Weird Books

The Bible...lol

"The Last Jihad" - it's a fiction thriller that my dad gave me to read on the plane the last time I went to see them. I didn't think it'd be appropriate to whip that one out thousands of feet in the air

Also this one:


It's not so much a "weird" book as it is one that's out of the norm. As the author is a Neuroscientist, he gives the perspective of a life of addiction (lived experience) as well as the specific neuro-chemical processes of each drug he has used. I found it extremely engaging, as it's not your typical "I'm an addict and this is my short story" approach. The neuro-chemical explanations are fairly in depth, but couched in 'laymans terms' enough that it's understandable and equally engaging.

Is "the last jihad" a Joel Rosenberg book? I like his stuff.

I'm not sure if I still have them but I used to have a books "Criminal Shadows" and "Dark Nature" which were about psychopathology - the first had a particular focus on the mind of the serial killer and the second (I think, it's been a while since I read it) looked into the general dark nature of the human mind. If I wanted to make sure the seat beside me on the train stayed empty for a while, they were good choices to read. Sometimes I'd read them upside down, just to heighten the effect.

Somewhere I may still have an old copy of "The Book Of Poisons". The author describes a range of poisons, where they come from and what they do. He also tests each and every one of them on himself and describes his experiences processing them.

Books that might give a different impression to what they are actually about:

"Traders, Guns and Money" - a detailed look by an internationally respected quantitivate analyst into just what goes wrong in the world of finance.

"Evil by design" - a look into the ways the seven deadly sins are part of human nature and how to exploit them when designing user interfaces for computer software.

DHoffmann said:

LOL!!

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Curiously all sorts of things about abnormal psychology (aka psychopathology) seem to cause people concern. I guess people see "psychopathology" and immediately think "psychopath" rather than understanding that it is the study of a huge range of psychological issues and many of them don't result in newspaper headlines - it's psycho-pathology rather than psychopath-ology.

Yeah, the 'Jihad' book is Joel Rosenberg. I started on it a few nights ago. Too early to have an opinion, but seems a bit cliche. We'll see.

I had a book at one time on psychopathology, too, that looked at the lack of conscience and their inability adequately form an empathic connection with people and situations. It wasn't so much that they refused to, but something with their brain development actually prevents it.