Reading and listening

I had totally different experiences with the two books I just finished, listening to the first one and reading the second one in print. In fact, my experience was the opposite of what one might expect.

I listened to the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells as an abridged audiobook. For some reason I don't remember I've been wanting to read this book for a long time.
I didn't like it as much as I had hoped, though. I guess, parents who hit their children always piss me off. At the end, Vivi, Sidda's mother, still kind of has an attitude, instead of being sorry for how she had treated her daughter, not being sensitive to her needs. I didn't connect to the "divine" secrets, either. The group did stupid pranks and made up weird stories, and even though they stayed together even when they were adults, they weren't really able to help each other out where it seemed important.

I also finished reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks yesterday. Now that is a fascinating collection of true stories describing various stories of what happens if various parts of the brain do not function. It's not depressing though, but shows hope. It also shows how a caring attitude can make a big difference in bringing out the special abilities of these people and assisting them to live a good life in their sometimes very unusual worlds instead of reducing them to troublesome people with deficiencies.