Bookathon - X

 X marks the spot. Exams. Exposé

 I am reading a book at the moment recommended by my counsellor called Taming Toxic People. The science of identifying & dealing with psychopaths at work & at home. 

No I haven't been divorced or dropped by a callous ex. Although the experience of working in a toxic workplace with a boss who shows pyschopathic traits is sadly all too common. The advice given, psychopaths cannot change so look for another job while you are there is what it amounts to. On the cover is a silhouette of a man brandishing a naughty chair and a whip. 

 Don't get the wrong idea, I am not reading x-rated books! When children couldn't find an X book I told them try finding one with X in the title. Or it could be about X-men or My cat likes to hide in boXes or My Mum has X-ray Vision. 

So Taming ToXic People. It turns out I have read this author before. David Gillespie writes books about sugar being Sweet Poison, and being a dad to seven children and advocating for Free Schools. He also wrote a book called Big Fat Lies, and I'm wondering if it's similar to Liane Moriarity's Big Little Lies, which put me off divorced soccer mums and primary schools big time. It also made me question what the parents were REALLY up to that made their children so violent, at least, in Australia. 

The Learning Network only gave this answer to everything - trauma. Basically even having children is traumatic and when you delve into the science of brain injury and stress response and the amount of drugs given to pregnant mums to ease the pain I'm thinking no wonder it's a miracle most us are actually coming out alive. My hunch is psychopaths had too much exposure to anaesthetic at birth and hence cannot empathise with others or feel pain. 

There's another author I recommend who DOES start with X and she has only ever one name, Xinran. I have read all her books from What the Chinese Don't Eat, The Good women of China to China Witness, to Sky Burial and Miss Chopsticks, and her most heartbreaking, Messages from an Unknown Chinese Mother to her most recent Buy Me the Sky: The Remarkable truth of China's one-child generations. 

Having not ever lived in China but possessing an entire DNA of Chinese blood I can only say I am extraordinary lucky to be alive here to tell the tale. Which I may do at some point. It's often the case that the truth is stranger than fiction. How I miss my yum cha book restaurant. Xinran's books would be prominently displayed on the trolley along with Por Por's cookbook. You can no longer silence a Chinese woman or bind her feet like they did in the olden days. She'll do a dangerous thing - she'll write a book. 

Happy reading! xxx

Stick around for dessert after we've finished the alphabet at the Great Kiwi Bookathon