psycho book review

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A Full Examination of Robert Bloch’s ‘Psycho’ (Review)

Posted on November 17, 2012 in Authors A-L // 11 Comments

Written by: Matt Molgaard

Alfred Hitchcock’s classic picture, Psycho still stands as one of the most memorable viewing experiences any genre fan can possibly undergo. The mood of the film far surpasses simple bleakness, and the impact that Anthony Perkins’ performance delivers is a once in a lifetime magic. You just don’t see productions so seamlessly assembled on a regular basis. Janet Leigh and Vera Miles both did a bang up job as the Crane sisters and Martin Balsam made a fine Arbogast. As a whole, Psycho has rightfully earned recognition as one of the greatest films ever shot.

To learn that Robert Bloch’s original novel of the same name is actually a superior source of entertainment was just about baffling. Don’t get me wrong, I tend to prefer the depth of a novel over that of a movie, but considering how masterful I consider Hitchcock’s work to be, I still found some surprise in this specific discovery.

I suppose spoilers don’t really need to be considered: about 99 percent of horror followers have seen Alfred’s 1960 telling. It’s simply one of those movies. If you’ve made the conscious acknowledgment that horror is for you, then you know that Psycho is mandatory viewing. No two ways about it.

So, you all likely know that Norman Bates is a semi-neurotic fellow with a nasty case of dissociative identity disorder. This lunatic can’t decide if he’s little, defenseless Norman, grown, rational Norman, or his deceased mother, Norma. The guy is an out of control head case, and all the demons bouncing around in his skull find a sudden means of escape when Mary Crane stumbles into his life, and motel room, looking for a place to crash before continuing on in her journey to see her fiancée, Sam Loomis.

Huge praise goes out to the late Bloch, who paints Norman a sympathetic character, haunted by issues that seem well beyond his full understanding. There’s no difficulty in despising the story’s villain, but a strong sense of sadness is affixed to Bates, and that leaves room for sympathy. Bates is indeed a bad guy, but he’s unorthodox in the sense that he’s not an outright malicious fellow. Here we see a perfect mesh of distinct idiosyncrasies that leave readers stuck on the fence: do I hate this bastard, or do I feel deeply sorry for him?

As for the key plot points, you’re likely aware, Mary’s lifted a sizable load of cash from her employer, and she’s made a mad dash out of town. It just so happens she ended up in the worst possible place: The Bates Motel.

Alone, save for the internal voices that plague him, Norman takes to drinking, and finds himself quite conflicted, as he eyes Mary getting in the shower, through a peephole he himself has aligned. Overcome by a cruel blend of anxiety, arousal and guilt, Norman snaps, and Norma surfaces. At this point readers are subjected to the brutal murder of Mary. Unlike the film – which I’m certain functioned under close eye back in 1960 – Mary isn’t stabbed to death in the shower: she’s decapitated.

One of the most endearing elements of the novel comes in the extent of difference between details unveiled in the picture, and those that Bloch drops on the page. What’s so special you ask? The striking similarities, that’s what is so special: Hitchcock played remarkably faithful to the original novel, and when you get your hands on this book for the first time, the occasional twist in the telling feels strangely profound, yet one never loses sight of how little adjusting Hitchcock applied to the story. Major swings simply weren’t called for, and the end result is a film and a novel that share a small handful of insanely minor modifications.

Sometimes nearly no difference makes all the difference in the world.

You already know where this story is headed: Mary’s sister Lila, accompanied by Sam launch their own brand of investigation, with the help of hard-nosed investigator, Milton Arbogast. After extensive search, Arbogast is able to follow Mary’s trail straight to the steps of the Bates Motel, and the socially awkward Norman Bates.

Arbogast’s skills in detection prove to, ironically, be his undoing. The man’s presence and pressure leaves Norman completely unhinged, and that just doesn’t fly with the motel owner. A blade puts a temporary end to Norman’s troubles, and sends the investigator on a trip into the other world. But disposing of a figure of this nature only manages to draw greater attention to the recluse.

Before long Sam and Lila have put Bates in a corner. Armed with proof (a bloody earring missed by Norman while cleaning Mary’s motel room), the two attempt to once more bring the law (previous attempt at convincing the local sheriff have proven fruitless) into the fold. Bates isn’t having it however, he’s intent on maintaining his freedom, and if that means killing a few pesky civilians, so be it. But these two are resilient, and thanks to the sheriff, who’s finally come around and begun to suspect Bates, the odd man is overwhelmed and taken into custody.

