 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Medical Forum / Diseases and Disorders / Prostate Cancer / August 2007Books
In response to a recent thread started by Hugh, rosbif recommended reading books as a counter to depression. I am myself an avid reader, and I began to wonder what books I might recommend to someone who is facing the big issues of life and death. I thought that maybe they would be philosophical books that teach us how to think about these issues, or maybe they would be humorous books that take us out of ourselves. And in any case, I was curious about what books others might recommend. To start off the discussion, I thought I'd recommend a favorite of my own. I can think of many different books that might qualify for a list like this but this one, which I read just over 30 years ago, stands out in my memory. The book is: _Death Comes for the Archbishop_ by Willa Cather, published in 1927. I love all of Cather's work. This particular one is about a Catholic bishop sent to New Mexico in 1848, where he spent the rest of his life ministering to the needs of small and scattered Mexican and Indian villages. It's based on the life of an actual person but is fictionalized by Cather in her wonderful, straightforward style. I'm neither a Catholic nor a religious man myself, but I believe this book is one that people of any faith, or no faith at all, can appreciate. Do others have favorite books to recommend? > In response to a recent thread started by Hugh, rosbif > recommended reading books as a counter to depression. > ... > in any case, I was curious about what books others might > recommend. We're gearing up for our Freshman Studies course here at EC right now, and there are two books in the course that I'd recommend: *The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down*, by Anne Fadiman. It is an account of the experiences of a young Hmong girl with epilepsy, as she was caught between the medicine practiced at a California hospital and the culture of her family. Very well written. I get angry when I read it -- at the doctors, at the parents, at the author -- but I don't get depressed. *The Color of Water: A Tribute by a Black Man to His White Mother*, by James McBride. The title tells you what it's about, but it's a very uplifting account of an incredibly strong woman. --charlie  Signature6/2006 PSA 5.2, DRE suspicious 7/2006 Biopsy: 2 of 10 positive, Gleason 7(3+4) 11/2006 LRP: Clear margins PSA < 0.01 on 1/2007, 3/2007, 6/2007 so far, so good ... >In response to a recent thread started by Hugh, rosbif >recommended reading books as a counter to depression. [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > >Do others have favorite books to recommend? A book very similar to the one Alan described is "I Heard The Owl Call My Name", by Margaret Craven. I've read it many times and always enjoyed it. Burney dot Huff at Mindspring dot com > In response to a recent thread started by Hugh, rosbif > recommended reading books as a counter to depression. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > in any case, I was curious about what books others might > recommend. Olivia Manning - "Fortunes of War" (Fiction - un-put-downable. Full escapism. Clever writing.) Martin Amis - "Money" (Fiction, funny and dark by turn) Khaled Hosseini - "The Kite Runner" (Autobiography - living in Afghanistan pre-Taliban) Plutarch - "Eight Great Lives" (Biographies) Geoffrey Chaucer - "The Canterbury Tales" (Fiction) Anthony Burgess - "The Kingdom of the Wicked" (Religious Fantasy based on historical fact) Mikhael Ramadan - "In the Shadow of Saddam" (Autobiography of Saddam Hussein's "Double") Col. Muki Betser - "Secret Soldier" (Autobiography - Israeli Secret Service) James A. Michener - "The Source" (Commentary on Ancient Jewish History) John Hogue - "The Last Pope" (Historical - Decline of the Church of Rome) Honore de Balzac - "Eugenie Grandet" (Period drama fiction) Stanley Baxter - "Parliamo Glasgow" - The dialects of Glasgow. Extremely Funny. Albert Schweitzer - "J.S. Bach" (Translated by Ernest Newman. An aid in understanding Bach's art) The Rubaiyat of Omar Khyyam. (Arabist Philosophical poetry - a lot on-topic about man's impermanence) THESE along with various translations of the Holy Bible are in my bedside bookcase. OK - who else has favourites I might like to read? - I just started "The Hobbit" again and will be going on to the Lord of the Rings Trilogy - for the fourth time since 1975. Good Idea, Alan & rosbif. HUGHIE. > ... > THESE along with various translations of the Holy Bible are in my bedside bookcase. Aha! Behind your gruff exterior you now stand revealed as a man of discerning literary as well as musical and culinary taste. I just started _Eugenie Grandet_. I read _Pere Goriot_ and _Cousin Bette_ a long time ago, and _Droll Stories_ not too long ago. The Droll Stories were a scream. Alan Canterbury Tales are a scream! Teachers will often tell students that they are not suppose to read certain ones because of the content. That guarantees the kids will read them. Thus the kids get the literature they need and no one is in trouble with the school system. Bev > > In response to a recent thread started by Hugh, rosbif > > recommended reading books as a counter to depression. [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] > > HUGHIE. >OK - who else has favourites I might like to read? I've only the Martin Amis in common with you Hughie so my faves might not hit your