So firstly, this was fun and liked it and I admire its enthusiasm. Any book that tries to break down the taboo veil surrounding swearing is good in my book. I do not understand the fixation that some people have about swearing, and I probably never will. But this book does a really good job laying out a general overview of, as the title tells you, why swearing is good for you. This is actually why I’m only giving it three and a half stars, […]
The female of the species is more deadly than the male
The follow up to Vronsky’s Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters does exactly what it says on the cover and takes a look at the female of the species, examining the psychopathology that led some of the most notorious of female killers into committing their crimes. Slightly hamstrung by the fact that there has been nowhere near the level of study into female serial killers as their male counterparts, Vronsky therefore has fewer statistics […]
Mitten Kittens, Sonic Hedgehog, and a Better Understanding of Genes
Space genes! Bloody space genes! If you’ve been keeping an eye on popular science news recently, you’ve probably come across the story of a comparative study between current astronaut Scott Kelly and his retired astronaut brother, Mark. Along with this came the breathless headlines, tweets and shares on how 7% of Scott’s DNA had changed after his time in space! They weren’t identical twins anymore! Which is insane! NO! Argh!!! The media ran riot with the idea that massive changes had occurred […]
This is as much a self-portrait of an obsessive mind as it is a true crime book.
I will not let this review defeat me! I will not! I have so much to say about this book I don’t know how to organize it, and I’m still not sure what I’m going to rate it even as I type this; and I’m still freaked out by it, and still sad, and I want the Golden State Killer caught, but what if he’s dead?? If he’s dead, we’re never going to catch him!! ARGGGGh. Okay, so I’ve been looking forward to this book […]
“These are the frail, imperfect ways of ordinary human beings in the teeth of a great epidemic”
I finished reading this book a week ago today, and I’m still not sure how to write about it. I found it deeply moving, but it may still be too soon to put my thoughts and feelings into words, and anything I write here can only scratch the surface. Jonny Steinberg has packed so much into the 326 pages of Three-Letter Plague (published in the U.S. under the title Sizwe’s Test). He writes about his own literal and figurative journey to try to learn how […]
I’ve seen the future, brother. It is murder.
As anyone with even the vaguest idea of my reading habits will have noticed, I’m fascinated by true crime – and serial killers in particular. I can’t tell you why that is (although I’ve read lots of theories about why women, and in particular women with anxiety, are so drawn to the subject), but what I can tell you is that Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters is an excellent book on the history of serial killing, the psychopathology of these types of […]
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