But not before readers learn the full truth of Norma Bates, and a few more of the secrets her son Norman still has tucked up his sleeves.

Norma is indeed a corpse. She’s long gone, and has been since committing supposed suicide with her lover (an event that transpired twenty years prior to these specific events). But Norman’s hobbies, particularly his affinity for taxidermy, help propel him to make a gruesome decision: see long ago, after suffering a mental break following his mother’s death and subsequently being admitted to a psychiatric outlet, Norman dug his deceased mother from the earth and the coffin she rest.

The man did what could be done in regards to further physical preservation, and he’s found some measure of solace in Norma’s returned presence. That same solace eventually gives complete life to the two additional personalities (Little Norman and Norma) we meet in the early stages of the story.

In a sense, Norman drives himself insane.

He and his mother had always maintained a strange relationship. His mother was not only a woman of the hindering kind: she completely suffocated the young man. A strange incestuous connection between the two is alluded to in the story, but Bloch never hits readers with cold hard facts: were the two intimate in any way? We’ll never know without doubt. But Bloch certainly lays a strong enough foundation to build that theory.

So then, why bring the same woman that’s held you back your entire life, back to life, after she’s hit the grave, a cold lifeless mound of rubbery flesh?

Because apparently, Norman was destined to live the life of a lunatic, incapable of acquainting himself with anything remotely near normalcy.

After Bates is taken into custody, he finds himself back at the psych ward. Some may label this justice anything but fit, but I’m inclined to believe that Bloch did a fine enough job illustrating Bates and his personality issues to render sympathy. Prison isn’t fitting for a man of this nature. Norman Bates needed serious psychological help.

In the book’s waning moments, before we learn a bit more of Norma’s death, we’re gifted the chance to see that even Lila, as victimized as she may have ultimately been, is willing to accept Bates’ incarceration within the hospital rather than a prison. She understands the level of insanity the man deals with, and she enforces the outline of Bates’ personality conundrum that Bloch in Psycho’s early goings.

We’re never entirely sure what to make of this man, but he’s a sad, sad case… unmistakably sad.

As for Norma’s specific history, and the details of her death, well that’s a revelation told so well on page that I cannot bring myself to spell it all out for you. It’s about the best finale this story could offer, this look back at “The Making of Norman Bates”, if you will. And as you read the facts in print, you’ll come to admire such a ballsy approach. Robert Bloch took some risks here, and they paid off, in a big way.

Rating : 5/5

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6 comments on a full examination of robert bloch’s ‘psycho’ (review).

Fantastic stuff, Matt.

Finished the book the day before yesterday. “Sometimes nearly no difference makes all the difference in the world.” And that was what made me enjoy the book so much!

The film is far more smart than this mediocre novel.

I would disagree. Novel keeps me completely glued to the page.

wonderful novel and movie. Both great classics in there own right.

I TINA LOUISE EDMONDSTONE/TINELOUISE STANIMIROVITCH/TINA LOUISE BURNS KILLED MR:ALFRED HOTCHCOCK IN 1980 I WAS BORN IN 1975-I DRAGGED HIM TO A BATH-TUB THERE WAS NO OWATER, HE SAI DON ME LEAVINIG “YOU EVIL BITCH GO TO GOD!” GO OTTAMAN WHO YOU SLIVERED IN HERE IN FAKE LUX FLAKE SOAP BETWEEN YOUR NASA PROBE TISSUE I INSERTED SOME FLAVOURING’S, SOME CATHEDAH’S, MADE OF HERMANTHA, SOME WATERY FLACKSEED, SOME TISSUE DIVIDER’S OF GRASSED WHEAT-FLAKES, MADE OF MANDERINE APPLE YOUR TISSUE EXPLODED BETWEEN THE VIENS OF YOUR HUMAN BODY TISSUE YOUR TENDON’S GAVE CALOUSES OF WRITTEN FLINGUEASHi was 5 years old in 1980 when you died, you-anthemend-does your tendon in hospital’s of world your blood bruising inside your human cavaties of your brains cavity sad, i got your white creamy eye’s induced to vomit in transluesant frineds

5 Trackbacks / Pingbacks

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Book review: psycho: a novel – author robert bloch.

