture noting that she takes away the keys to knowledge and is willing to cross land and sea to make disciples, then makes them twice the daughter of hell that she is. For those of you who are willingly sucked into her lust for material wealth know this: You are culpable before God for following this woman. For those not yet deceived by her, heed this warning seriously. She leads you on the paths of destruction.

Yes, it seems that this book is a triumph of the
Will and an act of unbridled Self. It is a tour de
force, no doubt. Racy, witty, inventive, impressive.
What it is not is much of a story. It shows all of
the massive ego of a writer at the peak of his power
but none of the willingness to entertain that
belongs to a good story teller.

The plot involves Lily Bloom (Molly's sister no doubt)
who finds herself a sudden citizen of the land of the
dead. Now you might think that this would be a starting
point for an intricate piece of speculative fiction
about a topic that's engaged everybody's mind from
time to time: what happens to us when we die?
But Self doesn't take the opportunity. Instead, we
get 400 pages of cranky self-indulgence of Lily
along with a dose of British literary anti-semitism.

The ending, which could have restored some narrative
grace to the 'story' is tacked on hurriedly. Given the
chance to make a satisfying 'once upon a time' ending,
the author goes for an act of Will and a display of Self.

On the other hand: the Will and the Self in question are
pretty impressive. The malevolence with which the characters
are constructed and the sheer imaginative power of the
language redeem this book.


--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.[...].

That comment about Kerouac's 'On the Road' being not writing but typing applies to this long novel as well. A sort of modern day Ulysses (hell, the heroine is even called Bloom) narrated by Lily Bloom, cancer raddled old lady who finds that Hindu spiritualist metaphysics have kicked in after her death and she finds herself in a grubby basement flat in Dulston (a suburb of North London where the dead live).

The novel develops the conceit first outlaid by Self in his short story 'North London Book of the Dead' (in the collection 'The Quantity Theory of Insanity'). Whereas that story is a master of literary originality and economy, this novel, over the 400 page long hall is a bloated rant on just about every topic under the sun pertaining to 1990s London culture and society.

Lily is a half Jewish, American woman of high middle class culture whose observational eye is like a camera - there is nothing she doesn't miss. And despise. She rants movingly against her cancerous condition, the yellowy sickly nausea of her incipient mortality. Her mind and family are sick too - her daughter Natasha, a sort of Kate Moss figure, a junkie with translucent skin and blue black hair who just has to rub up against a man to get laid. In her mortality, and beyond, Lily has opinions on London traffic, aboriginal bars, contemporary fashion, interior design of basement flats, politics in the UK and beyond. Just about every cultural incident of significance in late 1990s Britain. Will Self has always liberally slathered his pages with cultural references, but the result here is like a very, very rich oil painting. Too rich to pick out the individual tones and colours. The voice is the same, high intelligent diatribe throughout the novel.

To my mind, novels of the formless, ranting style, all voice no structure don't really suit British novelists too well. There are some masterful examples of the kind in America - Portnoy's Complaint comes to mind. Even Martin Amis's 'voice' novel, Money, also a fantastic book, had to be set mainly in New York to achieve it's effect. American culture is rich and beserk enough to sustain such a book. 1990s London, much as Self would wish it to be, just wasn't. The best British novels of the period (to be fair to Self, there aren't many) had to work hard to dredge up some interesting narrative, as contemporary life was pretty much flatlining, just new bars and restaurants opening, trouser legs up in the spring, down in the autumn, a new instillation causing controversy here, a minor political scandal there. Self unleashes all his satirical canons at once in this novel - the ambition is huge, but the effect shows that much of his powder was damp.

Blurb (or foreword, I can't exactly remember) of this book, presents it as a satire...In a certain way, it is right. But, in some other way it lacks few imortant imformation.
When one think of a satire, one think at instant of political attacks towards rulling caste, towards media, and towards every aspect of life that you can think about. Here you will find only an old, overweight women, whose thought resemble our own in a scarry manner... All wordly struggle of good and evil does not make a sense once you are dead, all that is left s longin...longing for daughters, longing for sex, longing for food, longing for everything that makes life what life actually is... and in a ceratin way that is all satirical that this book has. Of course you'll find sarcastic remarks, of course you'll find critique of society, but that does not make this book outstanding... What does is feeling of timeliness you suddenly feel upon completing final pages. Suddenly you start to wonder - 'where have all the good times gone'

