Dracula

My book for this week was “Dracula” by Bram Stoker. I bought it at a super sale at a book store, and haven’t picked it up since July. The story is much different from what I thought, so far at least. I thought the basic plot line was that Count Dracula seduced women and then sucked their blood, but the real story line is much more complicated; involving multiple cities, slaughters and groups of people. The whole novel is written through notes, letters and diary entries from the main set of people plotting to “kill” Vlad Dracula, which I surprisingly like. Most books written in this style tend to annoy me, because the plot always seems to develop gaps in the story about halfway through the book, but Stoker did a very nice job covering all the loose ends.
The whole book starts with a man who travels to Transylvania to, I believe, help Dracula invest in a business plan. The man, Jonathan Harker, once arriving with the Count, realizes it is impossible to leave the Count’s palace; seeing as vicious wolves circle the grounds during the day and at night, Dracula hunts. Harker manages to escape, with the Count’s secret of being a vampire. That is as far as I have gotten since picking it up on Monday, but it does take a long while to sort through the book, because I received the version where all the footnotes are included on the page.

How to Read a Person like a Book

I haven’t picked up the “The Murder Next Door” in a while, which might be a good thing, but instead I found a new book “How to Read a Person like a Book” and quickly finished it. It is a very helpful book, and pretty easy to understand, thanks to the handy diagrams. “How to Read a Person like a Book” is basically a guide to human body language, ‘reading’ emotions and what certain natural poses mean. By reading this book, simply sitting in a class makes me feel immensely intelligent, because just the way people sit can reveal so much about them. For instance when a human being touches their nose, if they do not have a virus or a particularly stubborn runny nose, it will usually indicate their reluctance or lack of knowledge. The book uses the example of teenagers (ha ha!) and says that when adolescents touch their nose, more people notice and realize what the nose touch means. Whereas, when an adult touches their nose, it goes relatively unnoticed.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the way people function, or anyone interested in becoming a stalker. The book is very fascinating and unlike other psychology books, actually effortless to read. Seriously, though if you want to learn about psychology without actually reading much, the pictures make the concepts pretty easy to understand. So far out of the psychology/sociology books I’ve read and reported on so far, “How to Read a Person like a Book” is my favorite.

Room for J

The book I read this week, continuing with the psychology theme, was “Room for J” by David Hanson. It was about the author’s son Joel, often referred to as “J”, who was diagnosed with a severe case of schizophrenia in his late teenage years. The condition made J believe he was Jesus, and therefore God, which caused numerous problems as he went around trying to force people to believe in him. The author uses diary entries from his family to tell the story: J’s mother, J’s brother, J’s nephews, J himself and bits of J’s memoir (which was never published.)
J lived his childhood a relatively normal kid; aside from his giant ego and unwillingness to follow directions. His parents babied him no more than usual, two siblings, and J lived a relatively normal lifestyle. But when he reached his later adolescent years, the schizophrenia began to emerge. His behavior became stranger voices, “God”, telling him what he should do. Hanson and his wife began to question their son’s judgment, and decide to convince J he needs a therapist. This is not easy to do, seeing as J believes he has no problems and he refuses to see the therapist. After much struggling and tears, J finally agrees to a therapist. Though he quickly outwits the therapist and she finds no problem. J problems greatly increase from there, the parents eventually having to call the 911 to control J and going to court to declare J’s mental state.
Personally, I would not recommend this book. It mainly focused on the family’s struggles, when I was more interested in how J’s life was going and the actually schizophrenia. It was very short, a good emergency “oh no, I didn’t do my book report and its due tomorrow” kind of book, but did bring up some interesting points. Even if we learned nothing about schizophrenia.

The Murder Next Door

My new book is titled "The Murder Next Door: why the mind is designed to kill." It sounds a bit creepy and sadistic, but it is a quite fascinating book. This summer I became addicted to Law and Order, and the way these criminals' minds worked intrigued me. Another summer event was stumbling across the psychology section at half priced books. Finding this book connected the two.
The author starts out describing a scene at a dinner party between his wife, himself, his best friend and his wife, and two other couples. His best friend's wife makes a few snide remarks about the author's best friend. His friend becomes frustrated, and scolds his wife. This only adds to the fire, as his wife attempts to spite him by flirting with the other men, including the author. His best friend throws down his glass of wine and storms out of the room. The author follows his friend, who is talking to himself on the patio. His best friend turns to him and says "I could've killed her. That's what scares me the most. I really could've just killed her" [page 12] Thus begins the author's fascination with killing.
The book is basically a very long essay, with lots of research, about proving the everyday mind is just as capable of murder as an 'insane' person. I haven't connected it much to my life yet, perhaps I live a life with too much safety, but I have learned quite a few new things. For example, the brain only takes up 2% of the body's weight but it uses 35% of the body's daily calorie intake. Interesting, but not necessary. But I'm only on the second chapter, and it will hopefully get more realistic from here.