Trish Martin 12/26/2010 Book Reviews

Author Robert Bloch Published by Overlook TP Publication Date: 2010 Format: Black /White – 208 pages Price: $13.95

A girl stops in for the night at an out of the way motel on a remote stretch of road. She seems frazzled and a little road weary but converses politely with the motel clerk before heading to her room. After some time to reflect on her plans she readies herself for a nice hot shower. She begins to relax under the warm stream of the shower head and is caught off guard when the slashing knife of a killer ultimately drains her of life. Does this plot seem familiar? It should because it is the premise for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” which is arguably one of the overall best suspense thrillers in history and way ahead of its time. But where did the idea come from? What mind created this dark and riveting story? Author Robert Bloch penned Psycho in novel form back in 1959, just a year before its theatrical debut.

Though I was very familiar with the movie when I discovered this book in my grandmother’s attic, I was ready to explore the pages and do a little comparing and contrasting between the novel and the movie. Most book-to-movie adaptations will have some obvious differences including a deeper look into the minds and motives of the characters therefore creating a better understanding of each character. This is very true of Robert Bloch’s Psycho in that you can empathize with Mary, the girl on the run with a load of cash, and her need to get her and her boyfriend’s lives on a better track. You also find yourself pulled into Norman Bates’, the motel owner/clerk whose overbearing mother has a tight grip on him, misery and disdain for his mother’s treatment of him.

Aside from the obvious differences that you would find between the book and the movie you also find the difference in the description of Norman Bates. In the movie of course he is played by Anthony Perkins who is tall and thin but in the book he is described as fat and middle-aged with glasses. In the book Norman is very well read and quite intelligent and seems to have quite a grasp on the psychology of human behavior which makes it all the more interesting to see his psychosis progress. Although he is protective of his home and his mother he is a little more relaxed in his behavior in the book when he lets Mary into his home to eat dinner rather than eating in the motel office. We also find, in the book, that Norman drinks when he is unnerved, inevitably leading into the blackouts that transform him into his mother.

You, as a reader, will also become more familiar with the other characters in the book like Mary, Lila, Sam, Arborghast, and even the sheriff who becomes a bigger presence in the story. Mary’s character is one to empathize with and soon understand her reasoning behind taking the money plus her ultimate shame and regret at doing so. Lila is of course the concerned sister who will stop at nothing to find Mary and uncover what has really happened to her. Sam, Mary’s fiancée, is a character to root for; he is a man that works hard and stands by his principals and even in the face of uncertainty at his engagement feels ashamed of second guessing the woman he loves. Arborghast is the hard nosed insurance investigator that is hot on the trail to find Mary and recover the stolen money; he finds himself face-to-face with Norman and a hunch that something is awry at the Bates Motel.

The violence in the novel is much harsher than that in the movie; instead of merely being stabbed by the killer Mary is decapitated, a pretty horrid way to die if you ask me. At the time in which the movie was made I imagine that the decapitation of a pretty young female would not have been very well received so I can understand why the death scene was “cut-down”.

If you like Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”, then you will more than likely enjoy the book as well. There are enough differences in the book to keep it from becoming a stagnant transcript of the movie. It is an easy and enjoyable read that is very hard to put down. It’s also based on Ed Gein, a Wisconsin serial killer whom you may already be quite familiar with and is even mentioned at the end of the novel. I would definitely recommend this book to take to bed with you at night just before you turn the lights out. While it may not give you nightmares it will certainly get your mind working and thinking about the psychology of serial killers. My final note is that if you read this book then I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Available at OVERLOOK PRESS Available at Amazon

Tags Psycho: A Novel Robert Bloch

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One comment.

Great review. Big Robert Bloch fan here. If anyone even has a passing interest in Bloch’s writing then you HAVE to check out this article. It’s full of great information and it’s passionately written too. Robert Bloch is such an amazing writer.

http://www.aarondries.com/apps/blog/show/13547984-pay-no-attention-to-that-man-behind-the-curtain-on-forgetting-robert-bloch

Book Review: Psycho by Robert Bloch

POPSUGAR Reading Challenge Prompt: A novel based on a real person . Brief synopsis : Mary's tired of the subpar life she...

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Before ‘Bates Motel’: ‘Psycho’ (1959) (Book review)

Welcome to a new series where I look back at the books and movies of the “Psycho” franchise before its revival in “Bates Motel,” one of the best TV shows of the decade, which will conclude its five-season run this month.

