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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 2 years

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Best & Worst Superhero Movies Honorable/Dishonorable Mentions

Here are the movies that didn’t make the cut for either end of the list and why they didn’t end up on it:

HONORABLE

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

This movie has some of the most electrifying action in the MCU, mostly because there’s actual fight choreography. It also features one of the MCU’s finest villains in Wenwu, the reimagined amalgamation of Mandarin and Fu Manchu who is a remarkably three dimensional villain. The third act, though, is extremely weak compared to the rest of the film and kind of bogs things down with an overabundance of CGI. It’s not awful because there’s a strong emotional core, but it does hold it off of the list.

Batman & Robin

I am a well-known defender of this film, but I think Venom was the safer choice for a campy classic. If the list was longer you know I’d have squeezed this on there.

Superman vs. the Elite

The Lego Batman Movie

This one is easy: It didn’t make the cut because it’s more a Lego movie than a Batman movie. Fantastic film, but not really in a “Comic book superhero” sense.

Fantastic Four

Out of every single adaptation of these heroes, this low-budget ashcan copy is the closest we have yet seen to getting things right. The heart is in the right place, but the money wasn’t, and while I don’t want to hold a film back just because it’s cheap, the budget restraints can be felt in a lot of areas. It’s a genuinely charming film at any rate, and it has the best cinematic Doom yet.

DISHONORABLE

Green Lantern

I said on the actual list that this movie isn’t so much “bad” as “excessively mediocre.” Reynolds isn’t awful, the casting is pretty good (especially Mark Strong as Sinestro), and the plot isn’t awful on paper, but there’s just way too much gaudy CGI and the villains suck hardcore. It’s kind of a forgettable but harmless work.

Suicide Squad

People often tout this as the very worst DCEU film, but honestly? It’s kind of charming with how inept it is. Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, and Will Smith are a lot of fun at the very least and the makeup on Killer Croc is astounding. The baffling editing, constant song switches, bland villain, and the presence of Jared Leto are what really do the film in. Still, as far as trash goes, this is enjoyable trash.

Captain Marvel

This is basically what every MCU hater accuses the MCU of being: Bland, generic, sterile origin stories with little to no personality. The side characters like Talos, Nick Fury, and Rambeau are doing the heavy lifting here because poor Brie Larson is given absolutely nothing to work with. Still, this movie doesn’t really sink below being boring and generic.

The Eternals

This film just has no idea what it wants to do. It’s trying to be a superhero blockbuster and a deep philosophical tale of immortal beings, but instead of blending these concepts together it’s constantly at odds with itself, cramming massive amounts of lore down your throat and giving you little time to process it. Sure, the movie looks kind of nice, but good looks can’t save a muddled narrative. It’s not totally awful though, and it has a lot of good characters, ideas, and action. It really should have been a TV series.

tim Story’s Fantastic Four duology

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

This was the closest to getting on the list, because it is genuinely an embarrassingly transparent Hugh Jackman vehicle, with characters entering into the narrative and then exiting abruptly as soon as Logan’s done talking with them. And that’s not even talking about what they did to poor Wade Wilson... Still, this is something of a hilariously bad movie, and if nothing else Liev Schreiber is just a little too good as Sabretooth for me to drag him onto the list.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

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personalcoachingcenter · 5 years

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My 10 Favourite Therapy Books

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/my-10-favourite-therapy-books/

My 10 Favourite Therapy Books

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”

― Groucho Marx

Travelling through space and time, becoming other people, inhabiting other worlds… Reading is perhaps the best kind of virtual reality. At least, it is for me.

When I started out as a therapist I read hundreds of books on therapy and psychology. Of course, some were dry as old bones! Desperate to be ‘scientific’ they would litter the pages with jargon that did nothing but baffle the reader. They might as well have been discussing the workings of central heating for all the good they did me.

But no matter how many of these dull, barren books I had to plough through, it was always worth it when I came upon one of those rare gems – those books that just pulsed with the life blood of real lives and real situations, however far removed in time and space.

