Thursday, February 28, 2008

Mad, Bad and Sad - a to-read

After reading tons of reviews of Lisa Appignanesi's book "Mad, Bad, and Sad" I've decided I want to read it. I'm only wondering now if it was a UK release since all the reviews are British... (note: looks like it's coming out in the US in April.) But anyway, the real point is that it sounds like a pretty fascinating history of psychiatric care, specifically with regard to women's mental health. I remember in Oxford Laurel wrote a lot about the portrayal of mad women in literature, and it sounded like a fascinating topic. Plus, I've got an ongoing beef with the way women I know so often feel comfortable describing themselves as "crazy" and, slightly less common but still enraging, men's comfort with describing women as crazy, when they may in fact just be normal women. (Or maybe not. The point is, it's complicated.) I think this would be an interesting perspective on the subject.

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