On A Better Note

It's been a very good day. And I mean that in all senses of the word. Work was as always, I made some new friends, and I decided to throw caution to the winds and...

buy not one, but TWO books (I know, there goes my budget). Okay, so that was a letdown, but whaddya expect? That I got laid?

Hmm. Anyway. I gave in and bought two books on impulse. The first I'd been meaning to get for the longest time, which is the reprint of Colin Wilson's The History of Murder (2001, Carroll and Graf) and the second I just couldn't help but get:

From the Edge Of The Couch (2003, Bantam) by Dr Raj Persaud.

Wilson's History is an indepth look at the motives and methods of murderers, from the Pre-Christian age, through the middle ages and up to the present. Written as a sequel to the Mammoth Book of True Crime (which I also have) this one promises me a lot of sleepless nights...finishing it of course.

As for Persaud's book, it won the 2003 Medical Journalists' Association Award for Excellence (okay the name's longer but I can't be arsed) and it uses authentic case studies to explain current thinking on brain function and emotional disorders (from blurb at back of book, yes I'm lazy again). The author analyses previous cases like the man who could only get sexual satisfaction from being crushed by a garbage truck, the man who thought he was a tiger and tried to get it on with a tigress at the zoo and other equally bizarre ones.

It was a fluke that I saw it on the shelf (since I rarely go to the Psych section these days) but am glad I bought it. Looks like I'll have plenty of bedside company the next few weeks..

Till later, have a good midweek and cheers!