Of course, books can only take you so far. Unlike, say, accountancy or calculus, learning therapy is not purely an academic pursuit. It’s not simply a logical, step-by-step process – or at least, it’s not just that. It requires inspiration and artistry. Intuition and spontaneity.

Learning therapy is not purely an academic pursuit. It requires inspiration and artistry, intuition and spontaneity.Tweet

A large part of effective therapy is not about knowledge at all, it’s about practical skills. And as any good tradesperson will tell you, the best way to learn practical skills is not to read about them – it’s to see them in action.

That’s why, while I don’t deny the importance of textbooks, it was watching my tutors treating the public that really helped me absorb the skills I needed to become a good therapist – skills that I still put into practice every day. I learned best by watching, then doing.

But the second-best way of learning was to read about real cases of therapy. When I read, I ‘see’ the therapy in action in my mind’s eye. By reading about real therapy (alongside real-life observation), we can pick up therapeutic skills and insights naturally, almost through osmosis.

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And let’s not forget that books are also indispensable for developing a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of psychology and even some neurology – something you won’t gain just from watching.

I hope that this list of books I’ve found useful will prove to be of some value to you as well. See what you think. Have you already read any of them? Are there any I’ve left out that you feel deserve a place?

I must say, there are plenty of books I love that didn’t quite make the cut, and I’ve had to leave off some of the drier titles that deal with in-depth psychological research… but that’s not to say that these aren’t just as valuable in a different way.

Even now when I pick up some of these books I get a visceral thrill as I recall the powerful images that the book evoked… like opening a magical door and letting loose avalanches of inspirational human possibility!

So here goes: my top 10. Well… at the moment. It’s liable to change!

Uncommon Therapy: The Psychiatric Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. by Jay Haley

This was one of the first therapy books I ever read, and to this day I can still ‘watch’ the shocking case studies presented in this book in my mind’s eye, as vividly as if they were projected on a big screen.

To modern filters, these cases are undoubtedly politically incorrect – but it is hard to deny their startling effectiveness.

In the 1950s and 1960s, psychotherapist Jay Haley worked with Dr Milton Erickson, the genius maverick who helped drag psychotherapy out of the moribund world of narrow, past-obsessed, Freudian analysis. With the publication of this book, he brought Dr Erickson and his techniques to a greater audience.

Haley describes typical problems encountered in infancy, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age and later life. He offers Erickson’s take on these problems and gives beautifully described, almost novelistic examples of his solutions.

From chaos comes cure. But the ‘chaos’ of therapeutic intervention loses its apparent randomness as we come to understand how even the most seemingly bizarre interventions are based on sound and now commonly understood psychotherapeutic principles.

Such principles include: utilisation, paradoxical intervention, naturalistic and spontaneous trance induction, and the art of ‘joining the client’ to develop deep rapport.

Erickson lives and breathes in this book as a wise, witty, humane, and almost supernaturally gifted healer and observer of humanity. Essential reading for anyone seriously interested in the human condition.

My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson by Sidney Rosen

Erickson again – but I make no apologies for that! You will finish this book feeling as if you have not only read it, but lived it.

Impotence, suicidal thoughts, thumb sucking, bed wetting, alcoholism, pain, frigidity, poor self-confidence – it’s all here.

From this collection of rich and varied tales, following not only the development of Erickson’s patients but also Erickson’s own personal liberation, emerge sound therapeutic principles to be applied to unique individuals – not codified techniques to be applied to all and sundry.

Rosen gives us a course in creative insight and frees us from restrictive ways of thinking.

One of the overarching themes in the book is the vital importance of metaphor and storytelling to effective therapy. Indeed, I’ve used some of the stories within its pages as therapeutic anecdotes and even for trance inductions with my own clients over the years. The case studies here are quick to read and I’ll sometimes come back to them for inspiration while I await a client.

When I read this in the early 90s, I came to really understand that principles are more important than technique. Once you understand the principles, it’s just a matter of adapting the technique to fit the unique life experience and character of your client.

