WHS "Tragic Life Story" section

[Pruni]

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"used to be called Misery"
LOL

I don't know why people like this stuff.
In my line of work I see and hear too many horrible things to want to read about them in my spare time.
I find myself turning the news off half way through most days thinking "what a wicked world".

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I hate this stuff, really hate it. It is the worst form of rubbernecking and wallowing in victimhood imo.
and you're right, there are RACKS of them. entirely dominates the non fiction section

I noted the 'Tragic Life' section last time I was in WHS. Mind you, you could barely see the sign, the books were piled up so high on the shelves. I really can't be doing with them, I have no interest in reading them at all. Imo, people read this type of book for the same reason they follow certain news stories, to vicariously wallow.

and they've even got a cover design convention now - bleached out (so that it nearly looks like a watercolour & face ever so appealingly just eyes & mouth) sepia'd photo of c. 7 year old with thin clothes wafting in a breeze (what's with the wafting?)

You know what? There needs to be a TAX on them. Like on Chelsea tractors. That might stem the bilge.

Hate it. There are so many of these books now - they are almost competing in a "who's had the worst life?" competition...always makes me think of that "well, we were brought up in a hole in t'road" sketch.

I read A Child Called It because I was at my Mum and Dad's house, had just fed ds1 (or was it ds2?) and he'd fallen asleep on me and it was the only book I could reach from the chair. It took about an hour to read and it was dire.

Baffles and saddens me that there's such a huge market for this horrible stuff

Weird stuff. SiL has an Amazon wishlist PACKED with the genre. She's lovely, robust and pragmatic, a hospital matron, but this stuff floats her boat for whatever reason (mum reckons something to do with her own background). So while I think it's a pile of rubbish, I find it hard to condemn people for reading it, just because she has her own reasons, and is certainly not an awful person.

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I don't think you are Pruni (ignoring reality that is!), personally I read for relaxation and enjoyment and I can't see how those kind of books can offer that. I watch and read the news and that's enough reality for me!

Having said that, I can understand that some of those people might feel better for having written about it but still...

I tend to avoid these type of books myself. I don't see the appeal in them at all. I'm a big enough misery guts without reading stuff like this to add to my misery

I have read Angela's Ashes, and tbh that was enough for me.

I haven't read any of the others

Ghastly. I work in publishing and they are known in the trade as 'misery memoirs' and are BIG business for publishers. That Dave Pelzer has got a lot to answer for.

Am aghast that there is a special section, though given that I have noticed sometimes recently that, say, 7 out of 10 paperback bestsellers have been this kind of thing, I suppose I shouldn't be at all suprised.

What really bothers me is that I have met people who read this stuff who think it makes them sort of morally superior to people who don't read it (like Pruni's Holocaust parallel - though actually that is often equally dodgy IMO).
I read 'A Child Called It' and just felt dirty for getting entertained by someone else's suffering, though.

I read a book that was based on someone's tragic life story and although it was painful reading it unfortunately ran many parallels to my mum;s life and was the first time I'd really understood some of the harsh realities she'd had to live through but that she'd never been able to tell me. Sometimes it's not about being a voyuer or wallowing. Sometimes its about opening peoples eyes to the reality of an experience or simply for that author a way to exorcise the demons.

Must admit,I do like to read these books,even if they make me cry,I must be morbid,just read julie goodyears life story and kim from how clean is your house,she had a terrible childhood,but now has a happy life with her hubby.I like a happy ending.

I think it's scary that there's a tragic life sector at all. It's seems that the media are conspiring to make us feel unsafe. Not to mention the fact that the majority of them are an insult to literature. If someone wants to read some tragic life then, what's better than Madame Bovary, Therese Raquin, Anna Karenina....

section sorry.

I've noticed them. Who is that Torey woman? Torey Hayden? Sorry, I'm typing from memory. All about how she is a gifted teacher who reached out to damaged children. Is she real?

I preferred Sons and Lovers.

Haven't read that one

I think I have the title right anyway. I also think it is by D H Lawrence.

But I will have to check that tonight.

I was browsing the books in the supermarket yesterday when the lady who was stacking the shelves recommended 'Angela's Ashes'. I said I'd read it, thanks, and had no intention of reading any more of the same.

So then she started telling me about her own situation i.e. that she was abused as a child and how she was waiting for the court case, etc and that these things certainly do happen. I assured her that I didn't disbelieve her, or Dave Peltzer et al, but I really didn't need to read about these things to acknowledge they went on and feel sorry for the victims.

I couldn't get away from her quickly enough.
I suppose if these books give people the courage to go to the police, even tho years have passed, or if they just make folk feel they are not alone, they fulfill a need, but still....surely saturation has been reached.

Colditz, yes it's Lawrence, but I'm pretty ashamed to say that i've never read anything from him

I've only read that, adn it was wonderful - I sunk into it because the accent he writes is the same as mine, and the mother (young wife at the start) is such a strong character it sent shivers down my spine.

Nothing really happens, but so much is felt!

YOU ARE JOKING?

there is really as section called this????

really????

blardy hell!

angelas ashes i agree was quite enough.

it is sort of smuggery isn't it? 'ooo, my life is so much more functional' reading?