This is my first time reading Will Self's work and while the novel didn't have me running to check out everything else Self has written, it did leave me curious enough to explore his other works.
The story centers around Lily Bloom who dies from cancer and passes into the afterlife where one must get an apartment, attend 12 step programs and what not in order to learn how to live again if you will.
I loved the idea of Bloom being stalked/attached to one of her children who died (Rude Boy), and the Fats (all the weight she had lost/gained in life.)
However, my main problem with the novel was the fact that the characters come across as people who I couldn't sympathize with even though they were interesting. I understand Bloom's cynicism and Self's writing possess' a particular wit. The bluntness, I liked, and the character that I found most interesting was Lily's drug-addicted daughter Natalie. It came to the point where I really didn't care what happened to the characters, but I had to finish the book just to see. Maybe Self did this intentionally, but as mentioned before, this is my first time reading Self and maybe I should just get used to it.
It's a good read for the idea of such a world after death. Lily is reminded not to dwell too much into her daughter's lives after her death, and I don't want to do the same with what turned me off with this book.
Will I read Self again? Yes. But would I recommend this for a first time Self reader? No.

Having only read some of Self's short stories in the past, this novel weighing in at 400+ pages had the style, wit and great word play I expected from Self but was in need of an editor. The rambling narrative would crank up and then lose its focus, leaving us an an audience to flounder for 15/20 pages at a time. I appreciated the development given to our main character Lily as we go with her through her illness, ultimate death and boredom with death itself. Few authors can turn a phrase or link words together as interestingingly as Self and for that I am appreciative of the book. His stories are filled with such great ideas and settings but in the end a little less would have gone a long way in my enjoyment of this novel.

I loved this novel. It was a realistic drama and Kristen Kemp really made the readers relate to that characters and their emotions. With tons of tears, drama, friends, a couple boyfriends, and twenty packs of cigarettes later Ellen... **** ** *** ***! Haha, another secret not told. But its not even 150 pages which is still extremely short so you can read it in a hour and its extremely good so I highly recommend this for pure entertainment and fun. And you better hope this kind of bad stuff does NOT happen to you!!

I have not written these reviews. Somehow, Amazon has allowed someone to get hold of my e-mail address and my personal information and therefore into my personal account. I have contacted them about this without success. I want to delete my account before further damage is done.

The real Lynette Joseph-Brown

Though I Love kristen kemp, and most of her novels, this wasn't as could as I expected, and I was a little disapointed. I do have to agree with one of the reveiwers about this book, it was pretty sloppily written, and was extremely short- for a teen novel. The summary said that the main character did many revenge schemes, but she only did one big one, and it took till the end of the book for her to get there! It was also a little uncomfortable to read as well. I think Kristen Kemp is a great author with talents to make peaople laugh and she writes phenominaly, but this book wasn't one of her best. I recomend- "The Dating Diaries" by Kristen Kemp, it is funny, longer, not sloppy and is a real page turner- I loved it, and I think its much much much better than I will survive- wich was very sloppy- sorry Kristen Kemp!

Once I read a book that captured exactly what high school is about.The book is called "I Will Survive." This is the best book I have ever read! This book had a hold on me. I couldn't put it down. I would read one chapter and have to read another becuase I couldn't stand the suspense! This book deserves 5 stars, if not more!
The book delt with a teenager being betrayed by the people closest to her.... But I'm not going to spoil the ending.So if you thought the book sounds good in review you have to read it! It's not one of those boring books you have to drag youself to read it. You want to read it. It's not only suspense it's a thriller just to read. You will imagine youself as if you were her,dealing with the pain and the sweet revenge.

This book had major potential, but was lacking some nessecary qualities! It was sloppily written, and the point of view was really obscure. One minute it would be all about Ellen, and the next it would switch to another character with no warning! I did think it was mildly entertaining, but I finished it in a couple of hours. I was disappointed by this, I think it could have gone a lot further! If you enjoy teenage angst novels (such as this) with a little more depth, then Life is Funny, Speak or Sloppy Firsts (and its companion Second Helpings) are books that I would suggest instead of this.

