So I picked up the Bell Jar at Costco along with some TP, a big bag of

[WCGreen]

salad and a case of Old Style Pepsi...

I liked it, the pepsi that is.

Kidding. The Bell Jar is a good book, wouldn't say great, but it really gets you into the mind of someone slowly decending into the hell of mental illness...

[Hello_Kitty]

1. What kind of salad? I love their blue cheese and dried cherry one.

And lately I've been digging the broccoli coleslaw-style salad kit too.

[WCGreen]

3. That Parisian Salad...

[Hello_Kitty]

10. Ooh that one's good too.

Have you tried their lettuce wraps kit? It has everything - the chicken, lettuce, noodles, and plum sauce.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Sylvia Plath is one hell of a writer.

William Styron, I believe, also wrote a great book about his depressive illness. He nearly took his own life. I don't remember the name of his book, though...

[WCGreen]

4. Never heard of him...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. Here you go...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Styron

From the Wiki article:

Styron's influence deepened and his readership expanded with the publication of Darkness Visible in 1990. This memoir was a description of the author's descent into depression, which he called the "despair beyond despair."

[likesmountains 52]

14. Sophie's Choice...

[RandomThoughts]

5. It is a real blessing to have a sound mind.

I feel compassion for many that seem to be going off the deep end lately, and give much thanks to God for the gift of sanity he gave me, and that same gift he gave to so many other people.

I have spoken to people that were not able to live in peace and comfort, and it is really saddening to see people trapped in that state.

[WCGreen]

6. It is and I have a new respect for Plath...

[stuball111]

8. How was...

The toilet paper? What kind? :rofl:

[WCGreen]

11. soft to the touch...

[Tangerine LaBamba]

9. If you want to read a brilliant work

on losing your mind, there is "The Crack Up," by, of all people. F. Scott Fitzgerald. The man who wrote about such profligates was, in the end, a writer of immense gravity and introspection.

Then he drank himself to death, dying of a heart attack at an obscenely young age. A tragic life all around.

Here's an excerpt from "The Crack Up," published in Esquire magazine in - are you ready? - 1936:

http://tinyurl.com/me7l8h

And, if you're interested in more, here's the book (I highly recommend it): http://tinyurl.com/mtd7lt

A self-portrait of a great writer's rise and fall, intensely personal and etched with Fitzgerald's signature blend of romance and realism. The Crack-Up tells the story of Fitzgerald's sudden descent at the age of thirty-nine from glamorous success to empty despair, and his determined recovery. Compiled and edited by Edmund Wilson shortly after F. Scott Fitzgerald's death, this revealing collection of his essays—as well as letters to and from Gertrude Stein, Edith Wharton, T.S. Eliot, John Dos Passos—tells of a man with charm and talent to burn, whose gaiety and genius made him a living symbol of the Jazz Age, and whose recklessness brought him grief and loss. "Fitzgerald's physical and spiritual exhaustion is described brilliantly," noted The New York Review of Books: "the essays are amazing for the candor."

[raccoon]

12. Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to read that.

Another book I like that takes you into the mind of someone going mad is GOING WRONG by Ruth Rendell.

[abluelady]

13. I read that book over 40 years ago

the first time. I've read it since then and have also read lots of nonfiction about her and her husband, as well as "fictionalized" versions of their marriage/relationship. She was truly a very sad woman.

[JitterbugPerfume]

15. I haven't read Sylvia Plath in years

but as I recall I enjoyed The Bell Jar .Her poetry is really really good.