Let’s start at the beginning with Robert Bloch’s novel “Psycho” (1959). At 125 pages, it can be breezed through in a few sittings. Although it was popular enough to come to the attention of Alfred Hitchcock, whose movie adaptation came out a mere year later, it apparently wasn’t so popular that it spoiled the famous twists.

Bloch’s “Psycho” is a character study of Norman Bates; a dime-store novel crash course in psychopathy, split personalities and transvestites; and also much more of a mystery than the film or TV incarnations. Since it’s not a visual medium, a 1959 reader would naturally assume that Norman is truly talking to Mother (not named Norma until late in the book). Then when it’s revealed in the final pages that she is a taxidermied corpse, a reader would go back and see subtle hints. I bet Bloch fooled most readers.

Bates is superficially different from later portrayals – he’s 40 and fat, and he drinks hard liquor when he gets upset. He is also his own psychologist in a way: Being a voracious reader (he loves to escape into the world of books, including those about personality disorders), he has a good grasp of how his overbearing Mother has warped him. Or rather, one of his three identities has a good grasp of that. As a psychologist reveals in the epilogue, he is split into Norman, Norma and “Normal.” In a portrayal also seen in “Bates Motel,” the third one is aware enough of the other two personalities to act normal in front of other people.

Norman Bates comes from Bloch’s imagination, but the author does throw in a reference to “the (Ed) Gein affair up north” (p. 118), perhaps anticipating that critics would make the comparison. (One of the things I’m looking forward to in “Bates Motel” is seeing if Chick, who has been taking notes on Norman’s behavior, writes a novel called “Psycho.”)

Hitchcock’s famous trick of having Marion Crane (Mary Crane in the book) seem like the main character until she’s killed at the end of the first act isn’t found in the book. The first chapter starts with Norman. Ultimately, Norman shares main-character status with two interested parties who are looking for Mary: Her sister, Lila, and her boyfriend, Sam Loomis.

As in all incarnations, Mary steals the money ($40,000 in hundred- and thousand-dollar bills here) from her boss on a crazy whim and drives many hours to meet her boyfriend. In the film, Sam is hesitant to move on after his separation; in the TV show, he’s an outright womanizer. In Bloch’s telling, like a hero from one of Philip K. Dick’s non-sci-fi novels of the era, Sam is an unabashed good guy who runs a hardware store, determined to pay off the debt racked up by his dad and run an above-board business. He accidentally kisses Lila when he first sees her – mistaking her for Mary – but everything’s chaste after that. Somewhat helped by a private investigator and the Fairvale sheriff, Sam and Lila are ultimately the main investigators of Bates, because they have the personal stake of looking for Mary.

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Considering the iconography of the Bates Motel and the house on the hill above it, it’s interesting to note a couple things. First, the layout of the grounds: Bloch has a road running between the two buildings, then curving behind the house. A swamp at the back of the property is where Norman dumps the bodies and cars (The lake is farther down the highway in the TV show). And the house seems to be on a slight rise, not towering above the motel. Bloch colloquially uses the term “up” for all directions (Norman goes “up” to the house, but also “up” to the motel). But the film’s portrayal obviously won the day, as the house-and-motel image is featured on the cover of the 1993 “Three Complete Novels” collection; unavoidably, this is what I saw in my mind’s eye.

The inside of the house seems familiar, though, as Bloch illustrates that the décor hasn’t been updated in a half-century. As such, it has turn-of-the-20th-century stylings. The P.I. notes that there’s not even a TV in the house, placing Bloch’s book amid the affordable-TV boom. This concept was continued (but moved forward in time) in “Bates Motel,” with the house looking like it’s stuck in the mid-20th century; Norma gets a flatscreen TV at one point, irritating Norman.

The second oddity about the Bates property: It’s bizarre that this iconic location isn’t definitively set in a certain place. From context clues, I place the book’s Fairvale in south-central Kansas, but “Kansas” doesn’t appear anywhere in the text. I had thought it was in Oklahoma through most of my read, until Bloch makes reference to Oklahoma being south of Fairvale. Hitchcock moved the house and motel to California, and the TV show moved it to Oregon and renamed the town White Pine Bay. Mary/Marion drives up from Texas in the book, up from Arizona in the film and down from Seattle in the TV show.

