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Genius And Heroin: The Illustrated Catalogue Of Creativity, Obsession, And Reckless Abandon Through The Ages (2008)

by Michael Largo(Favorite Author)

3.76 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0061466417 (ISBN13: 9780061466410)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

William Morrow Paperbacks

review 1: Sooo. The book does what it promises. Sorta.One might assume by just looking at the main title that the book is about specifically heroin addicts. Famous heroin addicts. Genius heroin addicts. But in fact if you read the fine print you'll discover that it's more of a vice thing. Less specific. Any vice/addiction/obsession will do. Obviously the point is to point out a potential connection between artistic genius and peculiaritiesc-whether it be drug addiction, obsession, eccentricities, etc. which in my mind brought up the possibility of the connection being between genius and mental illnesses and disorders. A lot of time addiction and illness go hand in hand. It's a valid, and interesting point and this book is filled with every famous artist/author who deals with these "... moreeccentricities." So, as I said, the book served it's purpose. It was even littered with non person based info about random but relevant information. Stuff like the opium wars, statistics, old fashioned medicine, etc. But my complaint was that it got a bit repetitive. I understand that the author Michael Largo, had to fill an entire book with this stuff, but the book was thicker than it needed to be and therefor there were people in there that didn't need to be, filler people who I didn't care about. Had it been about half as long, I would have liked it a lot more. But overall a fun read. I'd recommend reading it in increments. Supplementing another read with bits from this one every now and then. Each little paragraph is self contained so there's no consistency needed.I DID learn some interesting facts that I hadn't known before. Stuff liiiiiike...- Lewis Carroll was a pedophile - Emily Dickinson was an agoraphobic who would speak to people as she hid partially behind only half way open doors- Freud was openly an advocate of cocaine, writing several papers in support of it's use- Ronald Reagan was aerophobic (paranoid about airborne substances and drafts from doors and windows) and never slept with an open windows- Napoleon Bonaparte was ailurophobic (fear of cats) His anxiety because of the cats that lived near his prison cell that helped scare the rodents away was so intense that it is thought that it contributed to his death.- Aldous Huxley committed suicide via a lethal dose of LSD, hoping to make even his death a learning experience. I'd give this a 2.5. It's actually a cut above the brain junk food I thought this would be, I learned some interesting facts about some interesting people and that gives it more value in my eyes!
review 2: I just love this book. I've always been intrigued as to how someone with a raging addiction can still output an impressive body of work/get up in the morning at all. The book writes really interesting little tid-bits and anecdotal stories about an enormous amount of artists, what they contributed and how they fell apart in the end (it wasn't from too much orange juice and bracing jogs across the moors). It doesn't purport to dissect the creative mind but it does set out to entertain - which it does in spades. I'll be reading this on and off for years and throughly enjoying it as well as discovering work and people that I never knew existed - BONUS! less

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