button at all, but stand-out books I've enjoyed recently:- Saturday - Ian McEwan Never let me go - (?) Ishiguro George & Arthur - Julian Barnes Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell A short History of Tractors in Ukranian- Marina Lewycka His dark Materials (Trilogy) - Philip Pullman - all fiction, the first three can be relied upon for sparkling prose but of course they'll not be everyone's cup of tea - plenty of reviews on amazon.com. I find D.Mitchell - a relative newcomer - wonderfully inventive. All of them are either winners or nominees for UK literary awards but as we all know, such contests are just devices for selling books! I mention the Pullman trilogy because there are strong though even more imaginative flavours of Tolkien + A.k.Rowling but it's also critical of some elements of organised religion so I'm not sure you'd find it acceptable. The central character is actually a young girl though the book is too sophisticated for most kids. The Marina Lewycka book is a hoot, sometimes side-splittingly funny, I can't imagine anyone not enjoying it. Check out the amazon.uk review, they've got them there used for £0.01 so you're really only paying postage. Do you like films? How about 'Diary of a country priest' - Robert Bresson (french with english s/ts). Over 50 years old, like no other film you'll ever see, bleak and unsentimental, the polar opposite of 'funny'. I'm not religious but I found the film incredibly moving. Customer reviews:- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042619/usercomments I liked too the 'The lives of others' (2006, german with s/ts) also moving but well-knit; Art vs. the Stahzi entwined with a powerful love story in former east-Germany. I have a problem with 95% of todays english-speaking big-budget cinema but then others may not like european films either. A chacun son gout. Anyway, I'm uneasy about my parochial reading habits so thanks for everyone else's suggestions, I'm already adding to my reading list. One of the best novels I have read in a LONG time, is in that list of mine... "The Kite Runner". by Khaled Hoseini (isbn 978-0-7475-6653-3; published by Bloomsbury) It had me laughing and crying by turns. Love and betrayal that I could relate to. A lot of the time I sat with a little lump in my throat at the twisted and denying, jealous sadness of the main character. It was bought for me by my son - beware - it has slight undertones of male-male attraction, but perhaps that is just my interpretation of the culture of that part of the world. I had to read it twice over straight off. Another "Un-Put-Downable" that left me thinking for a long time afterwards. Among the escapist novels I liked are just about everything by Robert Ludlum, Colin Forbes, Dale Brown, Tom Clancy and Ian Rankine. The latter is a Scot. His writing very dark and disturbing. By the time I was 15, I'd read all the James Bond Books. I DETEST Shakepeare, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and John Buchan in equal measure. Which statement leads you to say that I'm no Highbrow - you are correct. I want to be entertained or educated when I read - not spend half the time with a dictionary in my other hand or wondering what the author meant me to think. Best Book of all time on my list? - a little book of cartoons called "101 Uses of a Dead Cat" It is utterly hillarious. (Dog-eared since 1973!) 2nd Best was David Niven's Autobiography "The Moon's a Balloon" - I read it on a train journey from Glasgow to Penzance. People must have thought there was something wrong with me, I sat and laughed out loud at some of Niven's antics, especially when he and a pal sabotaged the Chapel Organ so that it kept "Farting" I had a sore belly by the time I got off the train. Most morbid book? - "The Disposal of the Dead" - a tome for the apprentice undertaker. WHY I read THAT - I'll never know - it was just so fascinating! - Mixtures for embalming, herbal tinctures to disguise the smell of a ripening corpse, optimum retort temperatures for cremation - yekk! Worst ever read? - Winston Churchill - "A History of the English Speaking Peoples" Plagiaristic and boring. Too much taken from Lord MacAuley's much better "A History of Britain" with only slight changes in thesaurical manner to hide his almost word for word copying. (I had to read that as part of my studies for my Economic History A Level. I threw the thing in the dustbin once I'd done the exam.) I'm an avid film watcher - but that can wait for another post - right now, I need to get up to the Beatson for Day 2 of my Palliative RT. Yesterday, I was wearing lined track pants with no underwear. On the table thingy a nurse put a pillow under my legs and pulled down the track pants - oooooo! Embarassed! Think that's the smallest he's ever been - hiding in among the Pubies! I laughed all the way home thinking about her giggles. Hughie. >>OK - who else has favourites I might like to read? > [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] > Anyway, I'm uneasy about my parochial reading habits so thanks for > everyone else's suggestions, I'm already adding to my reading list. > ... > I DETEST Shakepeare, Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and John Buchan in equal measure. > Which statement leads you to say that I'm no Highbrow - you are correct. I want to be > entertained or educated when I read - not spend half the time with a dictionary in my > other hand or wondering what the author meant me to think. > ... Scott