A Guide to Possibility Land: Fifty-One Methods for Doing Brief, Respectful Therapy by Sandy Beadle and Bill O’Hanlon

While the first two books on this list have the immediacy and impact of fiction, I can’t quite say the same about this one! It has a much more ‘how-to’ feel about it.

Short and accessible, it will take a day to read but a lifetime to master! The busy therapist will benefit from revisiting it often.

A fun and practical primer to solution-focused brief therapy, the book offers a range of tried and tested ideas for connecting with a client’s current state of mind in order to help them feel understood.

It’s chock full of ideas and creative strategies to help even the most negative client focus on goals and resources, and find solutions.

This book helped me loosen up my thinking. Its ideas are so open minded and widely applicable that you can apply the strategies to yourself, your clients, or even whole nations! I read this as a newly qualified therapist and now, decades later, I still refer back to it all the time.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Okay, this one’s not strictly a therapy book – though the last chapter does outline the author’s own ideas for effective ‘logotherapy’.

Rather, it chronicles neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s years of suffering in four different concentration camps.

As therapists, we must always strive to understand our clients’ suffering and never to lose that all-important sense of why we do what we do. For me, this book has always reinforced that.

A few years ago I went to Auschwitz, and I was surprised by how strongly I reacted to simply being there. It felt almost as though the vast agony experienced inside this place lay trapped within the cold ground and gas chambers. This book immediately came to mind, and I felt moved to re-read it.

Frankl wrote this after having lost his entire family, including his pregnant wife, in the camps. But refusing to let his experiences break him, he went on to find moments of meaning and inspiration which he describes with beautiful poetry in his book.

Frankl relates his realisation of how vital a sense of meaning is in life: while we can’t necessarily choose whether we suffer, we can choose to make meaning from our experiences and find purpose in life.

Frankl took the horrors of his concentration camp experience and used them to help countless others as a therapist, thinker and teacher. A great book by a truly inspirational man.

Solution-Oriented Hypnosis: An Ericksonian Approach by Bill O’Hanlon

I read this book in a day.

Why so fast? It was the winter of 1994 and I was about to teach my first weekend workshop in naturalistic hypnosis, a technique inspired by the work of Milton Erickson.

This book is an account of just that: a two-day workshop on Ericksonian hypnosis, run by its author, Bill O’Hanlon.

And it was everything I’d hoped for! It inspired me, gave me ideas to incorporate into my own training, and showed me the importance of doing lots of demonstrations.

Just as importantly, it provided clear explanations of all the principles behind hypnotherapy and its use in performance enhancement.

And while the book’s clear strength is its practical application, it’s actually a really fun read! O’Hanlon’s sense of humour glimmers through the prose at every turn.

This book helped springboard my career as a trainer.

Provocative Therapy by Frank Farrelly and Jeff Brandsma

Shock, surprise, and carefully crafted, intuitively guided challenge can – with the right person, at the right time, in the right place, in the right way – provide great therapeutic reframes and breakthroughs.

It can tip people spontaneously into the ultimate learning state: hypnosis.

Although the pioneer of Provocative Therapy didn’t seem to understand the hypnotic nature of many of his own innovations – it seems as if he saw ‘hypnosis’ as a state of closed-eyed or directed consciousness – his insights are nonetheless quite revealing.

As we read, we start to understand how people become stuck in their lives… and how, in the right circumstances, a shock or two can help them become ‘unstuck’.

Really, I think provocative therapy is only part of the jigsaw, whereas Farrelly probably saw it as the whole – just as Viktor Frankl saw meaning as people’s primary and only true need, rather than as one very important part of human need and life.

Farrelly originally trained in person-centred counselling. But he found such a passive approach to helping people not only awkward for him but also unpopular with his clients who, he found, wanted some direction, input and even judgment from the therapist.

When he first started out, the prevailing therapeutic dogma was that the therapist must on no account influence the client. Provocative therapy emerged as a reaction to that.

