Thread: Reactions to a book

Has anyone ever had a physical reaction to a book? I've read a lot of books, but the only one that I ever really felt felt was Crime and Punishment. I read it for AP Literature in high school. As I was reading it, I would feel nervous or sick or lightheaded. Whatever was written, I could physically feel it. I was wondering if anyone else felt that way about another book.

Robert Bly says that you can't read of think about "lunar poetry" while shaving because it makes the hair on your nape and throat stand up.

Wouldn't that actually be beneficial to shaving though so that you get a closer shave? If that's true, every man should keep a copy of that book in the bathroom cabinet.

Oddly enough, no.

What's also odd is that fear and awe make your hackles rise, but not hair elsewhere on your body.

probably a good thing, all told.

Awe makes my eyebrows raise, but I don't shave them, so that's ok.

My eyebrows were shaved off once. It was during a hair cut. I'd hope she was fired afterwards, but what are a my little girl complaints of the loss of her eyebrows compared to a woman who cuts hair... By the way, try not to get your eyebrows cut because they grow back all fucked up. I'm 21 and they still aren't the same.

I'd have to agree, Crime and Punishment was one book that induced some physical reactions in my. So did many of Hermen Hesse's books. Beyond that, no - other then when I get enraged at some nonfiction book and their "theories."

I read titanic the book when i was 8. I think it was my first book of that length. I couldn't put it down, i stayed up way past my bed time, forgot my dinner and actualy started shivering and shaking when they were in the sea.

The only book that made me feel unwell recently was Mo Hayder's The Teatment. I only got about 1/4 way through and had to stop reading it. It was the subject matter - child killing. I have three young children and find I can't read or watch tv programmes about such things now without feeling really depressed afterwards.