TheAccidental Reader > Recent Status Updates

What the HECK! "My own mother once confided, “The worst mistake I ever made in my life was having children.” I was a teenager at the time. She’d turned around from the front seat of the 20-year old, classic blue 1955 Chevrolet that morning to look at me while she drove home from church. She wasn’t even mad about anything ..."

Such a chummy writer. He even tells us when spellcheck malfunctioned during his authoring of the book. Sheesh......

Too bad your interview on NPR got preempted by the Jimmy Carter story........ I was hoping to decide whether to keep reading this oddly written book when the station broke in and obliterated the rest of what you were going to say.

He makes up words and he does not complete all the sentences......such an informal approach might make a scientific tome more digestible, you think? No. Not in this case.......

Totally me.

As I learn about psychopaths, it becomes easier to understand how they can possibly do the scamming and engage in the lies and control they are famous for. About 2 or 3 percent of people carry the diagnosis, meaning we live among some 3 to 8 million psychopaths. But the number of serial killers numbers only in the low hundreds. I will never understand this sickness.

First, in spite of more than a century of clinical study and speculation and several decades of scientific research, the mystery of the psychopath still remains....and the fact is, compared with other major clinical disorders, little systematic research has been devoted to psychopathy, even though it is responsible for far more social distress and disruption than all other psychiatric disorders combined.

good tips on how not to get involved with a psychopath, such as: Keep your guard up in high-risk situations. Some situations are tailor-made for psychopaths: singles’ bars, social clubs, resorts, ship cruises, foreign airports, to name but a few. In each case, the potential victim is lonely, looking for a good time, excitement, or companionship, and there will usually be someone willing to oblige, for a hidden price.

"[With] few exceptions, the traditional forms of psychotherapy, including psychoanalysis, group therapy, client-centered therapy, and psychodrama, have proved ineffective in the treatment of psychopathy. Nor have the biological therapies, including psychosurgery, electroshock therapy, and the use of various drugs, fared much better."

“The level of impairment that arose in the 1960s and 1970s in juveniles’ functioning should cause concern about the ability of a proportion of that generation to bring up the next generation. Impaired child rearing practices is one of the factors that influence how antisocial a next generation will be.” In other words, hold on to your hats—we ain’t seen nothing yet.

Much better! I had to abandon the version read by Rachel McAdams because listening to a lackluster performance like that was not going to work for me. Reading this one for bookclub. It's our annual dive into the classics and one of the members is taking a cruise which will land her in PEI.

Psychopaths "frequently change topics, go off on irrelevant tangents& fail to connect phrases& sentences in a straightforward manner..they're notorious for not answering the question posed them or for answering in a way that seems unresponsive to the question. the breakdowns are more frequent, & possibly indicative of an underlying condition in which the organization of mental activity—not its content—is defective."

Well, whaddya know.....now in the littany of psychopath portraits, comes Robert Maxwell. His "business empire collapsed amid charges that hundreds of millions of dollars were illegally siphoned off...a carefully managed public persona can conceal dark deeds and a black heart." He's the father of one of the people who made me want to read all about scammers and psychopaths. Ghislaine--black heart for sure.

Here's something which may seem particularly salient at this time: A "characteristic typically found in psychopaths: facile distortions of reality even when they know that others are aware of the facts."

During my year of reading about scammers and psychopaths, I will probably also watch movies mentioned in some of the nonfiction books I am reading now. And I will read a few of the many accounts of the most notorious of these soulless beings. Every time my books mention another book about the topic, I add that one to my list.

"many criminals have some of the characteristics described in this chapter, but because they are capable of feeling guilt, remorse, empathy, and strong emotions, they are not considered psychopaths."

"Psychopaths are social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets."