pauliepoos
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|  | Painful Lives
« Thread Started on Feb 23, 2008, 12:13am » | |
I noticed this new genre today in Waterstones, sandwiched between Celebrities and Biographies.
It seems that there is such a market for tales of child abuse and horrible unhappiness that they've devoted a bookcase for them, the same size as the Celebrity books get. Can someone explain the appeal of them, please? Does it make the readers feel better about their own lives, like watching Kerry Katona or Jodie Marsh? Or is there something deeper than that?
On a seperate note, I flicked through the pictures in John Barrowman's autobiog, and couldn't see any of Ianto. Several of Tennant but none of Ianto. Maybe in a couple of years he can write a book on the pain of being frozen out of John's memoirs.
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| | Re: Painful Lives
« Reply #1 on Feb 23, 2008, 12:54am » | |
Ooh, I meant to post about that a few weeks ago - WH Smith's have a Tragic Life Stories section. Srsly. I thought it was a pisstake at first.
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Adrian
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| | Re: Painful Lives
« Reply #2 on Feb 24, 2008, 12:53am » | |
In the publishing industry, they're known as misery memoirs.
I'm not at all surprised there's now a bookshop genre / section for them.
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| | Re: Painful Lives
« Reply #3 on Feb 24, 2008, 1:51pm » | |
I like to call them Boo-fucking-hoo Books. Someone I used to work with wrote one. Obviously I bought it out of pure nosiness, but I didn't get beyond the third chapter. Maybe her life just hadn't been miserable enough.
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| | Re: Painful Lives
« Reply #4 on Feb 24, 2008, 2:58pm » | |
I saw this today and had to take a picture:
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Absolutley amazing.
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| | Re: Painful Lives
« Reply #5 on Feb 26, 2008, 11:11pm » | |
I do wonder why people write these books. Obviously there's a market but the constant stream of them...I can see it may be cathartic. But are they doing it because their therapist advised it? As a form of self-help? To cash in on the market? A mixture of all three?
I feel really uncomfortable with the idea of buying them, I did buy the first Dave Pelzer book a few years ago because at the time it seemed novel. brave, etc etc. But the appeal of these books- the vicarious pleasure of poring over another person's misery in meticulous detail-just seems, if not "wrong" then a bit ethically iffy. It's similar to the Victorian "madhouses"- an opportunity to gawp at the unfortunates,but you can read it on the beach, on the train to work, wherever.
It seems as well that the stories are getting more extreme. It worries me that people may be desensitised to abuse.
Sorry, I know this goes on a bit but it's been bugging me for a while.
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| | Re: Painful Lives
« Reply #7 on Feb 27, 2008, 10:46pm » | |
Quote:I do wonder why people write these books. Obviously there's a market but the constant stream of them...I can see it may be cathartic. But are they doing it because their therapist advised it? As a form of self-help? To cash in on the market? A mixture of all three?
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I can understand people writing the books as a form of catharsis, to help them get 'closure' (I hate that word) from all that they've been through etc. But I can't for the life of me imagine why anyone would want to read them.
Although I could say the same about many autobiographies these days, especially those written by people under 30 who have barely done anything worth writing (let alone reading) about. I needn't name names.
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| | Re: Painful Lives
« Reply #8 on Feb 28, 2008, 8:14pm » | |
When In worked in the library in Lewisham scores on women in their late 20s-early 40s would come in and put their name on the request list to get hold of a copy of Ugly by Constance Briscoe. I never dared ask them why.
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| | Re: Painful Lives
« Reply #9 on Mar 1, 2008, 12:54pm » | |
I'm waiting for Dave Spikeys "joke" to come true and see a book called "Touched, but not by an Angel..."
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