"The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through The Madness Industry" by Jon Ronson: Review

“Suddenly, madness was everywhere, and I was determined to learn about the impact it had on the way society evolves. I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?”  
                                            - Jon Ronson The Psychopath Test

Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare At Goats) gets into the topic of psychopaths and madness by being pulled into an elaborate scheme of a psychologist who sends out cryptic messages to some 'intelligent' people all over the world. Jon Ronson is then asked to use his investigational skills as a journalist to solve the puzzle. 
By investigating this story his findings lead him, rather unexpectedly, to psychopathy. Finding this topic very interesting, Ronson decides to pursue it further.
Ronson meets a psychologist who is convinced that many people in high official positions are, in fact, psychopaths and that basically the world is run by a lot of people with psychopathic character traits. 
Further, he visits an inmate in an institution for the criminally insane, who has been diagnosed with being a psychopath, but claims not to be one.  His psychopathy was diagnose with a list created by Bob Hare, who is often considered to be the founding father of researching psychopaths. His list is still used to determine whether someone is a psychopath or not. 
In order to learn more about  psychopaths Ronson participates in a seminar  on how to spot them easily. He also does a lot of research on how psychopathy has been treated throughout the years and how it is still treated today. Leading from nude group therapy to LSD-infused group therapy sessions in prisons. 
He also meets with Scientology representatives, who do not believe in mental illness as such, and therefore also not in psychopathy. 

The fact that he approaches the topic from so many different angles makes it very interesting to read and also gives you the impression that the topic is being dealt with on an objective level. At the same time the whole book also has a very personal touch, because you accompany the author on his journey through the madness industry and he shares his, often, very personal thoughts with you. 
The book is very enthralling and I, personally, absolutely love Jon Ronson's style of writing stories, because they grip you immediately and keep you glued to the pages until the very end.

Although while reading the book you might get the feeling that almost everyone around you, including yourself, might suffer from some sort of mental illness or even be a psychopath. At least that's what happened to me, so be warned ;)

"Holy Cow" by David Duchovny: Review

Holy Cow is the story of Elsie Bovary, a cow, who wrote down her memoirs for the reader (with a little help from co-author David Duchovny).

Elsie enjoys the quiet happy farm life she has lead ever since she was born. It mostly consists of sleeping, eating and spending time with her friends. The only thing she sometimes misses is her mother, who had been taken away years ago. Elsie doesn't know where her mother went but she knows that this was how it always had been, mothers just left after some time and fathers were not really around to begin with. Nevertheless she couldn't be more content with the life she was leading. Up until one day when Elsie and her best friend Mallory realise that they have the sudden urge to meet the bulls who are kept on another part of the farm. So they come up with the plan to escape their stable, by heavily relying on the oldest son's inclination to forget to close the gates due to being constantly distracted by his phone.
When they actually manage to go and see the bulls Elsie is not nearly as interested in them as her friend Mallory is and so she decides she'd rather go down to the farm house and see what is happening there. What she sees when she looks through the window at the TV changes her whole life: the farmers are watching a program about meat production and all of a sudden Elsie's whole world turns upside down.
After she has regained from the shock, Elsie decides to leave the farm as quick as possible. She learns about a country called India, where cows are seen as divine creatures, not eaten and that's her destination.
During her preparations she is joined by Jerry, or rather Shalom, a pig that converted to Judaism and wants to go to Israel, because people don't eat pork there, and Tom, a turkey who cannot fly and who thinks that he'd be save in Turkey, because people there sure wouldn't eat the an animal that is named after their country right? Both of the companions come in very handy during the journey, especially Tom, who can operate the touchscreen of a smartphone with his beak. On their journey the three friends get involved in a lot of adventures, from hijacking an airplane to accidentally reuniting Israelis and Palestinians.

What could easily also be the plot of an animated children's movie turns out to be a delightful story about so much more than just three farm animals making a run for it. David Duchovny's witty writing style and lots and lots of pop cultural references make this book a great choice for some light and funny reading.

"Hemingway and Faulkner In Their Time" by Earl Rovit and Arthur Waldhorn: Review

"Writers should work alone. They should see each other only after their work is done, and not too often then."
                                                           - Ernest Hemingway

"A man works for a fairly simple range of things: money, women, glory; all nice to have but glory's best, and the best of glory is from his peers, like the soldier who has the good opinion not of man but of other soldiers, who are themselves brave too."
                                                           - William Faulkner

Rovit and Waldhorn start of their book with these quotes, concerning their peers, by two of the best-known American writers of their generation. And that is what this book is all about.
Hemingway and Faulkner in Their Time is a compilation of letters, interviews and comments from other famous writers, for example Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein etc, talking about either Hemingway or Faulkner and their works with Rovit and Waldhorn providing additional information and context where it is needed.
And it seems every writer had to say something about at least one of these two men, who, while being well aware of each others works, have never actually met in person. And since some of these things are expressed in letters to friends it is a much more honest opinion on either men than one usually gets from official statements and biographies.

While I absolutely loved this book and the whole time I was reading it it just made me want to go back in time and sit around at Gertrude Stein's flat in Paris with all these brilliant and talented people (a bit like Owen Wilson in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris), it is by no means an introduction to the works of Hemingway and Faulkner in any way. You will have to have at least a basic knowledge about their work and the other writers of the so-called "Lost Generation" that are mentioned. If you are like me, however, a huge fan of those ladies and gentlemen anyway this is definitely a book you HAVE to read. Enjoy :)

"Before I Go To Sleep" by S.J. Watson: Review

Imagine waking up in the morning in an unfamiliar house, in a bed you don't recognise, next to a stranger. A stranger who explains to you that he is your husband, that this is in fact your house and that you go through this routine every morning, because you are suffering from anterograde amnesia. That is exactly the situation Christine Lucas, the main character of S.J. Watson's best-selling novel Before I Go To Sleep finds herself in.
Her husband Ben tells her that she was in a car accident about 10 years prior and that ever since then she doesn't remember that occurred after her late twenties. Struggling with the situation, Christine still tries to make the best of it. When Ben leaves her alone to go to work she is contacted by a Dr. Nash, who claims that he has been working with her for the past few weeks to regain her memory without telling her husband. He also hands her a journal she has been keeping, trying to remember. Dr. Nash is also the one to tell her that she was not in fact in a car accident, but that she was attacked at a hotel near the airport and that's what caused the trauma for her amnesia.
Working through her journal Christine starts to remember snippets here and there from her former life. She also remembers a son. Ben tells her that they had one but that he had died as a child. While Christine doesn't really have a reason to mistrust her husband there are more and more things that don't add up with what she remembers and what she is told by former friends and soon she is not sure who she can trust anymore and who even is who they claim to be.
What starts as a interesting story of a woman trying to manage life in her condition and trying to regain her memory soon turns into an extremely suspenseful thriller that keeps you at the edge of your seat.
Like I think I have already said in earlier posts I am usually not really that much into reading thrillers, so that makes it even better when I find one once and again that really blows me away.
There is also a movie version of the book, starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and Mark Strong. While I am not really a Kidman fan I have to say that the movie is also really worth watching and I enjoyed it a lot, even though I already knew how it would end ;)

"Alan Turing: The Enigma" by Andrew Hodges: Review

While formerly probably mostly known to people who have some background knowledge in the fields of mathematics and computer science, the name Alan Turing is now widely known around the globe. All thanks to the Academy Award nominated movie The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean). Though neither any of the actors have won an Academy Award in their respective categories, nor the film itself Best Picture, writer Graham Moore received one for Best Adapted Screenplay. I had seen the movie before and Mr. Moore winning this award made me want to read the book even more, to see, how the film had been adapted.

The book by Andrew Hodges has been released in various editions, first in 1983, and revised in the later ones. At first I was a bit vary of reading it, since I am definitely not on the strong side when it comes to maths and considering that Andrew Hodges is a mathematician himself, there was the risk of the book being too theoretical for me. But I can gladly say that, while maths does obviously play an important role in it, the book focuses mainly on the person that was Alan Turing and explains the technical things so well that even I could understand it.
Although usually he is not exactly mentioned as the inventor of the computer as we know it today, Turing did actually design and build the forerunners for our computers. He also invented the so-called Turing Test which is basically supposed to be able to differentiate between a human and a computer and has highly influenced research in terms of artificial intelligence.
One of the best known achievements of Turing, which is also the main focus of the book and the film is, that he helped to decode the German Nazi code known as the Enigma and therefore helped England win the war. This has been kept a secret even after the war had ended and therefore nobody knew what an important service Turing and his colleagues had done to their country.
Unfortunately this did not save him from being arrested for "gross indecency", which was the term for homosexuality and which was illegal at Turing's time. Not wanting to go to prison Turing chose a hormone treatment prescribed by the government which was supposed to "cure" him of his homosexuality. One year into the therapy Alan Turing committed suicide.It is a very sad end of a very complicated man.
Hodges writes about Turing's life and the struggles he had with a lot of understanding. As far as biographies go it is definitely one of the best and the most intimate I have ever read. I especially liked that although admiring Turing, Hodges does tell the whole story and does not present him as a misunderstood hero, but as a brilliant, nevertheless very difficult man.
I know that Biographies are not for everyone, but I definitely recommend this, because it is brilliantly done.

"Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro

Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a noel that paints a dystopic image of the world as we know it. The story is told by the main character Kathy, who narrates her life basically in three different acts. 