This is an entertaining and in parts very funny book, but it also has a lot to say about human motivation. Sometimes all someone needs is support, but when a kick-start is needed this book can certainly provide ideas, presented in the form of case studies.

Farrelly switches guises as required, whether that means playing devil’s advocate, exaggerating a client’s attitudes in order to lay them bare, or playing the clown to bring a touch of humour (and therefore flexibility).

Sometimes he seems downright rude, but you get the sense that it is always with a glint in his eye and the client’s welfare foremost in mind. And his clients always seem to sense that. This is by no means an essential read, but it’s a fun and inspiring one.

Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution by Paul Watzlawick, John H. Weakland and Richard Fisch, with a foreword by Milton H. Erickson

This book blew my mind.

For the first time, I saw that problems can be fun, and that solving them can be a wonderful triumph of lateral thinking.

The solution is so often inherent in the problem itself. And once you have a strong sense of that, you find you can start to solve all kinds of problems – and help your clients do the same.

This book isn’t just about psychotherapy, but it’s easy to see how the principles of problem resolution it presents can be applied therapeutically, not to mention politically and interpersonally.

It describes how double-binds work to both keep problems in place and to untangle them. After reading this book I really started to play around with paradox as a way of helping people step outside their problems.

The first chapter can feel like a bit of a hard slog, but do persevere because beyond that you will be richly rewarded. The way this eye-opening book describes paradox and family therapy will change the way you approach problems forever.

Phoenix: Therapeutic Patterns of Milton H. Erickson by David Gordon and Maribeth Meyers-Anderson

Okay, you’re spotting a theme here. Another Erickson book.

But the fact is, Milton Erickson was so much more than just ‘a hypnotist’, and this book dares to tackle many of his less obvious techniques and approaches, describing many cases I hadn’t previously encountered.

The title refers to Phoenix, Arizona, which was Dr Erickson’s home for many years for health reasons.

Erickson didn’t always use formal or (to the untrained eye) obvious hypnotic inductions. Unlike many others before it, this book delves into his broader psychotherapeutic work.

I’ve yet to find a book about Erickson that isn’t fascinating – even jaw dropping – and this is no exception. While some Erickson books seem intended to mystify, this book takes a more practical approach, presenting the great man’s strategies clearly and pragmatically.

I keep this book handy whenever I need a quick fix of creative energy and insight.

Treating Depression With Hypnosis: Integrating Cognitive-Behavioral and Strategic Approaches by Michael D. Yapko

For too long practitioners mythologised the idea of hypnosis being used to help treat depression, often believing that hypnosis could worsen the symptoms of depression.

And they were right… that is, if the type of hypnosis used was aligned to the old therapeutic ideology, which posited that in order to cure a problem the origin of it had to be sought.

This would usually involve having the person dig into the pain of their past.

Depression is already a kind of negative trance state in itself, and using hypnosis to magnify that negative rumination can only make things worse.

But Yapko shows here how using clinical hypnosis in positive ways can not only help relieve a depressed person of the enormous stress that accompanies depression, but also effectively and comfortably engender a healthy relationship with the past and more realistic and hopeful expectations for the future.

This wonderful book gives you strategies to empower depressed people to step aside from negative distortions, fears and regrets, and enable them to meet their emotional needs and fend off depression in future.

Human Givens: The New Approach to Emotional Health and Clear Thinking by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell

Okay, I have to admit to more than a little bias here: my own father co-authored this book.

But every time I read it – and I’ve read it more times than I can count – I do so as objectively as I can. And every time, it’s like a blast of clarification.

Griffin’s explanation of dreaming, how it links to depression, why and how over-dreaming maintains depression, and how this concept can be used to ultimately lift depression is eye popping.

As are the discussions on the links between the REM state and learning. And, of course, hypnosis.

At a more basic level, the book addresses what it means to be human, the needs we all share and the genetic heritage that helps us meet those needs. It highlights many useful case studies (including one of my own if I remember correctly) and has been widely read by both professionals and lay people – anyone interested in the human condition and how to be psychologically healthy.

