American Psycho

American Psycho is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and it falls under the category of Transgressional Fiction. The book is written in first person, and narrarated by the main character, Patrick Bateman. Patrick is an exorbantly wealthy wall-street broker, who has a near obsession for everything materialistic. Patrick's running monologue often includes detailed descriptions of people's outfits and items, including their price and brand. Patrick finds him self disgusted by people who are dressed poorly, as well as jealous of those who are dressed better than he is. There is one scene in the book that is a particularly good example of this trait; Patrick is out to dinner at an exclusive resteraunt with his co-worker's when he decides to show them his new business cards so they can admire them. However, another collegue of Patrick also reveals his new business cards, which everyone at the table, including Bateman, agree is nicer. Patrick is almost unable to control his rage over having been shown-up.

It is not until late in the book that Patrick reveals that he is isn't just a self-absorbed yuppie, but also a serial killer. Throughout the book Patrick commits a series of horrific murders involving torture, sexual abuse, and sometimes cannabalism. Patrick killings seem to be purely random; co-workers, hookers, lovers, a child at the zoo. Patrick describes each one of these murders with the same detail as he does armani suits and crystal ash trays, as well as the same emotionless separation. The detailed and horrifying nature of the violence made this book difficult to read at many points. I chose to skip over many of the more graphic scenes because I found them so disturbing. Although American Psycho carries a clear and very important message about greed and depravity in our consumer driven and materialistic society, I find that the shocking, gruesome, and gratuitous violence detracted from the message instead of adding to it. Ellis went so far to try and shock the reader and evoke a response, that it actually took away from his point and made me focus instead on how throughly sick and disgusting this book itself was instead of the character. Ellis could have toned down dramatically the violence in this book and it still would've conveyed the same message.

The Smartest Guys in the Room

The Smartest Guys in the Room is a non-fiction work by Peter Elkind and Bethany McLean. In this book they explore the corruption in Enron which lead to both its grand rise, and equally grand fall. The book centers around three Enron employees: Ken Lay, the CEO of Enron whose role in this scandal is still ambiguous as to whether he was involved or just oblivious. Jeffrey Skilling, who was the main figure in orchestrating the fraud which took place. And finally, Andy Fastow, a math genius who developed many of the financial tricks that were used at Enron. The book does a great job of telling the events as a story rather than just a really long news article. This allows for the 400+ page book to be more easily readable than most non-fiction works because it reads much like a novel. The thing I enjoyed most about reading this book was learning about the different complex and creative economic tricks of Enron. For example, Enron needed someone to absorb their losses in order to keep stocks up, but obviously they couldn't trade with themselves. They then figured out that for a company to be considered an independent company it only has to have 3% unique stock. This means that 97% of the company could be Enron, and even better, the 3% could be made up of another smaller company which is also 97% Enron and 3 percent a smaller company which is also 97% Enron and so on. This meant that on paper Enron could dump their losses on a company that was essentially themselves except for a minute percent. The reason I enjoyed reading about these things is because in a weird way, I kind of admired some of these guys. I am aware that they did some very illegal things and destroyed the life savings of massive numbers of people. However they were also a viciously intelligent group, who came up with incredibly innovative and complex ideas, some of which(the legal ones anyway) are still used by many companies today.

Saving Henry

Saving Henry is a memoir written by Laurie Strongin Goldberg. In it, Laurie details her and her husband Alan's struggle to care for, and try to save, their son Henry, who has been diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic disease know as Fanconi Anemia. It seems at first that there is hope for Henry, thanks to a cutting edge medical procedure, PGD(preimplantation genetic diagnosis). this procedure would allow Laurie and Alan to give birth to a child without Fanconi who would also be a genetic match for Henry, and transplant stem cells from its umbilical cord to Henry. However, Dr.Hughes, the doctor working with Laurie and Alan, is brought up on federal charges for violating a ban on stem cell research. I must admit at this point, in full disclosure, that my opinion of this book is about as biased as an opinion can be; I know Laurie Strongin and her family well, my mom wrote an article about Henry, and was on the board for the charity founded in his memory(the Hope for Henry foundation) , which was the focus of my mitzvah project of my bar mitzvah. The most interesting thing to me about this book is that Laurie is an incredibly optimistic and cheery person. She has a smile which is as infectious as it is ever-present, and talks with a sort of "bouncy" and cheery tone. Laurie was able to use this positive outlook in dealing with the tragic situation she and Alan found themselves in the center of. Laurie and Alan made sure that although Fanconi Anemia could strip Henry of his health, it could never take away love and joy from his life.

