Perspective

I'm an avid reader and have read a little bit of everything. I've been kinda memoir crazy lately. I've gotten hold of some real winners and some real stinkers. Reading about the lives of others has given me perspective. All in all I've lead a very simple and sheltered life. My life isn't without pain and dysfunction but it doesn't hold a candle to some of the horror people have lived through.

The common factor with the largest percentage of the memoirs I've read is drama. The other percentage were written by famous people. Famous people are interesting by default. I wonder if a memoir written by a member of the hoi polloi would fall flat. Reading someone's travel log of sunshine and daisies might not hold a person's interest. It would be a welcomed change, though, to the pile of heartaches and drama I've been reading about. I enjoy reading blogs. I would definitely buy a book (or at least check it out of the library) written by any of the bloggers I follow. There's definitely something to be said for normal/average but clever.

I finished a book today called Manic by Terri Cheney. She was one of Michael Jackson's lawyers. She suffers from Bipolar Disorder. I didn't really love it. The last one I read was about an entire family with Bipolar Disorder and I shouldn't have read the two back to back. I'm sure some of it was lost on me because I was too busy comparing and contrasting. Anyway... one part really stuck out given the topic of my last blog. She talks about her relationship to food. When I first read it it was really an aha moment for me. Here's what it said: "...My identity was tied up in a size six body- or better yet, a size four. This to me meant more than pretty. It meant disciplined, empowered, in control: all the attributes I secretly knew I lacked." I totally got that statement. I feel that way too.

I haven't gotten tired of memoirs yet so I'll press on. I should probably change my method of picking them out, though. So far I just go for the ones with pretty or covers (see above). So far that hasn't really served me well.