wrote some ponderous books that showed off his remarkable knowledge, but also some real page turners. I haven't read them all, but my favorite so far in the latter category is _Kenilworth_. If you think Scott is heavy going, try that one. It's delightful. Alan I am a movie person, and one of my favorites is "Tunes of Glory," about a Scottish regiment. Acting is unparalled. Watched this last night, am going to watch it again now with husb. I wish it had subtitles. Takes on some serious themes. Is more interesting if you know British and military culture, but too bad. Hitchcock said this was his favorite movie. *Glorious* Hughie (or anybody) -- I watched an interview w/Ronald Neame, director of above film. He said he thinks that Scots don't wear anything under their kilts, if you know what I mean. Surprised, because it can get pretty cold out there. They just get used to crossing their legs and walking in certain way. Truth or fiction? Also, just looked up Gordon Jackson, actor in above film, and it said he was born in Glasgow. Leah Here's my contributions to this thread: "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers is a true story about this fella Dave Eggers who loses both his parents to cancer within months of each other. He is about 20 at the time and then he and his siblings have to raise their brother of 7. While the book follows day to day issues it also is a fascinating window into Mr. Eggers mind. It is certainly sad, without being mundane, touching, very clever and very funny. You have to give Mr. Eggers a little slack when reading this book, after all it is his first novel.There are sections you'll find tedious, but there are some tremendous sections you'll be glad you read. A definite 5 starrer. I also just completed his latest novel, "What is the What" another novelization of true events about a "Lost Boy" of Sudan. The Dinka tribe were one of the first to be terrorized by the Sudanese government, decades before the Darfur. This lost boy eventually finds his way to the United States, only to be terrorized by the inner city. Another, 5 starrer. This guy Dave Eggers has this way with sentences that are filled with meaning in a very little amount of words. For those of you familiar with Issac Babel's genius, this guy reminds me of his stuff. WhiteSoxFan Other good reads besides The Kite Runner by Hosseini: The Perfect Man by Naeem Murr - about a young boy from India, child of his English father and Indian mother. He is abandoned in small town mid-America. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - a vet who didn't quite graduate ends up tending animals in a circus. Excellent description of life in an early 20th century small circus. Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - an autobiography of Frank's life in Ireland growing up poor. 'Tis by Frank McCourt - sequel to Angela's Ashes with Frank now in America. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel - A young boy is trapped with a tiger on a boat cast adrift. The writing is so good I actually thought this was a true story until they arrived at a rather fantastic island. Even then I tried to believe the island was real because I didn't want the story to be fiction. For good humor, anything by Bill Bryson who writes of his travel adventures. One is The Lost Continent. Dave Perry > Here's my contributions to this thread: "A Heartbreaking Work of > Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers is a true story about this fella [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > WhiteSoxFan > In response to a recent thread started by Hugh, rosbif > recommended reading books as a counter to depression. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Do others have favorite books to recommend? #1 The Bible #2 Crossword puzzles #3 I head to the "HUMOR" section at Barnes and Noble and other bookstores. I have a pile of GARFIELD and other cartoon books, from PEANUTS to some rather adult in nature (but not porno). >In response to a recent thread started by Hugh, rosbif >recommended reading books as a counter to depression. [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > >Do others have favorite books to recommend? In addition to reading as a good way to get my mind off "things", I've been doing a lot of baking, with sourdough bread being my primary focus. It's a very inexpensive hobby that can consume as much time as a person wants to devote to it. I become totally immersed in the process and, at least temporarily, forget about ADT and the side effects. My family and neighbors like the sharing of the good results. The birds in my backyard very much enjoy those efforts that didn't turn out so good! In addition, for those who are interested in eating quality food, this provides the opportunity to know, without a doubt, exactly what is in the bread you're eating. If anyone is interested in trying this, a book I'd recommend (this thread is about reading, isn't it?) is "Classic Sourdoughs" by Ed Woods. I'd also recommend that anyone interested start monitoring another newsgroup, rec.food.sourdough. In addition to being potentially very informative, it can also get to be a very lively, and entertaining, group. If any in this group decide to try this hobby, I'd like to know about it and I'd be happy to share my experiences to help you get started the right way - maybe avoid my mistakes. :-) Burney dot Huff at Mindspring dot com Ever make your own sourdough starter? Something I did once just