WANTED: Your Recommended Reads!

by Quercus, as suggested by the lovely Jessie!

The ACoN's Library: What's on your bookshelf?

Let's get all the book recommendations out there in one place (thank you to Jessie and Kara for this suggestion!) for easy reference for ACoNs confused by the multitude of self-help books available!

I'd like to suggest the following categories:

NON-FICTION - Self-help or Biography/Historical/Scientific

FICTION - loosely related to NPD or otherwise; if it strikes an ACoN chord, recommend it!

Any book that you really feel 'speaks' to the ACoN in you, we'd love to share it with The ACoN Society at large! It would be helpful to know the following about your recommended reads:

Title
Author(s)
The basic "theme" or subject of the book
Why you liked it!

For example, Quercus recommends:

Narcissistic Predicaments: A Biblical Guide to Navigating the Schemes, Snares, and No-Win Situations Unique to Abusive Families
Sister Renee Pittelli
NON-FICTION Self-help: Adult Children of Abusive Families
It's a practical book describing likely scenarios with your NParents at different stages (No-Contact day one to ten years later and beyond), as experienced by the author and other ACoNs she works with. It's not preachy, and it actually had practical, useful advice, clearly given. Great if you have "Christian" concerns about defending yourself/walking away from your parents. Mentions the 'grandchild' dilemmas and issues, too. I feel safer having this book on my shelf as a reference for when the weird stuff happens!

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk
Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish
NON-FICTION Self-help: Parenting
This book was recommended by a couple of other ACoNs for parenting your children the "right way", rather than risking making the same grievous errors your NParents made with you (don't want history to repeat at the expense of an innocent baby!). I don't have kids and probably won't for some time, but I benefited from this book myself - it made me see how my parents SHOULD HAVE spoken to me, and really helped to make me understand both their dysfunction and why it hurt me so (book is great for examples - "if you say this, your child will hear this and will come to believe that."). There's a reason this book has been reprinted again and again since 1980! An easy read, and a fantastic reference.

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self
Alice Miller
NON-FICTION Psychology
Probably the most important book for ACoNs everywhere (and their psychologists). Alice Miller was pivotal in the development of modern psychology in the abused-child realm. The title is misleading, though - the "gifted" child isn't necessarily an academic or talented, but refers to the self-sufficiency required to have survived a horrendous childhood through to adulthood. This book discusses narcissism, even narcissism in the therapists who seek to help. It's an amazing read, but not a light one. It made me cry, and it was also challenging to me - I had to re-read parts to really take in what the brilliant Alice Miller was asserting. This book has the brainy answers to the core questions all ACoNs have.

The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood
FICTION: Science-Fiction (like Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four")
I mentioned this in a previous post - it's not explicitly about maternal or paternal narcissism, but there are themes that resonated with me as an ACoN. It's about totalitarian rule in the United States in the future, where a false-Christianity has taken over and oppressed the poor to gross extremes. Fertility rates have fallen so sharply that the wealthy 'own' fertile women as slaves. The sex scenes and the birth scenes are haunting in an ACoN way. The lives of the handmaids are horrendous, and suicide and executions are common. There's something about the way the handmaids whisper together, though often caught and executed, to form forbidden friendships; and the way the power of the 'wives' and 'husbands' over the handmaids and others is abused that screams "NParent" to me. A desperate, perverted, soul-wrecking situation with no escape.... Very dark, very spooky, and very entertaining!

Alice in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll
FICTION: Children's 
I've been planning an enormous post on this book for years. Other people have commented on the ACoN-esque themes before, but I fully intend to catch them all and expand on them! Until that time, enjoy a story where a young child is too big, too small, never the right size, seen as a threat, seen as a servant, pushed, pulled, lied to, controlled by a narcissistic Queen and an enabling King, and finally realises that in the end, they're nothing more than playing cards...! The ridiculousness of the situations, the futility of the games and pursuits - it really is synonymous with living with narcissistic parents (a world where the rules change constantly and where poor Alice is uninvited, attacked, welcomed then attacked, mistaken for a monster, a serpent, a servant, all while claiming, "I'm just a little girl!").


So . . . what are your book recommendations? Please post (comment) below, or email acon(DOT)anon(AT)gmail(DOT)com with the book(s) you feel fellow ACoNs would enjoy or benefit from!