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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Help with school

  
 
Cop Killer
16:10 / 23.01.02
For my Human Sexualities class, I need to do a book review on a book about relationships. The book has to be non-fiction and non-autobiographical. The teacher suggested pop psych and self-help books, neither of which is a genre I have any interest in reading. So I was wondering if you people could help me out by giving me titles of non-fiction, non-autobiographical books about relationships (they can be about any type of relationship).
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
16:12 / 23.01.02
The Karma Sutra might be considered an interesting study but may already be picked by someone else.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance get's into it somewhat.
 
 
alas
00:51 / 24.01.02
(it's been quite awhile since i read it, but isn't zen & the art both semifictionalized and semiautobiographical?)

hmmmm. on the eastern philosophy track there's also the tao te ching and the i ching, both of which deal extensively with relationships. but it takes time for the i ching, esp., to sink into you bones and have its way with your brain...

hmmm...still thinking--this doesn't seem like it should be so difficult...Machiavelli's The Prince?

What about biographies? Last year I read Blanche Wiesen Cook's bio of Eleanor Roosevelt, and it's fascinating--to me--on the subject of her relationship with FDR and her female lover (can't think of her name at the moment.)

Or epic poetry? Beowulf comes to mind, god knows why...
 
 
videodrome
02:59 / 24.01.02
Since any type of relationship will do, I find Philippe Bourgois' In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in el Barrio coming to mind. Couldn't say why. Fantastic book, though, and would fit the bill as it covers a wide range of macro- and micro- social relationships.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
06:54 / 24.01.02
If it can't be autobiographical, can it be *biographical*? There must be tons of biographies out there which are about relationships ( Iris, The Ladies of Llangollen, practically everything ever written about Byron) and some of them must be about people you find interesting.

Pop psych - Adam Phillips has written a number of books which deal with relationships (there's one called Monogamy, though I think it might be a selection of, can't think of the right word, linnods (definitely too much LOTR over here).
 
 
grant
16:32 / 24.01.02
Lyotard, I think, wrote a thing called "Community and Communication" or some such.

Damn, memory's going.


I like the religious angle. St. Thomas Aquinas, maybe... or how about Man's Search for Meaning (Erich Fromm?)

Oh, wait - DUDE!
This thread.
It's on Alan Watts: The Book (on the taboo against knowing who you are).

It's TOTALLY about relationships, the recognition of self-in-other, how communication works, and the nature of God & the universe. As a big game.

Hmm. Not totally sexual, though.
 
 
DaveBCooper
22:49 / 26.01.02
Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' (various translations available) deals with the less chummy end of relationships...

DBC
 
 
The Apple-Picker
04:30 / 28.01.02
Arlie Hochschild's The Second Shiftdealt with different gender ideologies in marriages. I thought it would be boring as hell, but actually, no--it was a decent read. Lots of case studies spiced it up.
 
 
Mystery Gypt
00:15 / 01.02.02
how about Sutton's biography of Aleister Crowley, called The Great Beast? plenty of sexuality, plenty of relationships, plenty of psychic fireballs.
 
 
Sax
05:53 / 01.02.02
Read 'em some excerpts from Nancy Friday. They'll love you for it. Especially that fantasy about the gorilla in Women on Top.
 
 
Jackie Susann
05:58 / 01.02.02
Starr and Wiener's Sex and Sexuality in the Mature Years. A gerontophile classic.
 
  
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