Asperger's and Girls by Tony Attwood, Temple Grandin, Catherine Faherty, Shelia Wagner, Mary Wrobel, Teresa Bolick, Lisa Iland, Jennifer McIlwee Myers, Ruth Snyder. Tue, Dec 27th 2011
A Loving Approach to Dementia Care Making Meaningful Connections with the Person Who Has Alzheimer's Disease or Other Dementia or Memory Loss By Laura Wayman Review by Chris Vaughan on Tue, Jan 31st 2012.
A close member of my family has dementia, a recent occurrence which has left us feeling bewildered and helpless. My relative’s loss of his short-term memory has led to emotional outbursts, inexplicable behaviour and an inability to enter into any kind of meaningful conversation, which has presented us with a seemingly insoluble conundrum. So I approached A Loving Approach to Dementia Care not looking for answers, as dementia is a progressive and irreversible condition, but looking for ways of interacting with him in a manner that is beneficial for both of us and, as the Click here to read the full review!
Child Well-Being Understanding Children's Lives By Collette McAuley and Wendy Rose (Editors) Review by John Mullen on Tue, Jan 31st 2012.
In the context of contemporary politics and economics the idea of the well-being of our children has gotten short shrift indeed. In the US the combined mantras of "no new taxes" and "government is not the solution, it's the problem" gradually starves governments at all level and thus weakens any coordinated effort to support working parents in caring for children. The more recent regimes of austerity in the US and the UK have served only to exacerbate the problem.
The collection under review is a welcome reminder of the need to re-order priorities with regard to children's lives a Click here to read the full review!
The extensive reach of Dewey's philosophical work gives this volume an unusual format covering a wide breath of subjects, as the editor of the volume points out. The introduction offers an explanation for the resurgence of interest in Dewey's work, and provides a summary of Dewey's life and philosophical accomplishments. In addition, Cochran shows that Dewey reconstructed several key philosophical concepts and illustrates the insightful nature of his reconstructions with the description of Dewey notion of experience, intelligence and situation.
The first chapter "The making of a democratic p Click here to read the full review!
Thinking with Whitehead A Free and Wild Creation of Concepts By Isabelle Stengers Review by Keith Harris, Ph.D. on Tue, Jan 31st 2012.
Readers who already have an interest in Whitehead or his Process Philosophy will be most interested in this thorough recapitulation of the evolution of Whitehead's ideas.
The original title of this work is Penser avec Whitehead, which gives the infinitive form of the verb as "to think"; but the more active sense of "thinking with" in the English title conveys most appropriately how this book should be approached. Isabelle Stengers' detailed 550+ page examination of Alfred North Whitehead's philosophical system was published in French in 2002 but was only made available in English in 201 Click here to read the full review!
The Good Book A Humanist Bible By A. C. Grayling Review by Michael Pereira, MA on Tue, Jan 31st 2012.
It is often said that to not believe in some form of deity or not to advocate a specific religious tradition is to 'believe in nothing'. One way to judge A.C. Grayling's 'The Good Book' is as a comprehensive response to this view, by presenting the many complexities that are present in human life, without any reference to deities or the supernatural. The Good Book explores aspects of human life such as love, war and friendship. Grayling examines life in almost every significant aspect.
The Good Book is organized into separate books stylized purposely to remind the reader of the King James Eng Click here to read the full review!
With Empathy in the Context of Philosophy, Lou Agosta seeks to make a philosophical contribution to the debate on what empathy is, a debate that has often taken place mainly in the psychological arena. While this topic enjoyed its academic hay-day nearly 100 years ago, he tells us discussions about the nature and experience of empathy are making a comeback. Agosta sees humankind entering a new empathetic age, brought on by such things as discoveries in neurology and discussions in the media about the fitness about Supreme Court judges (the vetting process includes investigating if Click here to read the full review!
Happy Now? A Novel By Katherine Shonk Review by Pratima Sampat-Mar on Tue, Jan 31st 2012.
When you have to re-read the description of a book before writing a review, it's definitely a sign that the book wasn't all that memorable. That sums up my overall impression of Katherine Shonk's Happy Now? The book is about Claire, whose husband commits suicide on Valentine's Day at a party which she wasn't planning to attend. Throughout the book, the reader learns more about Claire, Jay, and their relationship. There's never an "Aha!" moment about anything, which, in my opinion, is realistic. In my (very limited) experiences with suicide, I've never heard of a specific event which led to the Click here to read the full review!
America in the Forties By Ronald Allen Goldberg Review by Bob Lane, MA on Tue, Jan 31st 2012.
John Robert Greene is the editor of the America in the Twentieth Century series of books – each dedicated to a decade of historical events of the twentieth century United States of America. The idea for the series is simple: find historians who can write well and let them present a fact based narrative of each ten year period with a student audience in mind. The authors of books in the series have been chosen for their teaching skills, and one member of the editorial board is a "presently sitting college student". The goal is to produce "a readable, concise, and scholarly series of books Click here to read the full review!
