It's an Exciting World

While there was expressed interest in the book, this was a poor showing for book club.  I think a lot of it was due to the book having more of a textbook nature than many of the others we’ve read in the past.  Even other highly informative books have had more story to them. It was also didn’t have an Audible version, so it was more difficult for many, including myself, to get through in a timely manner.

There were only two people who came to book club having read the book.  Debby and Andrew were nice enough to call in and marginally participate, but since they hadn’t read the book some of the more specific examples had them tuning out.  I can understand where people were coming from with the book choice, and the not reading it.  I think I’ll avoid these styles of books from now on.

This was an odd book.  The true account of a research experiment of three schizophrenic patients who believed themselves to be Christ/God.  They were put together for daily discussion sessions over the period of a little over 2 years.  This was one of the shortest discussions we’ve had on a book, and the person who wanted to read it originally didn’t show up to the meeting.

There were some major ethical issues with the research.  The biggest one in my opinion was when the researchers wrote letters to one of the men pretending to be his wife.  The man had never married and clearly had major problems around women.  The then manipulated him into doing things by having his wife ask him to do it.  They also had him wait around for the wife’s visits and had the wife write she was disappointed he didn’t show when he did show up and the wife didn’t show up.  It was a horrible situation.

There were plenty of other odd things they did, but nothing quite as bad as that.  It was a strange book, with a strange format.  I wouldn’t recommend it, but I would say reading the wikipedia on it is worthwhile.

People were mixed about this book.  A lot of the messages he was giving were mixed, and he contradicted himself a lot.  The representation of his background was put in a certain light, and his current wealth was downplayed a lot.  There was also no reason thoughts around how things could get better, just a statement of how they weren’t going well.  We had a pretty full house, and I might need to rethink the seating arrangements a bit.

This book was nice, but a little too anecdotal.  The points she makes about happiness are good, but the backing she gives to them isn’t all that great.  I understand that this book was meant for a different audience from myself, and it does point in a great direction for getting more information.  I just wish there were a book or paper on happiness that was deeply involved, and well backed by scientific studies.

Audible Link