This final book in my list makes sense of all the other books in this list, and thousands more to boot.

Yes, we are meaning-making and meaning-needing creatures, as Victor Frankl so rightly said – but we also have other emotional needs. Only when we step back and allow ourselves to see these needs in their entirety can we be clear about what we, our clients, communities, and – I don’t think it’s too grandiose to say – the world needs in order to thrive.

I love hundreds of other psychology and therapy-focused books, and I’m sure the minute I publish this list I’ll suddenly recall one I really should have included! But a quick scan reassures me that these are pretty close to the best I’ve read. I’d love to hear what books have influenced you in your work or life generally.

If, like me, you get a lot out of experiential learning, you’ll probably enjoy our ‘Netflix for Practitioners’, Uncommon Practitioners TV. Read more about it here.

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writingguide003-blog · 5 years

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Top writers choose their perfect crime

New Post has been published on https://writingguideto.com/must-see/top-writers-choose-their-perfect-crime/

Top writers choose their perfect crime

Crime fiction is now the UKs bestselling genre. So which crime novels should everyone read? We asked the writers who know …

On Beulah Height by Reginald Hill Val McDermid

This is the perfect crime novel. Its beautifully written elegiac, emotionally intelligent, evocative of the landscape and history that holds its characters in thrall and its clever plotting delivers a genuine shock. Theres intellectual satisfaction in working out a plot involving disappearing children, whose counterpoint is Mahlers Kindertotenlieder. Theres darkness and light, fear and relief. And then theres the cross-grained pairing of Dalziel and Pascoe. Everything about this book is spot on.

Although Hills roots were firmly in the traditional English detective novel, he brought to it an ambivalence and ambiguity that allowed him to display the complexities of contemporary life. He created characters who changed and developed in response to their experiences. I urge you to read this with a glass of Andy Dalziels favourite Highland Park whisky.

Insidious Intent by Val McDermid is published by Sphere.

The Damned and the Destroyed by Kenneth Orvis Lee Child

My formative reading was before the internet, before fanzines, before also-boughts, so for me the best ever is inevitably influenced by the gloriously chanced-upon lucky finds, the greatest of which was a 60 cent Belmont US paperback, bought in an import record shop on a back street in Birmingham in 1969. It had a lurid purple cover, and an irresistible strapline: She was beautiful, young, blonde, and a junkie I had to help her! It turned out to be Canadian, set in Montreal. The hero was a solid stiff named Maxwell Dent. The villain was a dealer named The Back Man. The blonde had an older sister. Dents sidekicks were jazz pianists. The story was patient, suspenseful, educational and utterly superb. In many ways its the target I still aim at.

The Midnight Line by Lee Child is published by Bantam.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens Ian Rankin

Does this count as a crime novel? I think so. Dickens presents us with a mazey mystery, a shocking murder, a charismatic police detective, a slippery lawyer and a plethora of other memorable characters many of whom are suspects. The story has pace and humour, is bitingly satirical about the English legal process, and also touches on large moral and political themes. As in all great crime novels, the central mystery is a driver for a broad and deep investigation of society and culture. And theres a vibrant sense of place, too in this case, London, a city built on secret connections, a location Dickens knows right down to its dark, beating heart.

Rather Be the Devil by Ian Rankin is published by Orion. Siege Mentality by Chris Brookmyre is published by Little, Brown.