The book’s epilogue is a bit odd, as Sam breathlessly recounts to Lila what he learned from the psychologist. Becoming Bloch’s surrogate, Sam’s fascination with Norman’s addled mind has trumped the fact that his girlfriend was killed in horrific fashion. After hearing the tale, Lila notes: “And right now, I can’t even hate Bates for what he did.” That rings a bit false to me.

Still, it’s understandable that this was a fascinating read in 1959, as many of the concepts were fresh. (On page 120, Sam asks Lila, “You know what a transvestite is, don’t you?” That’s a line that wouldn’t appear in a modern book for multiple reasons.) It’s structurally savvy, too, as Bloch will reveal something, such as the investigator’s POV of his conversation with Bates, then take a step back in the next chapter, where we get Norman’s perspective of the conversation. This staggered momentum creates tension.

Additionally, he parses out information on Bates lushly but sparingly, leading to the final clincher where he totally embraces the Mother persona — just as Norman believes Mother is the murderer, Mother believes Norman is.

Fans of “Bates Motel” might be curious what Bloch devised for Norman’s formative years. In the book, Norman lethally poisons his mom and her lover, Joe Consadine, 20 years in the past. (In the book, Joe and Norma built the motel, rather than purchasing it, as per “Bates.”) In the TV show, he gasses Norma and her husband, Sheriff Romero. In “Bates Motel,” Norman is responsible for several murders, starting with that of his father, who is barely mentioned in the book as a man who split up with Norma long ago.

In Bloch’s novel, a reader might assume that Mary is Norman’s first victim since his mom and Joe Consadine. However, it’s not explicitly stated, and the author leaves the door open for more wrongdoings in the past. On page 118, the media “tried their damnedest to make out that Norman Bates had been murdering motel visitors for years. They called for a complete investigation of every missing person case in the entire area for the past two decades, and urged the entire swamp be drained to see if it would yield more bodies. But then, of course, the newspaper writers didn’t have to foot the bill for such a project.”

Just as Bloch’s “newspaper writers” were fascinated by Bates’ backstory, so were TV writers a half-century later, leading to “Bates Motel.”

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Home » Review: Psycho by Robert Bloch

Review: Psycho by Robert Bloch

Publisher’s Description

The story was all too real—indeed this classic was inspired by the real-life story of Ed Gein, a psychotic murderer who led a dual life. Alfred Hitchcock too was captivated, and, the year after it was released, he turned the book into one of the most-loved horror films of all time.

Norman Bates loves his Mother. She has been dead for the past twenty years, or so people think. Norman knows better though. Ever since leaving the hospital, he has lived with Mother in the old house up on the hill above the Bates Motel. One night, after a beautiful woman checks into the motel, Norman spies on her as she undresses. Norman can’t help but spy on her. Mother is there though. She is there to protect Norman from his filthy thoughts. She is there to protect him with her butcher knife.

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As an admirer of Alfred Hitchcock’s work, with a habit formed during my college days, I frequently indulge in the director’s cinematic gems. Earlier this year, I revisited The Birds and Psycho for what feels like the hundredth time. On this occasion, I recalled that Psycho was originally a novel penned by Robert Bloch, a book I’d yet to explore. I decided to rectify this oversight, and I must say, I’m thrilled that I did.

Bloch’s Psycho is an unnerving, pulse-pounding, riveting journey, which, despite its brevity at 227 pages, delivers a powerful impact.

The narrative closely mirrors the film adaptation we’re all familiar with. Norman Bates, oppressed by his mother’s memory, plays the protagonist whose life revolves around the dilapidated Bates Motel and the eerie house above it, where he continues to live with “Mother”, despite her death two decades prior.

When a beautiful woman checks into the motel, Norman is drawn to her, leading to him spying on her, a transgression he cannot help. Yet, his ever-present Mother is there to guard him against his ‘sordid’ desires with her butcher knife.

The novel offers an expanded exploration of Norman’s tortured psyche and his convoluted relationship with his domineering mother. It delves deeper into the lives of Mary Crane (renamed Marion in Hitchcock’s adaptation), her lover Sam Loomis (portrayed by John Gavin in the film), and Mary’s sister, Lila Crane (Vera Miles). It paints a hauntingly unsettling picture of a man unravelled by his mother’s tyranny.

Although Hitchcock’s film skillfully reflects Norman’s fractured mental state during his encounter with Mary Crane, the book lends a much deeper understanding of the character’s motivations. This could potentially dilute the allure of the cinematic version as it relies heavily on the mystery surrounding Norman’s actions until the climactic reveal. But the movie is more than sixty years old now, so that shouldn’t be too big of a hurdle to overcome.

