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122 books | 34 friends

Keith Adams

Goodreads Author

Born

in South Shields, The United Kingdom

Website

http://www.brokenwhole.com

Genre

Biographies & Memoirs, Gay & Lesbian, Health, Mind & Body

Influences

Theodor Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Patrick O'Brian ...more

Member Since

December 2009

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/keithadams_author

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My book, which was recently published by Chipmunka, has been called "… probably the most entertaining tale of mania you're likely to read". "Broken Whole: a California tale of Craziness, Creativity and Chaos" is available at all online booksellers in paperback, and on Kindle too (at Amazon.com)

I always wonder how an abnormally tall, working-class boy from the North Sea coast of England ended up living in a house in Hollywood with two dogs, and a partner, Benhur (really), who's a smarty-pants scientist at UCLA.

I do actually write for a living. Admittedly it's computer code, but I've always hoped to have my “real writing” - from experience - published. Yet I never thought my life to be eventful or interesting enough to merit a full memoir. T My book, which was recently published by Chipmunka, has been called "… probably the most entertaining tale of mania you're likely to read". "Broken Whole: a California tale of Craziness, Creativity and Chaos" is available at all online booksellers in paperback, and on Kindle too (at Amazon.com)

I always wonder how an abnormally tall, working-class boy from the North Sea coast of England ended up living in a house in Hollywood with two dogs, and a partner, Benhur (really), who's a smarty-pants scientist at UCLA.

I do actually write for a living. Admittedly it's computer code, but I've always hoped to have my “real writing” - from experience - published. Yet I never thought my life to be eventful or interesting enough to merit a full memoir. That is, until I had a serious brush with insanity in 2006.

Heading towards a final diagnosis of bipolar disorder, I had a manic episode of truly heroic proportions. At one point, I thought I'd be a gay superstar / epochal intellectual / latter day Messiah all rolled into one. Quite obviously, I became none of those things, but I did survive the inevitable crash to tell the tale in my memoir, which recounts the creativity, the great ideas, the not so great ideas, the fist-fights, and one impersonation of the Anti-Christ while in jail overnight courtesy of the LAPD.

If you like watching train crashes in slow motion, my memoir is the book for you. But it's also an unlikely story of growth through disaster. While I would never wish this disorder on anybody, I became a better, stronger person through it all, and my relationship with my partner became embedded in rock. So I like to think the book offers hope to anybody in the midst of similar trials and tribulations.

And that’s also the underlying reason I’ve kept a blog these last few years, writing not just about my own little passions (writing – obviously, literature, cosmology, photography, consciousness … it’s a long list) in life, but also about my experience of depression, and mania. Nothing touches me more than when somebody writes me and tells me that my attempt at bearing the soul of mental illness has made them feel understood, and less alone.

All the best, Keith Adams
...more

272 posts
Keith Adams's Blog

Update, Dec 2021

Ben and I in Pittsburgh, 2017
Well, it's been an awfully long time since I posted. So this is more of an update. I'm still in Manhattan, and given Ben's commitment to his professorship, I'm likely to be here for more than ten years into the future.

We've weathered the pandemic rather well. We're both boosted, as are our friends, so we've still been able to have social engagements with them. Ben

Combine Editions
Keith Adams’s books

Average rating: 4.0 · 38 ratings · 6 reviews · 61 distinct works

	Elena: a novel 3.93 avg rating — 14 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Broken Whole : A California Tale Of Craziness, Creativity And Chaos 4.13 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2010 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Red Funnel 150: Celebrating 150 Years of the Southampton Isle of Wight and South of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Co Ltd. The Original Isle of Wight Ferries it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Pearls of Wisdom: Quotations To Stimulate Your Mind, Heart, And Soul liked it 3.00 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	How to Entertain Kids: Activities and Games for Children it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2015	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2011	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Crocodile Safari Man really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2003	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Memory Keepers: District Six - Conversations with National Living Treasures it was ok 2.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Spoon Feeding an Investor's Brain : A dummy's guide before investing in any stocks it was ok 2.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Uncovered Mirrors: A Selection of Contemporary South African Stories by New and Unpublished Writers 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 1999	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Keith Adams…

Keith is Currently Reading

Keith Adams is currently reading

Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe

by Brian Clegg (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

read in February 2010

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Keith Adams said: " This book made me realize I'm the center of the Universe. And not just my "own little" one either, but the real thing. The Big Bang started right here.

Don't worry. You are also the center of the Universe, apparently.

I've long been completely fascinat This book made me realize I'm the center of the Universe. And not just my "own little" one either, but the real thing. The Big Bang started right here.

Don't worry. You are also the center of the Universe, apparently.

I've long been completely fascinated by cosmology, the study of the fabric and origins of the universe, and consume several books on the subject every year. You're often reading, in these books, the same subject matter. Yet each writer brings in a slightly different slant which, all of a sudden, provokes an unusual insight you hadn't considered before, even if that insight is, in retrospect, blindingly obvious.

This time around I'm reading the truly excellent Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe by Brian Clegg.

I have to say that few cosmology books are as well written as this one, and even fewer are as accessible. You really can enjoy and understand this book with virtually no background in science. That he accomplishes this feat of translating cutting edge science from one of the most difficult subjects of scientific study, and does so without making you feel it's dumbed down, or that he's being patronizing, is a tribute to his writing skills.

Back to my original insight (inspired by a brief observation by Clegg) that everything in the universe marks the spot where the Big Bang happened, you have to understand what we mean by the expansion of the universe. My body is currently in a precise location - so far as we understand location - in a house on a hill adjacent to a much more famous hill whose crown is fetchingly adorned with the Hollywood sign.

But where is my location in the universe? The universal coordinates against which you might measure objects in cosmological terms, is the very fabric of space-time. You can define space-time as being a sort of structure entirely enclosed within the universe. And this is the thing: when we say that the universe is expanding, what we really mean is that space itself is expanding. And us along with it. We are, all of us, expanding at an undetectable rate, along with everything else in the universe, slowly moving further apart.

So questions like, where did the Big Bang take place, and where are we in relation to the center of the universe, have no meaning. Wind back the universe to its beginnings, and it is theorized (even the Big Bang is "just a theory") that the entire universe was contained within a single point. It's almost a mathematical concept rather than a physical one, since there's no way we'll ever truly understand how this works. So all matter was in the same location, and space had no dimensions. As the Big Bang takes place, everything that was formerly at that one point, explodes outwards along with the expansion of space itself.

That is why I'm the center of the universe. And also why you should read this book! ...more "

Feb 20, 2010 09:39AM · see review

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