S.J. Parris
S.J. Parris writes about her inspiration for Heresy, which masterfully blends true events with fiction into a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus.
Adam Haslett
A conversation with Adam Haslett, author of Union Atlantic, a deeply affecting portrait of the modern gilded age, the first decade of the twenty-first century.
The Sociopath Next Door: Summary and book reviews of The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, plus links to an excerpt from The Sociopath Next Door and a biography of Martha Stout.
The Sociopath Next Door The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us
by
Martha Stout
Hardcover: Feb 2005,
256 pages.
Paperback: Mar 2006,
256 pages.
Is it your lying, cheating ex-husband?
Your sadistic high school gym teacher?
Your boss who loves to humiliate people in meetings?
The colleague who stole your idea and passed it off as her own?
In the pages of The Sociopath Next Door, you will realize that your ex was not just misunderstood. He's a sociopath. And your boss, teacher, and colleague? They may be sociopaths too.
We are accustomed to think of sociopaths as violent criminals, but in The Sociopath Next Door, Harvard psychologist Martha Stout reveals that a shocking 4 percent of ordinary people—one in twenty-five—has an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse. One in twenty-five everyday Americans, therefore, is secretly a sociopath. They could be your colleague, your neighbor, even family. And they can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt.
How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than the other people around them. They're more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify and leaving us easily seduced. Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others' suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win.
The fact is, we all almost certainly know at least one or more sociopaths already. Part of the urgency in reading The Sociopath Next Door is the moment when we suddenly recognize that someone we know—someone we worked for, or were involved with, or voted for—is a sociopath. But what do we do with that knowledge? To arm us against the sociopath, Dr. Stout teaches us to question authority, suspect flattery, and beware the pity play. Above all, she writes, when a sociopath is beckoning, do not join the game.
It is the ruthless versus the rest of us, and The Sociopath Next Door will show you how to recognize and defeat the devil you know.
Book Reviews
BookBrowse
I hope that this book gets the very wide audience it deserves because what it has to say is of relevance to virtually all of us as individuals, and takes on even great significance when one adds in the fact that (according to well-documented and much repeated research, first performed by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s) about two-thirds of the general population will follow the orders of somebody in authority, even if it is to inflict significant harm on others. You only have to look at the harm inflicted by the followers of such renowned sociopaths as Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot to see where that can lead. Full Review (members only, 118 words).
Publishers Weekly
Dramatic as these tales are, they are composites, and while Stout is a good writer and her exploration of sociopaths can be arresting, this book occasionally appeals to readers' paranoia, as the book's title and its guidelines for dealing with sociopaths indicate.
Library Journal - Lynne F Maxwell
Stout (clinical psychiatry, Harvard Medical Sch.; The Myth of Sanity Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness) offers a novel perspective on sociopaths, i.e., people who have no conscience. Not only does she provide case studies and references to standard literature like Hervey Cleckley's The Mask of Sanity, but she also fashions the book in self-help mode.... Highly recommended for all public libraries and for university libraries with large psychology collections.
Kirkus Reviews
...a remarkable philosophical examination of the phenomenon of sociopathy and its everyday manifestations. Readers eager for a tabloid-ready survey of serial killers, however, will be disappointed. Instead, Stout (Psychiatry/Harvard Medical School) busies herself with exploring the workaday lives and motivations of those garden-variety sociopaths who are content with inflicting petty tyrannies and small miseries.....Deeply thought-provoking and unexpectedly lyrical.
Harold S. Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People
A fascinating, important book about what makes good people good and bad people bad, and how good people can protect themselves from those others.
You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family.
The Postmistress is an unforgettable tale of the secrets we must bear, or bury. It is about what happens to love during wartime, when those we cherish leave. And how every story-of love or war-is about looking left when we should have been looking right.
Masterfully blending true events with fiction, this blockbuster historical thriller delivers a page-turning murder mystery set on the sixteenth-century Oxford University campus.
Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. The Swan Thieves is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.
Lisa See has written a great book! This story is satisfying on many levels, some scenes horrifying, but seemingly truthful, and her handling of the ...
read more
I was sorry to see that there were so few reviews. I started reading COAL and could not stop. The only thing I am going to say is that I wish ...
read more
The tragedy, the sorrow, the loss, is almost too much for me to recommend this; on the other hand Mistry made me believe I knew these characters. I ...
read more
UK Orange Award longlist announced(Mar 17 2010) Hilary Mantel, Sarah Waters and Barbara Kingsolver have made the longlist for the 2010 Orange Prize, a 20-strong list described by chair Daisy Goodwin as...
Full Story
National Book Critics Circle Awards announced(Mar 11 2010) Each March, the NBCC present awards for the finest books and reviews published in English (in the USA) the previous year in six categories: Fiction,...
Full Story
The Sociopath Next Door
(members only, 118 words).
Publishers Weekly
Harold S. Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People
RSS feed