Upon reading the novel, I’ve developed a newfound respect for Robert Bloch as an author, an individual who I feel has been underrated. I thoroughly enjoyed Psycho and recommend it for fans of Hitchcock’s films and those who appreciate a thrilling, psychologically intense read.

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A Guide to Robert Bloch’s Psycho Trilogy

When you hear the word Psycho , the first two names that come to mind are likely Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Perkins. The film was released in 1960, and it was so masterfully directed by Hitchcock and the character of Norman Bates was so artfully portrayed by Perkins that they seem to be the originators of the franchise. With Freddie Highmore currently playing a teenage Norman in the hit television series Bates Motel , it’s conceivable that a younger generation will come to think of him as the true Norman. It’s understandable, but unfair to the real progenitor— Robert Bloch .

Bloch’s novel Psycho was published in 1959 by Simon & Schuster, loosely based on real-life serial killer Ed Gein. For those who haven’t read the book, allow me to give a synopsis. Consider this your warning: I am about to spoil the whole shebang, sequels and all.

Mary Crane steals $40,000 from the real estate company where she works in order to help her boyfriend Sam Loomis pay off his debts. She flees from her home with the money in hand, and after a long drive, she pulls into the Bates Motel to rest for the night. She meets the proprietor Norman Bates, an awkward but harmless-seeming fellow, and agrees to have a bite to eat with him. Norman’s mother, Norma, who is supposedly bed-ridden in their house on the hill, grows jealous and attacks Mary with a knife while she is in the shower, killing her. At Norma’s behest, Norman cleans up the mess and moves on as if nothing has ever happened. It is not long, though, before Sam Loomis, Mary’s sister Lila, and a private investigator named Arbogast start poking around the motel, looking for the truth. The truth, as we learn by the novel’s end, is that Norma died long ago, and her corpse is being kept in the house by Norman, a decidedly unwell man. Unable to cope with the loss of his mother, his psyche fractured into two, and half of him became his mother, going so far as to put on her dress and wig in order to murder anyone who threatened to come between them, Mary Crane included.

Bloch’s Norman Bates was approaching middle age, balding, and overweight, sporting spectacles on his “fat face”, and was possibly an alcoholic. This is definitely a far cry from the young, unassuming Anthony Perkins that Hitchcock cast in the role, and yet anybody would be hard pressed to read the novel and not picture Perkins in the lead. Being privy to Norman’s interior thoughts on the page, we also get to know him a little better, and we learn that he is something of an armchair psychologist (much like Robert Bloch, whose non-supernatural work was often interested in the psychoses behind the horror that was unfolding)…and yet, he remained blissfully unaware that he was horribly unbalanced.

Well, maybe not completely unaware, as this exchange with his mother-half proves: “But I was only trying to explain something. It’s what they call the Oedipus situation, and I thought if both of us could just look at the problem reasonably and try to understand it, maybe things would change for the better.” Norma would have nothing of it, though, and berates him for being a “big, fat, overgrown Mamma’s Boy”.

In 1982, Bloch published Psycho II , much to the chagrin of Universal Studios, who released the completely unrelated film sequel the following year. Although both sequels follow Norman Bates upon leaving the mental hospital, in Bloch’s version, he is not released. Instead, he escapes in a most extreme fashion.

Claiborne’s suspicions seem founded when Sam Loomis and his now-wife Lila are both found stabbed to death, and they seem almost a certainty when the bodies begin piling up on the Hollywood set of Crazy Lady , a horror film based on the crimes of Norman Bates. However, the finale of the book has the charred corpse being positively identified as Norman, and the hitchhiking Bo Keeler being found alive and well. He admits only to Norman’s murder, and we soon realize that someone else has been killing in the Bates name all this time.

Bloch seems to be putting forth the theory that evil perseveres, even if its host body expires. The final scene here echoes the last scene from the first novel, with Dr. Claiborne harboring Norman Bates in place of Norman Bates harboring his mother. Claiborne is gone, and all that is left is the part of his brain who believes he is Norman.

