God... I wanted to uh... "better myself" last year, so one day went into Fopp and just bought lots and lots of cheap books that I thought would help me, I dunno... "grow as a person" or some shit like that. I bought some classics that I'd never read before, and I bought an Introduction to Islam book. I also bought some of those "Penguin Great Ideas" books:

On the Pleasure of Hating - William Hazlitt
Civilization and its Discontents - Sigmund Freud

And what I can understand of Freud is interesting, I suppose, but I can't get my head around most of it. Should I be reading a beginners guide first, or an earlier work? Maybe that is his earliest work, I don't know... All I know is, I want to learn, but I'm finding either his writing difficult, or the subject itself, and it's making me feel like a big ol' window licker.

__________________

LOL @ window licker!

No, he's a tough read and not for the faint of heart. While he opened many doors in the field of psychology and really REALLY thought outside "the box" (giggle), much of his theories have been determined to be false. He lacked scientific data in most studies.

Try Carl Jung. He's a bit more interesting and a better read. They were also friends for a time, but got competitive at one point and their friendship suffered. But he takes much of Freud's ideas and expands on them in a more meaningful way.

Ooh, thanks for the advice, there. I had meant to read some Jung after this, but my lack of progress was really making me reconsider.

I got to some part where he mentioned breast-feeding, briefly, and I thought "Woohoo - I'm getting somewhere!" but sadly, I was eluded...

__________________

Fopp has the best books

that freud book was in my library so I took it out to look at it. I didn't understand a word. (well, I understood every word, just not the way they had been organised)

I think it's both the writing and the detail of the he goes into. I mean, it was written for psychiatric doctors at the turn of the last centuary. I'm over 100 years and a degree from even being close to it's intended audience.

I think if you want to get into interesting subjects your better reading books on them, probably introduction works because otherwise it's going to be assuming you know a lot of stuff you don't.

__________________
love is from hell