I thought this was such a helpful book. I really appreciate Kathy sharing lessons that she's learned in her life. She seems to have really tuned in to her own female intuition at times where she was unsure where she was headed and it really saved her and kept her grounded. I really admire that. She is very strong and I think everyone should read this book. You will surely at least learn something from it.

I had such high hopes for deep and meaningful messages to be revealed within the pages of this text. I have no idea why - the Title must have spoken to me on some other level...
In the end, this book was just a long, drawn out, Thank You note to all the people who have helped to build the Kathy Ireland Empire.
Although its very nice of her to "write this note" its not something any of us who are not mentioned in the book, need to read. Save your money and move on to something truly inspirational.

Thankfully, my copy only cost me 99 cents - maybe that should have been a clue!!!!

Though I haven't read this book, I feel the circumstances are all too cliche such that I can articulate some kind of review. Essentially, I agree with the reviewer who feels that Ms. Ireland, even if in possession of good intentions and wisdom, may be a little out of her league in offering life strategies to the rest of us. Kathy Ireland has received an overabundance of blessing in her life, and may not be in a position to coach the average guy or those who've endured enormous hardship and struggle with overcoming the legacy of a compromised life. Additionally, I've applied so many precepts to my life in the hope of improving my personal situation, but sometimes life isn't that simple. And I would not be honest if I didn't say I was tired of hearing about celebrities and their excessive fortunes, Ireland's Christian faith notwithstanding. I'm no socialist, but these stories confirm the fact that life is unfair and that a disproportionate amount of fortune is concentrated into the hands of too few people. Kathy, if you really want to share something with the world, I could use a few dollars.

Ditto to Brooke Shields, who feels her several-month bout with Post-partum Depression justifies her writing a book about it.

These folks don't know true suffering.

This beautiful young woman shares stories from her life (as I do occasionally); also writes about her failures and the lessons she learned while triumphing over them. She's the new Martha Stewart -- a former model who started her successful business with her own line of socks (my favorites). She added apparel, home furnishings, flooring and accessories designed for the busy women with families who depend on them. "She doesn't just talk the talk, she walks the walk."

Her brand garned the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for consumer excellence. In order to accomplish things we desire, we need the love and support of others.

She lists eight lessons to get the reader started on the road to happiness and fulfillment. Powerful Inspirations: When God is with us, who can be against us? Powerful You: Failure is an education in itself; even with self-esteem, you will get hurt from time to time. Powerful families: With family, you are never alone. Powerful Answers: When you ask powerful questions, you may get powerful answers; be ready to act on them.

Powerful Changes: It's great to have goals, but don't forget to enjoy the journey. Powerful Financial Wisdom: Money won't solve all of your problems, but it helps along the way. Powerful Beliefs and Boundaries: Wise people constantly discover what they beleive and act on these beliefs. Powerful Joys and Sorrows: Without sorrow, true joy cannot be understood.

This is a powerful book to help realize your potential without all the stresses of life we all endure. She is a good teacher with her examples and experiences.

Kathy stated that her father always advised her to under promise and over deliver. That is exactly what Kathy does in her book, Powerful Inspiration. It's broken down into eight simple lesson. While the lessons themselves are nothing new, a gentle reminder from someone as beautiful as Kathy, makes them more interesting. The book is a quick read, and the message will defintely go over well with individuals of the Christian faith. Kathy adds credibility to the book, by providing personal examples from her own life as a supermodel, mother and entrepeneur.

Not nearly as memorable as the surrealist pornography of "The Story of an Eye," nor as thought-provoking as his study of the tangling of the great death and the "little death" of orgasm in his sex-and-mortality, violence-and-the sacred exploration "Erotism," this slim novel, as the author's uncomfortable tone betrays in its afterword, appears half-finished and abandoned rather than meant as it is for publication.

Lazare's fanatical devotion to the Left and especially Dirty's penchant for decadent and unsanitary lifestyle choices remain the most powerfully characterized moments, but too much of the novel remains as jittery and haphazard-- albeit Bataille argues in the afterword he meant it to be read as such-- as comparatively mundane next to the strong opening vignette of Troppmann and Dirty in one of literature's most effectively rendered dives, even by Parisian standards.

