What are you currently reading??

**yoyoma** · February 3rd, 2008, 09:10 PM

Four Agreements By Don Miguel Ruiz
This book might actually shed some light to a lot of questions i have regarding
having a good and authentic relationship with the people around me.

Has anyone read the book and what's your opinion?

**ariesallover** · February 3rd, 2008, 10:42 PM

Originally Posted by yoyoma

Four Agreements By Don Miguel Ruiz
This book might actually shed some light to a lot of questions i have regarding
having a good and authentic relationship with the people around me.

Has anyone read the book and what's your opinion?

I read it and have found myself since then invoking some ideas, mostly around how to live with myself, especially as a person limited by illness. When I'm centered with what I can do and where my boundaries are, others can't shake me or make me feel bad. My abilities, as well as my limits, just "are," and the value judgments fall away and lose power.

"Doing your best" can seem like such an empty truism, but he operationalized it, which was helpful to me.

It's also been an intriguing journey to learn what is my best and that asking for the best for myself (pay, job options, medical treatment, friendships, etc.) is part of doing my best.

**Dixie Normos** · February 4th, 2008, 05:19 PM

Angel Rock, by Darren Williams

So far REALLY good!

**pacific breeze** · February 4th, 2008, 05:53 PM

The Corrections by Jonathan Frantzen (again), and The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelley.

**ariesallover** · February 7th, 2008, 12:43 AM

I had to give up on the story of Gypsy Lee. Great life, fascinating woman, but her son's prose is dead wood. Couldn't hack it.

I recently saw the movie The Company of Wolves and posted a clip in the movie thread that shows the sexualized version of Red Riding Hood as a more direct cautionary morality tale.

Gave me a jones for Angela Carter, and I realized that as much as I liked the movie, I never read the story. Glad I finally did. Unreal how they could still get the fairytale/nightmare quality in the movie without being hokey.

I got a collection of her stories because there was other stuff I wanted to read, especially The Bloody Chamber.

Amazon.com: Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories: Books: Angela Carter,Salman Rushdie

Intro by Salman Rushdie.

Predatory eroticism told in metaphor. One of the few treatments of sex - apart from BDSM - that touches on the animalism and brutality of sex in kind of a Jungian way, and that is NOT bad. I feel like this aspect of sexuality isn't really explored except in some BDSM stories, and really, BDSM and its imagery have become a cliche in a way that Carter's work is not.

The ongoing theme through her work is the fall from innocence, which is nightmarish in how she portrays it, but it's also something that the person wants. She's tapped into something really primal. If you type in her name, it's funny to see this long listing of titles and images that all hit on desire in a very specific way. I think the movie When Night is Falling sort of hit on it, in an amateur, overly romanticized way.

The Bloody Chamber really stayed with me. Creepy.

**sputnik** · February 7th, 2008, 04:19 AM

thank you for smoking, christopher buckley.
saw the movie and loved it, just started the book and so far it is hilariously smart and witty.

**NoDayButToday** · February 7th, 2008, 07:43 AM

I just finished the book club choice for April, so I'm deciding between 2 books coworkers gave me to read next. One of them is Neil Gaiman's Good Omens, the other is a book called World War Z. It'll probably be World War Z only because I left it in my car last night and I'll likely start reading it before going in to work.