The Hollow by Agatha Christie Sophie Hannah

This is my current favourite, in its own way just as good as Murder on the Orient Express. As well as being a perfectly constructed mystery, its a gripping, acutely observed story about a group of people, their ambitions, loves and regrets. The characters are vividly alive, even the more minor ones, and the pace is expertly handled. The outdoor swimming pool scene in which Poirot discovers the murder is, I think, the most memorable discovery-of-the-body scene in all of crime fiction. Interestingly, Christie is said to have believed that the novel would have been better without Poirot. His presence here is handled differently he feels at one remove from the action for much of the time but it works brilliantly, since he is the stranger who must decipher the baffling goings on in the Angkatell family. The murderers reaction to being confronted by Poirot is pure genius. It would have been so easy to give that character, once exposed, the most obvious motivation, but the contents of this killers mind turn out to be much more interesting

Did You See Melody by Sophie Hannah is published by Hodder.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier SJ Watson

SJ Watsno

I first came to Rebecca, published in 1938, with one of the most recognisable first lines in literature, not knowing exactly what to expect. That it was a classic I was in no doubt, but a classic what? I suspected a drama, possibly a romance, a book heavy on character but light on plot and one Id read and then forget. How wrong I was.

It is a dark, brooding psychological thriller, hauntingly beautiful, literature yes, but with a killer plot. I loved everything about it. The way Du Maurier slowly twists the screw until we have no idea who to trust, the fact that the title character never appears and exists only as an absence at the heart of the book, the fact that the narrator herself is unnamed throughout. But, more importantly, this thriller is an exploration of power, of the men who have it and the women who dont, and the secrets told to preserve it.

Second Life by SJ Watson is published by Black Swan.

Mystic River by Dennis Lehane James Lee Burke

To my mind this is the best crime novel written in the English language. Lehane describes horrible events with poetic lines that somehow heal the injury that his subject matter involves, not unlike Shakespeare or the creators of the King James Old Testament. Thats not a hyper-bolic statement. His use of metaphysical imagery is obviously influenced by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Mystic River is one for the ages.

Robicheaux by James Lee Burke is published by Orion.

The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes Sara Paretsky

Author Sara Paretsky for Arts. Photo by Linda Nylind. 15/7/2015.

Today, Hughes is remembered for In a Lonely Place (1947) Bogart starred in the 1950 film version. My personal favourite is The Expendable Man (1963). Hughes lived in New Mexico and her love of its bleak landscape comes through in carefully painted details. She knows how to use the land sparingly, so it creates mood. The narrative shifts from the sandscape to the doctor, who reluctantly picks up a teen hitchhiker. When shes found dead a day later, hes the chief suspect, and the secrets we know hes harbouring from the first page are slowly revealed.

Hughess novels crackle with menace. Like a Bauhaus devotee, she understood that in creating suspense, less is more. Insinuation, not graphic detail, gives her books an edge of true terror. Shes the master we all could learn from.

Fallout by Sara Paretsky is published by Hodder.

Killing Floor by Lee Child Dreda Say Mitchell

What is it about any particular novel that means youre so engrossed that you miss your bus stop or stay up way past your bedtime? A spare, concise style that doesnt waste a word. A striking lead character who manages to be both traditional and original. A plot thats put together like a Swiss watch. Childs debut has all these things, but like all great crime novels it has the x-factor.

In the case of Killing Floor that factor is a righteous anger, rooted in personal experience, that makes the book shake in your hands. Its the story of a military policeman who loses his job and gets kicked to the kerb. Jack Reacher becomes a Clint Eastwood-style loner who rides into town and makes it his business to dish out justice and protect the underdog, but without the usual props of cynicism or alcohol. We can all identify with that anger and with that thirst for justice. We dont see much of the latter in real life. At least in Killing Floor we do.

Blood Daughter by Dreda Say Mitchell is published by Hodder.

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler Benjamin Black (John Banville)

The Long Goodbye is not the most polished, and certainly not the most convincingly plotted, of Chandlers novels, but it is the most heartfelt. This may seem an odd epithet to apply to one of the great practitioners of hard-boiled crime fiction. The fact is, Chandler was not hard-boiled at all, but a late romantic artist exquisitely attuned to the bittersweet melancholy of post-Depression America. His closest literary cousin is F Scott Fitzgerald.

