Monday Books has created a new blog for Second Opinion where they will, gradually over time, publish the entire contents of the book. Obviously, they hope readers will be enticed enough to buy it.
And why not? Dalrymple’s long-running column in Spectator magazine, which forms the basis of the book, featured what has to be some of the wittiest, most profound and most entertaining short pieces ever written. These are distilled versions of his provocative encounters with his patients and are equally enjoyable by the serious student of human nature or the mindless voyeur.
This sure is a great book. You don’t know whether to laugh or cry when reading it!
Also Monday Books should take over all of his publishing, I think. Dan @ Monday: Dalrymple is being let down by proof readers of other publishers.
Do you know if the content of “Second Opinion” is different from that of “If Symptoms Persist” and “…Still Persist”?
It is different.
I would say they are very similar. Second Opinion probably has more patient interviews.
Thanks Gavin!
Flossie, the content is different from but the same as that in ISP and ISSP, in that it carries on from where those two books left off, being a further and later collection of Dalrymple’s short UK ‘Spectator’ pieces.
It begins where If Symptoms Still Persist ends, in around 1995, and collects the work up until his last regular writing for the magazine in 2010.
best
Dan Collins, Monday Books