What fiction would you want T to read?

What fiction would you want T to read in order to better understand you and/or to become a better T for you?

Thanks!

oooh I like this question.

Stories about not really fitting in or fitting a socially acceptable category seem to appeal to me.

Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (I'm not Dominican or male yet the book strikes a chord!)

Clan of the Cave Bear Jean M Auel

Female SF, it is broad minded and cover a broad spectrum of ideas and belifs outside the main stream. It usually as a point or two about the sociological mess humans get into, from a different POV.

Regular SF too. Mystery to flex their detective skills and. ( oh, never mind the rest was non fiction)

Tom Stoppard plays and Catch-22.
And The Importance of Being Earnest.

The Unnamed - Joshua Ferris
My Russian - Deirdre McNamer
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith - Nora Gallagher
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
About A Boy - Nick Hornby
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami

The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde - Free Ebook

You can download The Importance of Being Earnest for free from the Project Gutenberg website (Lots of free book downloads!)

"Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo and, if he hasn't, Charles Dickens "Great Expectations".

Clan of the Cave Bear was awesome. Plus Harry Potter because he was from a 'normal'family and didn't fit in and found other people who he could fit in with and appreciated his talents

T understood me before I understood myself. Think it was me that needed to read a book.

Any fiction except scifi.

Perks of Being a Wallflower

I also have to say Harry Potter! For me, it's because I understand Harry's longing for a father figure (Remus, Sirius, Dumbledore), and how eventually he has to stand on his own. I think there are so many metaphors for life (such as having to think happy thoughts when confronting dementors). But I also love the character of Dumbledore, and almost see him as a therapist. My T was my Dumbledore, but she didn't read the books so couldn't possibly understand what that means.

Thanks! Does any fiction come to mind that helped you understand yourself?

How to - Rubiks Cube

I recently read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides on T's recommendation. Some of it rang very true for me, some did not, but I am glad I read it and we have had some good discussions about it.

People who grew up reading a lot, in particular SF and fantasy, should read Jo Walton's Among Others. So many people I know, myself included, see parts of their own childhood and young-adulthood in it. I might recommend it to T. :-)

For me, I'd say it's more of a fictional character than a specific book. It's say Jilly from the Newford stories by Charles DeLint. If I have to narrow it down to a single book, it's Onion Girl.

Ooh more to add to my booklist.

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler

It's similar to David Copperfield or Great Expectations except that he isnt an orphan, he deals with his own father thruout the book. Finally taking responsibility at the end. I wish i had read it back when i read Dickens, in later elementary school.

Haruki Murakami - The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
all Dostoevsky
A couple of Greek poets, esp. Elytis
The libretto from the opera 'Cunning Little Vixen' by Janacek
Marcel Proust - Remembrance of Things Past
Borges - Ficciones
Seferis - Six nights on the Acropolis
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain, and many many more...

We have used Dostoievskij a couple of times in the past. Also Dickens and Austen, and some poetry.
It really helps to have a T who has at least partly the same taste in books (I don't think he reads SF at all, but nobody is perfect.) Both of us are prone to making references to passages in books in our discussions.

It does help me to see a well read therapist. The second one is well read and does understand a lot more. The first is practically, from what I have gleaned, illiterate and could not get a literary reference if her life depended upon it. It is much more difficult for that one to understand me.

Back when I still saw her in person and I was sharing my poetry with her all the time, I wanted her to read some Robert Frost poems so I loaned her one of my RF books so she could. He's one of my favorite poets. (I have a lot of favorites though.) I don't know if she actually read any of them. There was a sticky note bookmarking a page when she gave it back to me, so I'm guessing she read at least one. (It was one that I know by heart and had recited to her one day, probably verifying that I recited it correctly, knowing her! ahaha) Sigh, I am going to miss that lady.

Actually, my T and I are very similar in our literary tastes. What I would really like him to do to understand me better is to listen intently to classical choral works. The place we have the biggest disconnect is that he doesn't really understand how intensely my love for music goes. He thinks he does, but he really doesn't. He isn't a musician, and without that deep understanding, he is missing a major part of what makes me who I am, what feeds my soul. Of course, I also know that is a disconnect that will always be for someone without a music background. I'm used to that. Non-musicians really don't get musicians.

Luckily, my T is very well-read and we both agree that Art in general is a huge part of our lives and consequently a means of us communicating on a deeper level...

Wow - i dont even know what "not a musician" is! Even my mother pretends to like music. It would be like saying - oh, oxygen: i can take it or leave it!