As one who has read plenty of Céline, a bit of Sade, and some of Sartre's fiction, this novel held some interest. Yet, it seems too slack, too dragged down by ennui. Far less erotic than a reader of "The Story of An Eye" might expect, this instead recalls Bataille's protege, Pierre Klossowski (his novels have been reviewed by me on Amazon; he's the brother of the painter Balthus) and his philosophical protagonists who also are prone more to shuffling about rather than coupling energetically. The extravagant claims left by readers here appear unfounded, given the turgid pace of its pages and the uneven tone of the narrative.

I don't understand why this book is considered to be one of Bataille's bastard children. It's beautifully written. The man was capable of working miracles with words through his style and arrangement of them. Blue of Noon is definitely not an exception.

Bataille's style is always one of brutal elegance. He's like a lover who slaps you in the face, only to pull you into a gentle embrace a moment later.

The main character, Troppman, is the star here - he is a deviant trying is best not to be. Ahhhh, the internal struggles - do you stay married and live your life as a respectable, productive member of society. Or do you run off with whores and derelicts to indulge the savage needs you've so long supressed.

Not to be outdone, his brightest co-star, is a woman named Dirty. She is a beautiful creation. She is a train wreck of a woman. She and Troppman braid themselves together in clearly conspicuous codependence of the worst sort, bawdy drunkeness paving the pathways to irrevocable damnation.

I also enjoyed Lazare; a woman Troppman finds himself thoroughly disgusted with, she has no redeeming features. Yet, he cannot stay away.

If you are a fan of the madman Bataille, don't miss out on this one. I think this is truly some of his best work.

"Blue of Noon" is the story of Henri, an amoral man living in Europe during the 1930s. He is supposedly married, but spends his time with similarly amoral women, lacking clothing, inhibition, shame, and even proper hygeine at times. He zips between London, Paris, Barcelona, and Frankfurt, and frankly, engages in nothing but immoral self-satisfying activities in every spot.

At various times, he agonizes over his relationships with his wife, his sexual partners, and his deceased mother. He becomes embroiled in a Communist revolutionary plot in Barcelona, with one of his sexual partners, a Jewish woman, involved in its planning and execution. He reveals his necrophilic obsession to two of his partners, further revealing the exact, even more sickening, subject of his obsession to one of them. He has sex, he gets sick, his women have sex, they get sick, everybody has sex, everybody gets sick. For the punchline, near the end of the novel, Bataille throws Nazis into the picture, showing us that all the depravity of fascism is comparable to the depravity he has shown us all along. Though published in 1957, the book was originally written in 1936.

This reviewer isn't buying it. Not a word of it. Not the story, not even the "1936" part. For one thing, the writing style is actually more mature than that of "L'Abbe C", published in 1950. Bataille is most probably trying to show off that he detected the evil inherent in the Nazis "way back when". I don't give him that much credit.

For another thing, I think he uses Nazis as an easy way to score "scary" points. One might intellectualize his choice by saying Bataille is trying to tell us that no matter how disgusting humans may act, at least we're not as bad as Nazis. Imagine a murderer begging leniency because he's not a Nazi. He's still a murderer. It seems Bataille is using Nazis to justify the pornography he just wrote, as if the world is such a horrible place that pornography is just another little bit of it, and tries to throw a philosophical wrench into the works, as if saying life is meaningless in the face of all the horrible things fascism is doing to us in Europe, but I suspect it was all done just for the hell of it. I frankly don't see any rhyme or reason to the thematic choices he makes.

I have nothing against the depravity or explicit nature of the book. "Been there, done that", right? It's not even all that explicit, there's probably less sex in this book than the average mainstream novel today, and he's certainly not advocating committing even the slightest harm to anyone. There are a few disturbing or distasteful ideas here and there, but one never gets the sense Bataille really means what he's writing. One gets the sense he's simply trying to come up with every juxtaposition of immoral behavior and social taboo he can, just to tweak the reader's moral compass a bit, trying to get a cheap rise out of his audience. Maybe this was an interesting exercise in 1957 (or "1936"), but given the state of depravity which existed in Germany during the 1920s, and the state of sexual liberation which swept Europe from the late 19th century through the early 20th century, I strongly doubt it.

Perhaps the target reader for this book will be the person interested in twisted versions of 19th-century literature (Bataille wrote like someone living 50 or 100 years before his time), or the works of De Sade (albeit in highly shortened format, this book being only 126 pages).

According to Georges Bataille's autobiographical note, LE BLEU DU CIEL ("The Blue of the Sky") was composed in the twilight before the occupation of Vichy France.

