Dietland by Sarai Walker

This is a book about how women can take their revenge upon men. It features stories of humiliation, mutilation, and dismemberment. I mean, really! This is a nasty turn in society at present, and I hope it dies down soon! As a feminist, I cannot recommend this book for weight loss or for any other reason.

The Trouble with Henry and Zoe by Andy Jones

As Cloggie Downunder wrote on Amazon, "this is a novel with plenty of humour, but also a bit of heartache, lots of wisdom and wit, an anniversary celebration, a wedding, a hen’s party, and a generous helping of people with a graduated bob hairdo. This is a delightful novel . . ." It's a romance novel, so be prepared for talk of rings and weddings. Also be prepared to drop a few tears. The course of true love never does run smoothly! In fact, Andy Jones is good at pointing out how our fault-finding minds are always looking for flaws in other people, no matter how dear they are to us.

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

Carl Hiaasen certainly has a firm grasp of this form of literature intended for young adults. I thought Hoot had a fantastical side, and it is very funny. At the same time, it just about lays out the blueprint for seriously protesting an environmental issue. And the characters were very unpredictable! This book is suitable for those learning English and was a New York Times bestseller.

Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman

This is a book about how we make decisions. It is a very high-level book and not for beginners. The author describes how even educated and very scholarly people make all sorts of errors in decision-making. In fact, he admits that he also makes some of these errors, as they are hard to avoid. It is an honest book, but leaves the reader wondering how people are ever supposed to master the art of logical decision-making, since our minds are so full of glitches.

On the plus side, this book is very engagingly written. It was a New York Times bestseller. The author was a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Your understanding of the mathematical fields of chance and probability will most likely have a lot to do with what you take away from reading this book. The average person would probably say that if she has a complex problem to solve, she will just flip a coin!

Christopher Wren, The Cat Who Covered the World

This story about Henrietta, the pet cat, traveling around the world with reporter Christopher Wren and his family is light-hearted and fun. The family loves its cat so very much that they put up with all sorts of complications brought about by traveling and living abroad with an animal.

The cat is small, as its mother was a Siamese. It is gray and an excellent mouser. And wouldn't you know it, at one point (in Cairo) it decides to go its own way and gets lost for a time in dangerous back streets and filthy alleys.

This book conveys very well the warmth and stability generated by a loving family. So much so that at one point I was wondering how the parents could be so pleasant and patient all the time. The answer is that no one is that perfect and no two children are such models of good behavior all the time. The focus of this book is not the people, however, but the cat. As the author writes, Henrietta is an ordinary cat who has extraordinary adventures. This book will make you glow with delight, it is so deftly written. 

Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, Ph.D.

In case you have ever wondered what happens to the soul after the body dies, or in case you don't believe we have souls, this book is for you. Yet I am not sure I entirely believe what this book purports to uncover for us through the use of hypnotherapy. How do we know the interviews with therapy clients have not been invented? The interviews all sound suspiciously similar in the use of words, grammar, and level of vocabulary. Actually, all the client interviews sound like Dr. Newton!

Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett

The writing has such subtlety that one thinks the author must be mad. Indeed, from behind the dutiful prose about everyday things, come explosions of raw terror and rage. It is quite mesmerizing, really. I especially like the story called Control Knobs, about how the knobs on her kitchen appliance were crumbling, one by one, and after they were all broken she would have no way to cook anymore. The surface and the depths are not very far apart for this writer!

The New Censorship by Joel Simon

Freedom of expression is coming under fire all around the world. Are we living in a surveillance state?  To answer that you would need to know that even children's toys come equipped with open mics! I guess it is no secret that professional journalists are being imprisoned and killed all over the world. 

Joel Simon has written a profound book on surveillance and censorship. Copyrighted in 2015, it is still quite current. 

The Divided Self by R.D. Laing

I first heard of R.D. Laing in the late 1960s, when he was known as an 'anti-psychiatrist.' He was thought to have a kinder view of people with disordered mental states. In those days, ordinary people sometimes took mescaline or LSD in order to experience unusual experiences in their minds. I believe Laing set up communities in which doctors and patients lived together, but I don't think he ever found a satisfactory way of healing the sick. He characterized psychotic people as having splits in their mental organization.

I couldn't help but notice hints of contempt in his writing, such as on page 148, where he writes: "I am quite sure that a good number of 'cures' of psychotics consist in the fact that the patient has decided, for one reason or other, once more to play at being sane."

Laing goes on to say that the schizophrenic uses obscurity and complexity deliberately "as a smokescreen to hide behind. This creates the ironical situation that the schizophrenic is often playing at being psychotic, or pretending to be so. In fact, as we have said, pretence and equivocation are greatly used by schizophrenics." (p. 163)

And further: "A good deal of schizophrenia is simply nonsense, red-herring speech, prolonged filibustering to throw dangerous people off the scent, to create boredom and futility in others. The schizophrenic is often making a fool of himself and the doctor. He is playing at being mad to avoid at all costs the possibility of being held responsible for a single coherent idea, or intention." (p. 164) Quite possibly the patient is not cooperating with the doctor to avoid the stigma of mental illness.

Personally, I don't think everybody is so articulate as to be able to say what is plaguing them. That would take a great deal of insight, and everybody is not graced with insight. In what other field of medicine do we expect the patient to figure out and speak up about his or her own disease?

These days, almost 60 years later, psychiatrists do not talk much to patients. They prescribe medications which quell 'voices' and help keep patients from becoming unglued. Sad to say, doctors still regard all psychoses as being chronic and incurable.