The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks review

Title: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

Author: Oliver Sacks

My Rating:3.5/5

Part of a series? : No

Genre(s):  Psychology, Non-fiction, Medicine, Anthology

Description/Blurb:

Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents. 

My review: 

This is an interesting collection of one man’s experiences with patients with various neurological disorders. Some of them happen to be quite humorous while others are simply stories of interest to those who are interested in human behaviour. I would love to give it a higher star writing but I felt that some of the editing was below par with a few of the sentences not making complete sense (yes I know I have that problem too but I don’t have an editor!).  Also sometimes Sacks uses terms which somebody with no previous experience of psychology may struggle to understand without a quick google though I do admit most of the time you can just skim over the term without understanding it as the detail would only be of interest to somebody with an interest in psychology, if you’re just reading the collection for some unusual real life stories then you won’t really lose anything by just skipping over it, I’d recommend doing the same for some of the explanations of the disorders as again they can be a bit confusing for somebody who hasn’t really looked into psychology before though some of Sacks’ explanations and theories are really quite interesting.

The Infernal Republic by Marshall Moore Review

Title: The Infernal Republic

Author: Marshall Moore

My Rating: 4/5

Part of a series? No

Genre(s): Fantasy, Anthology. 

Description/Blurb:

A lonely demon in a remote corner of Hell oversees a divine but rigged typing contest. A sentient house in San Francisco decides to become vacant once again... by any means necessary. A supernatural first date in Hong Kong goes hysterically, horribly awry. How did this become my life? And... now what? These questions recur throughout The Infernal Republic as a cast of characters you'd either love or run from confront the unlikely and surmount the impossible. The Infernal Republic is the new collection of short fiction from Marshall Moore, the author of The Concrete Sky, Black Shapes in a Darkened Room, and An Ideal for Living. 

My review: 
I know that I've reviewed Marshall Moore's work before (feel free to take a look at the review for Bitter Orange) so I did go into this book with a couple of preconceptions as I did enjoy reading his novel Bitter Orange but I've tried to only consider this collection of short stories in this review.  

Each of the stories in this collection could easily stand alone on their own merit. Although they vary in length with some being just over a page long while others are long enough to be divided into chapters, they were all well written (and edited). The stories flowed easily with no hang ups on grammar or unusual word choices and each story felt drastically different from the last.

This collection does have quite a few dark undertones to it and would probably be best appreciated by somebody with a slightly dark or twisted sense of humour. Some of the studies (betting on whether somebody will commit suicide and a superpower that can mess with the less than sanitary bodily functions are just some of the milder examples in my opinion) could be considered bad taste or offensive, but as you can tell by the rating I still found this collection perfectly enjoyable as a whole.

The only reason I didn't give this 5/5 was because not all of the stories were to my taste and I found myself wanting to skip over a couple, such as the one where a man hears a ‘shark’s’ voice in his head, it did have an interesting concept and I'm sure others would name it as their favourite story in the collection but it just wasn't the sort of story I would choose to read if it wasn't in the collection.

It's Dark Inside by Karen Heard Review

Title: It's Dark Inside

Author: Karen Heard

My Rating: 3.5/5

Part of a series? No

Genre(s): Gothic, Horror, Short stories.

Description/Blurb:

These six tales span the genres of ghost story, mystery, horror, and suspense. 

Some look back on dark times, others look forward to an apocalyptic future, and still others dwell on a terrible present – but they have one thing in common: they are all dark. 

Don’t expect happy endings or pleasant characters here, for there is something dark lurking in the shadows of each tale waiting to get out.

Contents

The Lighthouse
A young girl trapped in a flooding Lighthouse begins to wonder why her parents left...

Snap
How do you photograph the last moments of a dying species?

The Picture
A dead man’s home is haunted by the living and the memories they disturb...

Out of Order
What do you do when the lights go out and the screaming starts?

The Promise
Never make a promise you can’t keep...

Inside
Something scratching behind the walls is dying to get out...

My review: 

I really enjoyed reading this collection of short stories, many thanks to the author who let me download the book for free from smashwords. My favourite story was the promise, the whole unintended consequence of not thinking things through before speaking was almost like the old morals behind the fables (though this might be me reading too much into things!). Although none of these stories have happy endings they're easy reads, perfect for when you get half an hour to yourself and fancy reading without having to worry about getting sucked into a book you can't put down. I'd recommend this collection to gothic/horror fans,though you might want to avoid this if you're faint hearted or easily disturbed as some of the descriptions are quite intense (either the author has a great imagination or we're looking at a potential psychopath here).