The descending night darkens these pages.

Dissolute journalist Henri Troppmann ("Too-Much-Man") and his lover, Dirty give way to every impulse, to every surfacing urge, no matter how vulgar. Careening from one sex-and-death spasm to the next, they deliver themselves over to infinite possibilities of debauchery. A fly drowning in a puddle of whitish fluid (or is it the thought of his mother, a woman he must not desire?) prompts Troppmann to plunge a fork into a woman's supple white thigh. The threat of Nazi terror incites a coupling in a boneyard.

Their only desire is to besmirch whatever is elevated, to vulgarize the holy, to pollute it, to corrupt it, to bring it down into the mud.

By muddying whatever is "sacred," they maintain the force of "the sacred."

As a historical document, BLEU DU CIEL is eminently interesting. It offers unforgettably vivid portraits of Colette Peignot (as Dirty) and the "red nun" Simone Weil (as Lazare).

It is also the story of a man who is fascinated with fascism and the phallus, of someone who loves war, although not for teleological reasons. It is the story of a man who celebrates war on its own terms, who nihilistically affirms its limitless power of destruction.

As the night materializes, the blue of the sky disappears.

Joseph Suglia, the author of YEARS OF RAGE

I don't understand why this book is considered to be one of Bataille's [illegitimate] children. It's beautifully written. The man was capable of working miracles with words through his style and arrangement of them. Blue of Noon is definitely not an exception.

Bataille's style is always one of brutal elegance. He's like a lover who slaps you in the face, only to pull you into a gentle embrace a moment later.

The main character, Troppman, is the star here - he is a deviant trying is best not to be. Ahhhh, the internal struggles - do you stay married and live your life as a respectable, productive member of society. Or do you run off with [prostitutes] and derelicts to indulge the savage needs you've so long supressed.

Not to be outdone, his brightest co-star, is a woman named Dirty. She is a beautiful creation. She is a train wreck of a woman. She and Troppman braid themselves together in clearly conspicuous codependence of the worst sort, bawdy drunkeness paving the pathways to irrevocable damnation.

I also enjoyed Lazare; a woman Troppman finds himself thoroughly disgusted with, she has no redeeming features. Yet, he cannot stay away.

If you are a fan of the madman Bataille, don't miss out on this one. I think this is truly some of his best work.

This book is very entertaining, but after I received it I was disappointed to find that it is actually 12 years old. If you aren't old enough to have a good handle on 1996 and what was happening then and what didn't exist yet, you will have trouble with a lot of the things in this book. Things about computer and other technology are often not relevant, as you may expect.However, there are many other things you will appreciate, such as finally learning the difference between a magnate, a mogul and a czar. I would recommend the book to people who were not in elementary school or earlier during the 90s and were alert enough to remember the cultural and business environment at that time.

An interesting read but it really needs to be revised as it was published in 1996; a significant amount of things have obviously occurred since then and they would greatly alter many of the passages.

Don't bother, if you are half inteligent, you should know everything that's in the book, just commonsense.

I did learn a lot from this book and the writing style allowed me to just read straight through. I would suggest ignoring the entire section on computers though. Too much has changed since the book was written.

When I picked up this little tome;I didn't really expect it to amount to much. As usual,I read the customer reviews,and was really left wondering.Quite a spread of opinions!
After reading,I have to say that I fully agree with those who gave it top marks.
I didn't count the things covered exactly;but there are about 45 or so. When you finish;you are going to feel there could easily be thousands of things and expressions we use all the time,without really knowing what they mean or how they came about.
An excellent little gem to lay around for people to pick up and wile away a little time. However;don't be suprised if,as the Irish so aptly put it; "it gets nicked"....oh,how I love that word!
If you think this little book is superficial, and just might not be one of the pinacles of greatness in the world of books;you may be right.But wait till you see the extensive Bibliography at the end of the book.If you think the subject of this book is minor ,just skimming through this Bibliography,will show you how little we really know of what we speak.
Here's a smattering of what to expect:

What is the legal definition of insanity?

Why are the Liberals to the "Left" and the Conservatives to the "Right"?

What is the difference between a Republic and a Democracy?

How do microwaves work?

What makes food Kosher?

How do subiminal messages work?