World Without End

World Without End is a novel by Ken Follett which takes place in the city of Kingsbridge in 1327. It is the sequel to his novel Pillars of the Earth. The story begins with four children: Caris, Gwenda, Merthin, and Ralph witnessing a murder in the woods on all hallow's eve. The book then follows the lives of these four characters as adults. Merthin, who is the son of a discraced knight and lady maud, grows up to be a carpenter and architect who builds the tallest building in kingsbridge and has a romance with Caris. As a child Caris wanted to be a pharmasist but was told she could not cause she was a woman. But when the plague broke out in Florence, she was able to prevent its spread using hygenic practices. Gwenda was sold into prostitution in return for a cow, but then killed a man who was raping her and escaped. The most fascinating part of this book does not have to do with the plot however, which I found to be somewhat boring and uninteresting. The redeeming factor of this book is Follett's writing style. Although this novel numbers over 1000 pages, it did not grow tiring because Follett's descriptive and unique writing style makes it enjoyable throughout. Follett clearly did a great deal of research before writing this novel, as it contained enourmous amounts of historical references which gives the novel a realistic quality.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Stranger in a Strange Land is a novel written by Robert A. Heinlein. Written in 1961, Heinlein's work still considered by many to be a classic piece of science fiction. The novel is based on the discovery of a man on mars, Valentine Michael Smith, and his arrival on earth. The main character of the novel is Jill Boardman, a nurse at the hospital where the man from Mars is kept upon his arrival at earth. Jill meets and becomes "water brothers" with Michael. When Jill is informed by her friend Ben Caxton, a journalist, that the government is trying to manipulate Michael into handing over control of the enitre planet of Mars as he is technically the owner of Mars by law, she assists him in taking Michael out of the hospital and into hiding where the government can't manipulate him. The story then follows Jill and Michael's journeys to evade the government and gain freedom for Michael. In his novel, Heinlein fabricates an elaborate world with great depth and complexity. His vision of our potential future seems very realistic making this book enjoyable and interesting to read.

Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

Beautiful boy is a memoir by David Sheff. In it he talks about his journey in dealing with his son's addiction to Methamphetamine. The story takes you all the way from Nick's(the author's son) early childhood to the present time. Throughout the book you see the downward spiral Nick's life takes, as well as the emotional toll it takes on his father. This book was both extremely sad and emotionally moving. Although I am not a parent myself, and am far from being so, Mr. Sheff's writing allowed for me to easily empathize with his painful experience. Another thing that I found striking about this memoir was the honesty it was written with. David makes seemingly little effort to try and portrait himself in a more positive light, and rather reflects honestly and openly on the mistakes he made as a father. These mistakes include such things as agreeing to do drugs with his drug-addicted son. The one issue that I had with the book is the reading level. I found that this book was not very challenging, although that is more a criticism of my reading choices than of David Sheff's writing I suppose.

Half The Sky

Half the Sky is a non-fiction work written by Nicholas D. Kristof and his wife, Sheryll WuDunn. Half the Sky is somewhat of a crossover between a journalistic expose and a long persuasive essay. The book focuses on women's rights violations and how they have effected the world. Throughout the book, Nick and Sheryll share the stories of persecuted women from around the world. They speak to women from a variety of situations; from women who had been forced into prostitution to others who have been dishonored and outcast from society because she was raped. Nick and Sheryll use these stories as a tool to explore the depths and extents of female persecution as well as its effects. Nick and Sheryll then go on to disscuss how liberating women from persecution could be the answer to the economic and social troubles of many countries, citing such examples as China, where a once second class group of women are now leading the way to economic growth. None of this, however, was my favorite part of reading this book. What I enjoyed most was trying to figure out whether Sheryll or Nick was writing at any given time. Having read Nick's column and blog frequently, and had dinner at their house several times, it was interesting for me to try and pick out each author's voice specifically in their writing.