In the first part she remembers her childhood at a boarding school called Hailsham for us. Those seem to be her best memories, although it is already hinted early on that this fictional place is not an ordinary boarding school and that the students who have been there all their lives are not ordinary either. 

The students (and the reader) learn soon that they are very special indeed, because they are clones, created to be organ donors when they're grown up. Kathy talks about how every donor is to give as much as possible, but that they usually only get to donate 4 times maximum before they reach their "completion", meaning before they die. 

Already in her memories from Hailsham Kathy tells the reader about her friends Ruth and Tommy, who later on engage in a romantic relationship, although it is always hinted that Kathy is actually the one who has feelings for Tommy and vice versa.

The second part revolves around the characters being around 16 years old and their time after they've left Hailsham and are to live together in huts. In their time at the huts they even try to track down the woman after whom Ruth was created, to find out if there is any likeness in character at all. Disappointingly they find none and begin to wonder whether their creation was actually important at all. 

They also find out later on that Hailsham does not exist any more, because it was only an experiment to try and give the clones a good life and not raise them under inhuman circumstances. Unfortunately the funding for that project has stopped and Kathy, Tommy and Ruth were lucky to have been raised there and have a relatively good childhood.

In the last act we learn that Tommy and Ruth have already become donors and that Kathy is a carer. Carers are clones who take care of others when they have their donations. In those last years Kathy is a carer for both, Tommy and Ruth at some point, before their completion.

I think the book is absolutely brilliant, but it's hard to say that I "enjoyed" reading it, because, while I find the topic it is dealing with highly interesting, it is also very gloomy. The idea of clones as a kind of human spare part boxes is not new, but as opposed to, for example the movie The Island by Michael Bay, which is a typical Hollywood blockbuster with lots of action and motorcycle/car chases, Never let me go approaches the topic very calmly and therefore, makes it seem all the more realistic. Nevertheless, it was a great book and definitely one of my favourites from author Kazuo Ishiguro. I'd also recommend to watch the movie with the same title, which is maybe even a tad darker than the book but otherwise very well adapted to  the screen and with Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield as the main cast it assembles some of Britain's finest young actors. 

"The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce: Review

Harold Fry and his wife Maureen live a very ordinary life in Kingsbridge, Devon.  Recently retired, Harold likes to spend most of his time mowing the lawn or chatting with his widowed neighbour Rex. That is until one day he receives a letter that shall interfere with his daily routine and change his life and his marriage from then on.

The letter he receives is from Queenie Hennessy, a colleague who had worked with Harold in a brewery over 20 years ago. She writes to him to inform him that she has got terminal cancer and that she is currently living in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed.While the news do not seem to affect Maureen very much, they shake Harold to the bone. He hadn't seen Queenie in a long time and they never really got to say goodbye to each other, when she disappeared from one day to another. Not knowing what else to do, he decides to write her a letter, expressing his well wishes. 

He tells his wife that he'll just quickly post the letter and be back. He doesn't even take his mobile with him, because why would you if you only go to the mailbox. But when he's at the mailbox, he can't bring himself to post the letter and so he just walks on to the next one and the next and the next until he is almost out of his town. He decides to get something to eat at a garage and talks to the girl who works there. She tells him that her aunt had cancer as well, and that she thinks that believing one can save a person does actually save them. This is what makes Harold decide to walk to Berwick-upon-Tweed to see Queenie and that he will save her by walking. He calls the hospice and asks the nurse to tell Queenie to stay alive because he is walking to her and he also calls his wife and tries to explain that this is something he has to do. 

From then on he is steadily walking northwards, only wearing his yachting shoes and his everyday clothes. He meets lots and lots of interesting people all over the country who tell him their stories and he tells them his. At some point he becomes so famous all over England that he finds himself with a large group of people who want to walk with him to save Queenie Hennessy. The whole "pilgrimage" of his turns into a media event and eventually the other pilgrims even let him behind because they don't think he will make it in time to see Queenie. 

While Harold is walking he reflects a lot on his life, his marriage and his son David, who is often mentioned by him and his wife, but we never encounter him personally. Gradually the stories and traumata of Harold's past are revealed to the reader by dwelling on his memories with him. It soon becomes very clear that the quiet, boring life and marriage is not at all what it seems. I really liked that the story is told through Harold and Maureen's point of view, because that allows the reader to learn much more about both of the characters and their lives, than if one only gets one side of the story. I am a great fan of the book, because it tells such a moving story in a way you don't read it all the time, but truth be told, it gets a bit repetitive at times, especially towards the end. But I guess that also fits the narrative of the story, because walking through a whole country by foot will be a bit repetitive from time to time. Nevertheless I'd recommend it, because it is a very nice read. 

I am not going to spoil what the reader discovers in the course of the story and if Harold will make it to Berwick-upon-Tweed, because I think that by reading the book you go on some kind of journey yourself and it is great to discover everything piece by piece.