"Hello everyone.
Joan I am glad you are getting over the nausea and feel no pain.
I am glad you have a wonderful support group in your family and that they are there for you.
Ruth - the medical professionals really made a mistake in their…"
 |
The World's Largest Coalition of Nontheists and Nontheist Communities!
Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto
Book Description
Publication Date: January 7, 2003
The Buddha. Rene Descartes. Emily Dickinson. Greta Garbo. Bobby Fischer. J. D. Salinger: Loners, all—along with as many as 25 percent of the world's population. Loners keep to themselves, and like it that way. Yet in the press, in films, in folklore, and nearly everywhere one looks, loners are tagged as losers and psychopaths, perverts and pity cases, ogres and mad bombers, elitists and wicked witches. Too often, loners buy into those messages and strive to change, making themselves miserable in the process by hiding their true nature—and hiding from it. Loners as a group deserve to be reassessed—to claim their rightful place, rather than be perceived as damaged goods that need to be "fixed." In Party of One Anneli Rufus -- a prize-winning, critically acclaimed writer with talent to burn -- has crafted a morally urgent, historically compelling tour de force—a long-overdue argument in defense of the loner, then and now. Marshalling a polymath's easy erudition to make her case, assembling evidence from every conceivable arena of culture as well as interviews with experts and loners worldwide and her own acutely calibrated analysis, Rufus rebuts the prevailing notion that aloneness is indistinguishable from loneliness, the fallacy that all of those who are alone don't want to be, and wouldn't be, if only they knew how.
http://www.amazon.com/Party-One-The-Loners-Manifesto/dp/1569245134
I am buying this book from Amazon. Along with a bunch of others on my list.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Steph S. on -
From Publishers Weekly
In this compendium of everyone who was anyone who ever spent a moment alone, readers bump fleetingly into Kurt Cobain, French Resistance fighters, the Lone Ranger ("Tonto notwithstanding"), Michelangelo, Alexander Pope, John Lennon, cowboys, Saint Anthony and other solo acts. Rufus, the books editor of East Bay Express, views Degas's plain-faced dancers as "pretty ballerinas" whom the artist leaves every time he exits his studio, and Warhol's biography as "tellingly titled Loner at the Ball." She chases her motif, not so much a manifesto as a cri de coeur, through an assortment of perspectives: religion, advertising, clothes, crime, art, eccentricity, environment, literature, religion and popular culture. She also identifies "pseudoloners" like Theodore Kaczynski and Jesus Christ (who "was too good at guiding crowds to have been one of us"). There's an us/them tone to this book that makes one wonder who the audience might be. The "us" people "do not need writers to tell us how lovely apartness is"; the "them" people will surely weary of being identified as "Nonloners. The world at large. The mob." Taken in column-sized doses, Rufus may be entertaining and informative, but her book feels as if too much random information has been cut-and-pasted together.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. -
-
Permalink Reply by Jonathan Simeone on -
Are you suggesting that I'm not a loser or psychopath? My whole identity has just been stripped away. However will I survive? :) On a serious note, this looks like an interesting book. I'll have to see if it's available in an accessible format. Lastly, and this might be better off as a discussion topic, I'm not lonely but I do think I'd be more social if people were smarter and less irritating. What do all of you think?
-
-
Permalink Reply by Steph S. on
-
Hi Jonathan. I'm always happy when you reply to my discussions. Yes I think I would talk to more people if they were intelligent and weren't shallow and only thought of themselves. Most people only think about themselves .. It's irritating ... Really.
-
-
Permalink Reply by Jonathan Simeone on
-
Selfishness is the route of most of the world's problems. I'm a loner by choice. There just aren't many people that interest me.
-
CONNECT WITH ATHEIST NEXUS
Latest Activity
- Top News
- Everything
Steph S. replied to Ruth Anthony-Gardner's discussion Oklahoma Tornado in the group Hang With Friends"Wow - what a photo."
Two Cult Survivor commented on Two Cult Survivor's blog post My first funeral as an atheist"Well said. And let me add that I am not really upset with my brother. I am upset at how religion has robbed from him the recognition that we lost something really great, for good.
Hate the religion, not the religious.
"
booklover commented on Steph S.'s group Birding, Birders and all things Birds"That Hawk-Headed Parrot is really cool looking!"
booklover replied to booklover's discussion Even More FB Finds..."lol Sentient, I thought the jesus-pottymouth was funny too. :)"
booklover commented on Ruth Anthony-Gardner's group Hang With Friends"Joan, I'm so glad the meds took care of your nausea, and you have your terrific family helping you!
Hi Jessica! I forgot about that term "chemo brain" until you mentioned it.
Carl, Yes, a lot of planes from O'Hare are…"
© 2013 Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: Richard Haynes.
