Sacred Pain
Book review (no this will not be the adult equivalent of a book report...ugh)
Meh. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting it to be, based on the area I found the book under, and it's somewhat misleading subtitle. It's mostly a reworking of every psychological/medical/neurological theory on pain, in some ways related to ritual pain, that has been put forth to date.
Some of the subjects covered in the book, seemingly have little to nothing to do with "volutarily" hurting the body at all...things like the Inquisitions, Penal justice, and others similar. Here and there throughout the book were sections and paragraphs that got tantalizingly close to the information I was looking for, only to immediately jump back into things that I wasn't looking for. On the whole, a good book, highly educational. Just...lacking in the quest of information I was actually looking for.
On the same subject though, if the person you're going to hand it to happens to have a minimum of a bachelors degree (or PhD given todays lacksadaisical efforts at edumacation), it might be a good book to refer those in our lives who have absolutely no concept of pain as a good thing.
Oh well. It was a good read, and one day when I go back to it (because I always do) I'm sure I'll take more from it than I have over the last couple of days. And at the very least, the extensive notes and bibliography give me plenty of books that are more on target for the information I am searching for...(YAY books....Need more cases!)