The Intimates A Novel By Ralph Sassone Review by Amy Ridley on Tue, Jan 31st 2012.
Robbie and Maize first meet in high school and feel an instant connection. They lose touch with each other when Robbie goes away to school leaving Maize to navigate their dreadful high school alone. The only thing that keeps her going is her borderline stalker relationship with her guidance counselor. She finds any excuse to go to his office and he appears just as excited to see her. He's trying to prep her for her college interviews which Maize doesn't have much interest in. She is getting horrible advice from her mother and Mr. Jamesley is trying to save her from bombing the interviews. Her Click here to read the full review!
A Mother's Courage is an odd and mixed documentary. Its oddness starts with the title. It is a documentary about an Icelandic woman. Margret Dagmar Ericsdottir, who has a young son, Kali, with severe autism and decides to find out more about it by interviewing experts on autism, meeting other families with autistic children, and taking her son to a Texas center that promotes prompted communication. So it is a film about autism that promotes a controversial form of treatment, and isn't really about the mother at all. We do see the perspective of her and her husband Click here to read the full review!
Practical Ethics Third Edition By Peter Singer Review by Laura Cabrera on Tue, Jan 24th 2012.
Thirty years ago, Peter Singer wrote the first edition of a book that has come to be considered part of the classical introduction to applied ethics. In keeping pace with current pressing ethical challenges, Singer revised and updated all the chapters for his third edition of Practical Ethics.
This third edition keeps the lucid style and provocative arguments of its predecessors, but with a more up to date perspective into current ethical challenges. This makes Practical ethics not only an ideal text for university courses, but also for anyone who wants to dedicate some serious thinkin Click here to read the full review!
The Domain of Reasons By John Skorupski Review by Dejan Simkovic on Tue, Jan 24th 2012.
John Skorupski's The Domain of Reasons is a kind of book that is not often seen in what can be described as the contemporary analytical tradition in philosophy. Such qualification is justified by the fact that it is -- in terms of the structure, some of the problems it addresses, its conceptual framework, and its author's ambition -- reminiscent of, for instance, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Fichte's Science of Knowledge, or Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit or The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. The position defended in The Domain of Reasons, however, is very much a product of th Click here to read the full review!
New Takes in Film-Philosophy By Havi Carel and Greg Tuck (Editors) Review by Shara Knight on Tue, Jan 24th 2012.
New Takes in Film-Philosophy is a collection of essays on the philosophy of film which offers an overview of the continuing discussion about whether films can do philosophy and if they are suitable focus for philosophical analysis. In considering film and philosophy, editors Carel and Tuck pose a philosopher's question: 'are such mass cultural products philosophically productive?' Each chapter explores what it is about films, rather than other aspects of culture, that makes them of interest and attention. This book expands on the discipline of film studies as largely in Click here to read the full review!
Psychiatrist on the Road Encounters in Healing and Healthcare By Lawrence H. Climo Review by Cecile Lawrence, Ph.D., J.D. on Tue, Jan 24th 2012.
If you have an interest in North American Cultural Studies, you are probably familiar with Story Corps. One could call this collection of interviews "Story Corps on the inside: video shorts in words" with a very special set of interviewees.
At age 65, the author lost his job as an employee of an urban mental health clinic, where he was senior clinical psychiatrist. Deciding not to retire just then, he contracted with three companies that hire medical personnel to work temporarily in various locations around the U.S. With that the author gets on the road.
The word pictures Click here to read the full review!
The Girl in the Garden By Kamala Nair Review by Pratima Sampat-Mar on Tue, Jan 24th 2012.
The Girl in the Garden is Kamala Nair's debut novel, and after listening to the 8 CD unabridged audio version, I am looking forward to her next offering. The description on the back of the box, which mentioned secrets and a relationship between mother and daughter, made me want to hear the story. The plot, intricate details, and characters all kept me listening. Rakhee, now a young woman, tells the story about a summer she spent in India with her mother which changed the course of her life. Rakhee is at first reluctant to go to India, never having been there and not wanting to leave her father Click here to read the full review!
Welcome to MHN's unique book review site Metapsychology.
We feature over 6300 in-depth reviews of a wide range of books and DVDs written by our reviewers from many backgrounds and perspectives.
We update our front page weekly and add more than thirty new reviews each month. Our editor is Christian Perring, PhD. To contact him, use the form available here.
Can't remember our URL? Access our reviews directly via 'metapsychology.net'
Metapsychology Online reviewers normally receive gratis review copies of the items they review. Metapsychology Online receives a commission from Amazon.com for purchases through this site, which helps fund our continuing growth. We thank you for your support!
Join our e-mail list!:Metapsychology New Review Announcements: Sent out monthly, these announcements list our recent reviews. To subscribe, click here.
Interested in becoming a book reviewer for Metapsychology? Currently, we especially need thoughtful reviewers for books in fiction, self-help and popular psychology. To apply, write to our editor.
