Dog vs cat people

You know the old dog vs. cat people argument - that you're either one or the other?
Personally I'm a rabbit person (but with definite underlying leanings toward dogs).
Anyway, my mum recounted a conversation she witnessed (and participated in) last week at, of all places, a medical clinic. A woman was raving to another woman about how fantastic Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love was, how life-changing, etc [insert Oprah here]. Until another woman piped up to say she didn't like it. And then my mum told everyone she hated it. Couldn't finish it. Didn't even get out of Italy.
So this got us thinking, is Eat Pray Love the new dichotomy dividing women of a certain age? Is the world now split into women who loved it, and women who wanted to give Elizabeth a good smack and tell her to stop whingeing about having a crap marriage/not wanting kids/lusting after younger men/NOT BEING ABLE TO MEDITATE for heaven's sake and just get on with it?
Could it become a kind of shorthand to find out whether you're going to get along with another woman, or whether your world views will be inconvertibly divergent?
Come on, you can tell me - which side of the Eat Pray Love fence do you sit on?

#23. Blinding Light: Paul Theroux

I'm conscious that I'm becoming a bit of a whinger on this blog. But really, I've had a bad run with books lately. Unfortunately, this one is no different. (Fortunately, this run of bad choices has definitely ended, as I am reading Chocolat by Joanne Harris at the moment and enjoying it immensely - a chocolatier/witch in a French village is just what I need.) First of all, I'm placing a temporary ban on any books with writers as their central characters. I get the whole 'write what you know' thing, but really, after about six books so far this year, it gets a little tiresome, and given that I find myself mired in the writing process on a daily basis, doesn't really provide the escapism I'm looking for in my fiction.
I hated this book. I hated the misogynistic, self-indulgent character of Slade Steadman, a one-hit-wonder writer who was fabulously successful and made a fortune from travel goods, who goes on a 'drug tour' of Ecuador and finds a hallucinogen that makes him able to pen a brilliant second book, through rendering him temporary blind. I hated that this long-awaited masterpiece was just about him reliving his various sexual experiences (like it was so fascinating to others). I hated that he managed to get his supposedly intelligent doctor girlfriend Ava to act like a glorified dictaphone and then in her time off, become his sexual puppet. I hated the weird introduction of Bill Clinton's infidelity into the storyline. And I particularly hated the continuing fiction he acted out in his life about being really blind, when he was just doping himself up every day.
In fact the only part I liked about the book was when he eventually got his comeuppance. But my short-lived enjoyment was ruined when two-dimensional Ava turned into a conniving, malicious lesbian. At first I wanted to applaud that she finally shook off whatever was keeping her in his thrall, but she was so nasty it just didn't make sense. Where was that backbone when he was being such a pain? The 'twist' in the story was reminiscent of some well-worn morality tale, and held about all the interest.
Just don't go there.
For the time being, I'm also swearing off gritty realism. You can have far too much of a good thing.

#22. Breakdown, Breakthrough – The Professional Woman's Guide to Claiming a Life of Passion, Power and Purpose: Kathy Caprino

I didn't really read this book out of choice – it is research for a ghostwriting project I am working on. It's a bit too 'I am woman, hear me roar' for me, and I was embarrassed reading it on the bus. Plus, given that I'm not currently having a breakdown or seeking a breakthrough, it didn't really resonate with me (well, until I got to the middle, when I started to think maybe I could do with a breakthrough too...). Putting all that aside for the time being, if I was a professional woman struggling with questions like, "Is this all there is?", "Why can't I manage better?", or "What do I want to do with the rest of my life?", then I can see it might help. Basically Caprino discusses 12 disempowerment crises, which relate to women's relationship with self, with others, with the world and with higher self. Caprino says she has experienced all 12 crises personally, which to me, suggests she must have been something of a train wreck at various stages. But never fear, she broke through and explains how everyone else can too. Each chapter describes the experience of other women who have been through the particular crisis it is focusing on, therapy-speak on how to identify and get over it, and then a series of action steps and a Breakthrough affirmation (it is a self-help book after all).
Despite the slightly annoying tone, it largely presents common sense, and I think the format would really work for someone feeling overwhelmed and a bit stuck, as it provides a simple way to work through the issues they are facing, perhaps start getting some perspective and move forward towards something better.

#21. Let's Not Screw It, Let's Just Do It: Richard Branson

I was really looking forward to this book after reading Richard Branson's first book, but it ended up being a bit of a disappointment. A lot of the material about his life was obviously taken almost straight from Losing My Virginity, and it seemed to have been written for a 12-year-old. Plus Branson comes across as a little patronising. The 'lessons' for business life and entrepreneurship it presents, while sound, are a little basic – but it's the kind of book you would turn to for inspiration, rather than guidance. And Branson is certainly one of a kind.
One thing I did find quite encouraging was that even though in some ways Richard Branson seems like an entrepreneurial force of nature, it still takes time for his various ventures to get off the ground... he plugged away for two years trying to get advertisers in his Student magazine (he was still at school, but even so), and it took five years for Virgin to get their trains up and running. So as well as boldness, courage and innovative thinking, persistence is obviously one of his greatest attributes – and I think that is something that gets missed in Branson's 'business cowboy' image.