Did The Three Musketeers actually exist?

What pasta names go with whatpasta shapes?

If you know the answers to all these questions,you might find this book dull;but if you want to know some of what you're talking about;now's your chance!

I thought this book of course does a good job explaining Alice Miller's position that abuse has harmful lasting effects. But the title of this book led me to believe it had helpful ideas for recovering people. It doesn't. It just explains her position, and when you are disability and haven't worked in a few years and you are just trying to come to terms with all that's happened to you and you spend money to buy a book with the title that it will help you recover and it doesn't have any helpful ideas then you might feel pretty ripped off, which is what I Think about this book.

I see kids at church where their parents don't discipline them, and they act up and do things that I never would have even thought about doing as a child. I would have had the living daylights beaten out of me, and I would have suffered extensively. I never would have dreamed of it.

I do see that the abuse has had long lasting effects in my life, and I"m seeking to recover, but this book wasn't very helpful.

It has been some time since I had originally read this book, but in coming back and further reflecting upon it, I feel a need to distance myself further from it. There are of course the basic, standard, good premises: bad parenting is bad and hurts children. Yet, when you get depth little more so than that, the book is sorely simplistic. Admonitions to just "love yourself" might just not be all that is needed for a true, curative psychotherapeutic process. As a licensed psychologist, and to plain and simple just be quite the bit more pragmatic, a person, breathing, I find much more depth in works such as "On Human Symbiosis and the Vicissitudes of Individuation: Infantile Psychosis," by Margaret S. Mahler and Manuel Furer and "Collected Papers on Schizophrenia and Related Subjects" by Harold F. Searles, the former showing you much more intently the inner workings of the mind of an infant or a young child in distress, with the latter showing what it is to do true psychotherapeutic work, that is, not just theory-based, but if one examines what Dr. Searles has to say, one can also see that he is giving of himself most immensely. Now, again, as a psychologist, and as a human being, more so, and more so I live, learn and thrive, I have found it most remarkable that other persons in the psychological and psychiatric professions not just only take umbrage (offense or annoyance) with my views, such that this work of Ms. Miller is simplistic and fails to strive at finding core bases for the transformation of the human psyche or better yet the amelioration of psychiatric symptomatology, better yet the working through of intrapsychic conflict, but also that they resort to plain out-and-out mockery and attempts at denigration. Maybe Ms. Miller did hit the nail on the head in noting that these unresolved conflicts lie within each of us and manifest in manifold manner; yet, Freud did say that, too. Either way, the book lacks any significant element of in-depth insight, without which change--or psychic restructuralization--is just plain not possible. And, if you get into the vanity inherent in mockery, well, it's a long characterological road on back then.

I read this book carefully & slowly. I will not be the same again, in that I will no longer go through life, with my eyes closed. Emotionally, this book has freed me to a great extent. I believe then, that it can do so for anyone who is honest & open.

Alice Miller goes into a facinating and undoubtably true acount on how we are often are own worst enemy. We often poison ourselves with comfortable lies that end up causing more damage than we realize both spiritually and physically.
The Truth will Set you Free, is a wonderful title for the books content. As someone who has been meditating almost daily for the past several years I have grown to develop an awareness of myself that I did not have in earlier years. So I put Alice Miller to the test. After a meditation session I stayed sitting and relaxed and began to think Aloud the following statements pausing for 3 minutes between each one. 1- He was the best father in the world and he loved me very much growing up. 2- My father never loved me and wouldn't have cared if I died. 3- Though he did care and provide, my father was a pathetic man who loved himself much more than he ever loved me. When I said the first two statements, I felt an inner tension in my gut and upper spine. When I claimed the last one the tension released completely. That's because the last statement was the true one, regardless of how hard it might be to admit. But such tension is subtle and not detectable by most people at first. Alice Miller states that we often take the lies told to us by society and family and embody them, but our bodies/subconscious CANNOT be lied to. And our bodies carry around the toxic lie until finally we find ourselves getting sick. Facing truth may hard for your mind to bear initially, but it's the only thing that alleviates pain in the soul and body in the long run. The only problem I have with this book it offers almost no practical guideline as to what someone can DO to get to the truth. It mentions therapy briefly. Meditation I know works too, but it took me a long time before I grew to an awareness of subtle little shifts in emotion and the body like what I experienced in the 'experiment.' The type of people who would buy this book most likely have already faced their emotional blindness on some level and are looking to learn ways to enhance that- and that practicality is what this book is missing. Still a fascinating and potentially enlightening read.