to say that I did it and it worked. Unfortunately, my husband didn't like sourdough and never did. He also didn't like potato bread, but he loved his potatoes. Bev > >In response to a recent thread started by Hugh, rosbif > >recommended reading books as a counter to depression. [quoted text clipped - 49 lines] > > Burney dot Huff at Mindspring dot com No, I never tried making my own starter. I use Carl's 1847 Oregon Trail starter and another (more sour) starter I got from a friend. Since they both work well, I'll probably stick with them or settle on only one of them. Carl's 1847 Oregon Trail starter can be obtained for the price of a self addressed stamped envelope from Carl's Friends. Their web site is: http://home.att.net/~carlsfriends/ Too bad your husband didn't like sourdough! I make some sourdough cinnamon rolls that might change his mind! Some are rising as I write this. Take care, Burney >Ever make your own sourdough starter? Something I did once just to say that >I did it and it worked. Unfortunately, my husband didn't like sourdough and [quoted text clipped - 54 lines] >> >> Burney dot Huff at Mindspring dot com Burney dot Huff at Mindspring dot com > Do others have favorite books to recommend? On a more pragmatic note, I've picked up 6 or 8 books which I expect will actively empower me by putting the remainder of my life back under my control if and when one of my cancers returns (or some new alligator looms larger). Even if I don't avail myself of the implication or outright purpose of many of these books, knowing my end will be determined by my *conscious mind* rather than the mortal, purely corporeal body it inhabits should give me a great deal of peace when the mets hit the fan. Titles include these: "Intending Death: The Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia" by Beauchamp. "Staying In Charge: Practical Plans for the End of Your Life" by Kaplan and Lukas. "When Is It Right to End Your Life?" by Tada. I didn't let chance determine any of the rest of my life -- college, career, individual jobs, wife, family, finances, retirement, health (even including several aspects of my cancers), QOL -- so why should I let chance determine the nature of my actual death or the weeks or months leading to it? I've offered support to my state legislators promoting death-with-dignity laws comparable to Oregon's, and if that fails, Oregon's a beautiful place to spend some time. One secret to *feeling* in control of one's life is "being* in control of one's death. Whether we exercise that control is purely optional, but at least it's *our* option. In the meantime, I've been pleasantly surprised how much I've benefited physically and mentally from gym time, after > 60 years of avoiding gyms. There are no sharp fishhooks there, we can sit or stand at will, and one can make exercise physiology as mentally involving as they wish. Whatever you do, don't go to the movie "Superbad" in search of humor; it contains none despite its solid reviews. I.P. >In response to a recent thread started by Hugh, rosbif >recommended reading books as a counter to depression. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >in any case, I was curious about what books others might >recommend. snip........ >Do others have favorite books to recommend? Hi Alan! A few years ago I remember reading an interview with this doctor in Holland that made assisted suicide available in certain circumstances. He mentioned the case of a certain lady (Swiss, if I remember correctly) that travelled to Holland to get his support / services and when they discussed the actual timing of the event, she said: "well... only after I finish the book I am currently reading!". Sorry, I don't know which book it was... More to the point, if you feel like reading something that actually makes you forgetting anything else, I certainly recommend the works of John Le Carré. I am currently reading "Absolute Friends" and his capacity of creating such an intricate, elaborate, credible story keeps amazing me. Just SignaturePosted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > ... > More to the point, if you feel like reading something that actually [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > keeps amazing me. > ... Yes, he's a great one. When I first encountered him some years ago I had read a number of spy novels of the Ian Fleming James Bond type. Then I read _The Spy Who Came in from the Cold_. It made me feel like I had never read a _real_ spy story before. It was head and shoulders above anything else. The rest of his books just got better from there. I remember that one passage of _A Small Town in Germany_ made me think no one had ever really properly described an interrogation scene before. _A Perfect Spy_ also taught us more about the ambiguous personalities in spying that one never finds in such straight up spies as we see on TV. _Absolute Friends_ is a winner too - like all of his books. Alan My husband's cousin is a nun. She recently sent me a book to read and so far it has been interesting. Praying Our Goodbyes by Joyce Rupp, OSM I'm not religious and it is not really about death as we have many stages and times in life where we say goodbye to many things. Bev > In response to a recent thread started by Hugh, rosbif > recommended reading books as a counter to depression. [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > > Do others have favorite books to recommend? |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.