Philip Marlowes love and surely it is nothing less than love for the disreputable Terry Lennox is the core of the book, the rhapsodic theme that transcends and redeems the creaky storyline and the somewhat cliched characterisation. And if Lennox is a variant of Jay Gatsby, and Marlowe a stand in for Nick Carraway, Fitzgeralds self-effacing but ever-present narrator, then Roger Wade, the drink-soaked churner-out of potboilers that he despises, is an all too recognisable portrait of Chandler himself, and a vengefully caricatured one at that. However, be assured that any pot The Long Goodbye might boil is fashioned from hammered bronze.

Prague Nights by Benjamin Black is published by Viking.

Love in Amsterdam by Nicolas Freeling Ann Cleeves

Although Nicolas Freeling wrote in English he was a European by choice an itinerant chef who roamed between postwar France, Belgium and Holland, and who instilled in me a passion for crime set in foreign places. He detested the rules of the traditional British detective novel: stories in which plot seemed to be paramount. Love in Amsterdam (1962) is Freelings first novel and it breaks those rules both in terms of structure and of theme.

It is a tale of sexual obsession and much of the book is a conversation between the suspect, Martin, whos been accused of killing his former lover, and the cop. Van der Valk, Freelings detective, is a rule-breaker too, curious and compassionate, and although we see his investigative skills in later books, here his interrogation is almost that of a psychologist, teasing the truth from Martin, forcing him to confront his destructive relationship with the victim.

The Seagullby Ann Cleeves is published by Pan.

Laidlaw by William McIlvanney Chris Brookmyre

I first read Laidlaw in 1990, shortly after moving to London, when I was aching for something with the flavour of home, and what a gamey, pungent flavour McIlvanneys novel served up. A sense of place is crucial to crime fiction, and Laidlaw brought Glasgow to life more viscerally than any book I had read before: the good and the bad, the language and the humour, the violence and the drinking.

Laidlaws turf is a male hierarchy ruled by unwritten codes of honour, a milieu of pubs and hard men rendered so convincingly by McIlvanneys taut prose. His face looked like an argument you couldnt win, he writes of one character, encapsulating not only the mans appearance but his entire biography in a mere nine words.

This book made me realise that pacey, streetwise thrillers didnt have to be American: we had mean streets enough of our own. It emboldened me to write about the places I knew and in my own accent.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Laura Lippman

Im going to claim Lolita for crime fiction, something I never used to do. But it has kidnapping, murder and its important to use this term rape. It also has multiple allusions to Edgar Allan Poe and even hides an important clue well, not exactly in plain sight, but in the text of, yes, a purloined letter. And now we know, thanks to the dogged scholarship of Sarah Weinman, that it was based on a real case in the United States. (Weinmans book, The Real Lolita, will be published later this year.)

Dorothy Parker meant well when she said Lolita was a book about love, but, no its about the rape of a child by a solipsistic paedophile who rationalises his actions, another crime that is too often hidden in plain sight. Some think that calling Lolita a crime novel cheapens it, but I think it elevates the book, reminds us of the pedestrian ugliness that is always there, thrumming beneath the beautiful language.

Sunburn by Laura Lippman is published by Faber.

The Moving Target by Ross Macdonald Donna Leon

Ross Macdonald, an American who wrote in the 60s and 70s, has enchanted me since then with the beauty of his writing and the decency of his protagonist, Lew Archer. I envy him his prose: easy, elegant, at times poetically beautiful. I also admire the absence of violence in the novels, for he usually follows Aristotles admonition that gore be kept out of the view of the audience. When Archer discovers the various wicked things one person has done to another, he does not linger in describing it but makes it clear how his protagonist mourns not only the loss of human life but also the loss of humanity that leads to it.

Macdonalds plotting is elegant: often, as Archer searches for the motive for todays crime, he unearths a past injustice that has returned to haunt the present and provoke its violence. His sympathy for the victims is endless, as is his empathy for some of the killers.

The Temptation of Forgiveness by Donna Leon is published by William Heinemann.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Nicci French

http://www.theguardian.com/us

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personalcoachingcenter · 5 years

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My 10 Favourite Therapy Books

New Post has been published on http://personalcoachingcenter.com/my-10-favourite-therapy-books/