Miller's main premise is that God set up mankind for the fall. The truth is that God allowed the tree of knowledge of good and evil to co-exist next to the Tree of Life. Man was given a choice. Choose your own way or choose life. Man has been paying for its choice ever since....

The same goes for discipline. Miller wants to give reason to just let children do what they want to. Go ahead and do that if you want, but I am writing to warn that this thinking is destructive to the soul. Of course we have choices, but there are good choices and bad choices. As parents, it is up to us to help our children make good choices. When there are bad choices, discipline is in order. Use your best judgement what type of discipline in necessary in that situation.

Children will grow into adults and make their own decisions without our intereference eventually anyway. Hopefully by good parenting, they will learn that there are consequences to their actions. You will not be responsible to administer correction any longer, but their future spouses will, the legal system, their employers, their friends, people on the road driving next to them. Hopefully they will make good choices.

Peace. Read something like Dobson, it will help you.

Didn't care for the bull. Kinda dug the C*ck. I thought that the story was insightful, funny, sexy, etc. Maybe that was a bit too much c#ck for some people. They should stick to reading John Grisham or the like.

There's this woman, right, and she grows a penis!! It's soooo rude! That Will's so naughty! And then there's this subtext about antisemitism and it's so, like, deep! Crikey, he's clever.

Will Self wants to be Kafka. Or maybe he wishes Kafka had never been born then he could have got there first. Let's be thankful good old Franz did beat him to it, and with a lot more style to boot. And Brett Easton Ellis does that shocking nastiness thing a whole lot better, too.

These two novellas, written at great speed during a holiday in Morocco, when Self was, as he proclaimed himself 'high on marijuana' have the brio and freshness of stories rolled out with swift, merciless satire.

The concept is similar in both stories - exploring the murky waters of human sexual identity, but the pace differs. In 'Cock' a woman trapped in a moribund marriage to a bloke whose idea of sexual seduction is to ask if he can 'climb on board' gradually finds the grisly stub of her clitoris growing and expanding into a fully fledged penis, which takes over her personality giving it freakish impulses.

In 'Bull', the metamorphosis is more sudden. Like Gregor Samsa, Bull, a slightly dimwitted, naive rugby player who implausibly writes an arts column for a listings magazine wakes up one morning to find a vagina has sprouted in the crook of his knee. Strange things happen to him as he tries to come to grips with this, and the curious attentions of his doctor Alan Margoulies...

This is not Self's best work. It pitches well, but the stories are too frenzied and overwrought to have the subtleties and satirical power of his greatest stories. But there is still plenty of humour, and like all Self's writing, his prose holds up an ugly and uncomfortable mirror to ourselves, and our modes of living.

A definite oddity of a book that explores how and why men and women are infinitely different. One woman grows fully functional male genitalia and conversely a male is disfigured with female genitals in the back of his knee. What's most interesting about the books is the emotional metamorphosis, not necessarily the physical one that these two independent people experience.

I liked the idea of the book, however I found the vocabulary to be grandiloquent at times. Reading this book with a dictionary nearby was a necessity for me. This isn't necessarily a weakness, however I found that the book should have been a little more decipherable for being such a small novelette. The story itself was grand; the vocabulary just confused and overshadowed the narrative. I liked the book, and I recommend it, just be prepared to sit with a dictionary while reading.

In this book, Will Self explores gender. Unfortunately, he doesn't really commit. In the first book, a bored suburban woman develops a penis. She doesn't develop a true, honest to God, do-I-dress-left-or-right one, just a nub. There just is not a lot driving her, either. She just seemed like a sad little person, who never goes anywhere. In the companion story, a macho man develops a vagina on his leg. To use the AOL-type acronym, WTF? Why not commit? Why not put it where they generally are located? You certainly won't find one on someone's leg!

Both stories were too weak. He doesn't wake them up completely switched in gender, he does not really show how society treats men and women through the fresh eyes of someone who has undergone a full transformation. He just makes these oddball half-baked chimeras and has all of the consequence of the mutation be a result of their own internal ruminations.

Best ignore this one and enjoy his other, more entertaining books.