In Psycho , we thought that it was Norma who was committing the crimes, but it turned out to be Norman. In Psycho II , we thought that it was Norman committing the crimes, but it turned out to be Dr. Claiborne. In Psycho House , we have no clue who could be committing the crimes, because all of the usual suspects are out of commission and everyone is just as likely to be guilty as the next. We come to find out, in yet another twist ending from Bloch, that it was Amy’s cohort Gibbs who has been murdering these people, tied up as he is in a scheme that would grant him control of the upcoming tourist attraction. The murders would not only seal the deal, but also bring a whole new level of infamy to the place, and in a world where a murder scene has become a tourist attraction, infamy is like a license to print your own money.

Robert Bloch’s Norman Bates lived for only 275 pages or so, but his legacy lived on, spreading his madness like a virus from one person to the next. Bloch spun this epic tale, as unlikely as it seems, without resorting to the occult—aside from a silly theory spun by one character in Psycho House —but rather explains it all through psychological reasoning and logic. Everyone, it appears, is capable of performing horrific acts of violence. Some of us do so because of serious mental illness. Others, though, are just looking for an excuse. Bloch wraps it all up nicely at the finale of his trilogy.

“[When you write your book]…remember to tell about the demons….The demons that possessed Hank Gibbs and continue to possess so many others. Greed. Avarice. The real demons that are taking over this world.”

“Let me make a suggestion,” Steiner said. “When you’re finished, maybe you can write another book, about life in the asylum.”

“No.” Steiner gestured toward the window. “Out there.”

The world is a box of Crackerjacks. We’re all just the nuts.

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“You’ve never seen Psycho !?” I cannot tell you how many times I’ve fielded this question, often awkwardly, from people of all levels of movie knowledge and interest. Up until this very moment, the answer has been an unforgivable “no,” which is typically said with a prolonged sigh. Of course, the sigh is not directed at the person asking me, but rather at myself for getting into this situation in the first place. How can someone so in love with movies have not seen Psycho ? Miraculously, I’ve been able to dodge spoilers, save for knowing that there was an iconic scene with Jamie Lee Curtis ’ mother screaming in the shower. But other than that, I was able to go into this film cold. After sinking into its swampy waters, one thing is certain: this film is an unfettered cinematic masterpiece.

By the time of Psycho ’s release in 1960, its director Alfred Hitchcock had already been nominated for four Oscars. Being nominated for such a prestigious award once is no small feat, so the fact that he didn’t make the film that he’s most associated with until this late into his career is quite impressive. Based on the popular novel by Robert Bloch and written for the screen by Joseph Stefano , this gripping psychological thriller has a premise that is simultaneously simple and complex.

A Simple Yet Complex Premise

The film opens with Marion Crane, played with delicacy by Janet Leigh , who is spending time in a hotel room with the roguishly charming Sam ( John Gavin ), her friends-with-benefits style partner, on her lunch break. She returns to work at the Phoenix real estate office, and is instructed to bring $40,000 cash to the bank safe deposit box. After fending off obnoxious advances from their company’s new client, she tells her boss, Mr. Lowery ( Vaughn Taylor ), that she’d like to go straight home from the bank due to her headache, which we learn fairly quickly that she doesn’t have. She heads home and packs her suitcase for a weekend trip to Sam’s in California. Rather than going to the bank to lock up that wad of cash, she stows it away in her bag and hits the road. And just like that, our protagonist is on the run. After a close call with a skeptical cop and a detour at a car dealership where she abruptly trades in her car, Marion encounters a brutal rainstorm. Exhausted by her day and her swirling emotions, she reluctantly pulls into a remote motel for the evening that is run by the seemingly-benign and boyish Norman Bates ( Anthony Perkins ). Spoiler alert, this guy is bad news.

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There are a myriad of reasons as to why this film works so brilliantly and its horror elements endure over 60 years later. Sure, the creepy mansion adjacent to the run-down motel, coupled with the gloomy evening storm is inherently freaky and timeless. But Psycho is laced with so much subtlety and attention to detail, instantly elevating the film beyond these set pieces. Before any actors appear on-screen, we are introduced to composer and long-time Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann ’s methodical, string-heavy score, which drops like an anvil over the title sequence. The way the precise time of day is spelled out across the screen (“two forty-three p.m.”), rather than being abbreviated numerically, is extremely unsettling. It’s no question that what is about to unfold is going to be a psychological tour-de-force, even if it takes us a while to get there.

Minute Details Add to the Eeriness

The Bates family talking to each other in 'Psycho.'

Every minute detail and artistic decision Hitchcock makes contributes to the film’s eeriness, though it’s Leigh and Perkins’ captivating performances that turn this into the terrifying tale so entrenched in Hollywood history. Leigh’s calculated and restrained execution of her strong-willed character gives the audience a sense of security, which makes her untimely demise all the more shocking. Perkins strikes a nearly impossible balance between playing “sweet” and “something’s off,” keeping the audience on their toes. He never appears too innocent or acts overtly menacing, which makes each line delivery and the slightest disposition change very revealing. When Marion says in passing that Norman’s extensive taxidermy bird collection in his parlor is a “curious” and “strange” hobby, he innocently explains, “Well, it’s–it’s more than a hobby. A hobby’s supposed to pass the time, not fill it.” Norman’s cheery expression slips into a dark place when Marion questions his mother’s domineering ways. Neither Leigh or Perkins, nor anyone in this tight ensemble, dips into melodrama, which in turn puts more weight behind each character's words and actions.

Amazingly, there is also not an ounce of fat on this script. Every word is deliberate, adding to and progressing the story forward. In addition to the taxidermy dialogue mentioned above, there are a number of lines that you not only hear, but can actually feel . The way Norman attempts to casually insert an “anyway” into the conversation hints at his social-awkwardness and overall insecurity. “Well, a son is just a poor substitute for a lover,” and “We all go a little mad sometimes” are just two examples of chilling line reads saddled with acute emotional baggage screaming to be unpacked. But, to Hitchcock and Stefano’s credit, the meaning behind these enigmatic lines are left to our interpretation.

Summary and Study Guide

Psycho (1959) is a horror novel by Robert Bloch and the inspiration for filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock’s film of the same name, which came out one year later. While Hitchcock’s adaptation has largely eclipsed Bloch’s original in the public eye, fans of the film will recognize the basic plot and the major twists in Bloch’s novel. However, Bloch’s Norman Bates is (physically) unrecognizable from the version Anthony Perkins played on screen. Psycho is a slasher thriller that evolves into a work of psychological horror as the revelations about Norman Bates’s relationship with his mother, criminal acts, and mental health condition come to light. It is important to note, however, that Psycho is a product of its time and relies on disproven approaches to mental health that are out of favor among mental health professionals and experts. Specifically, Psycho tends to correlate mental health conditions with criminal behavior, particularly violent crime, while in fact, people with mental health conditions are far more likely to experience violent crime than to perpetrate it.

This guide references the Overlook Press paperback edition, published in 2010.

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Content Warning: This guide describes and analyzes the source text’s treatment of trauma, abuse, and mental health. The novel contains stigmatizing depictions of cross-dressing and an individual with a mental health condition, which relies on outdated and offensive tropes that connect mental health conditions with violence.

Plot Summary

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Norman Bates is a timid, middle-aged man running the Bates Motel on the rural outskirts of a small town called Fairvale. Norman’s mother, Norma, is a domineering and puritanical woman who still governs Norman’s life, even though he is 40. Norman blames his mother for not selling the motel before the state built a new highway, leaving the motel starving for business. On a stormy night, Norman argues with Norma, who berates him for being spineless and taking no initiative in life. Feeling deflated, Norman puts his mother to bed and turns on the motel’s sign to attract passing travelers.

Lost after taking a wrong turn off the highway, Mary Crane stumbles upon the Bates motel. Mary is on the run after stealing $40,000 from her boss, Mr. Lowry. Mary spent her young adulthood caring for her ailing mother, while her sister, Lila, went to college. After their mother’s death, the sisters moved in together, and Mary went on a cruise. On the ship, Mary met Sam Loomis , and the two fell in love and became engaged. However, Sam will not marry Mary until he pays off the debts he inherited from his father, which should take two more years. In the meantime, they live far apart. Mary plans to use the stolen money to pay off Sam’s debts so they can start their life together. As Mary drives, her resolve begins to waver and she decides to take a room at the Bates Motel to think things over.

Norman is awkward, yet friendly. He does not seem threatening, so Mary accepts his invitation to dinner at his house, which is behind the motel. Mary is astonished by the house’s interior, which looks frozen in time from the previous century. Norman describes his difficult relationship with his mother, and when Mary suggests he take control of his life and get his mother psychiatric help, Norman loses his temper. He insists his mother is sane, blaming himself for ruining her mother’s life and feeling indebted to her. Norman apologizes for his outburst, and Mary excuses herself back to her room, which is next to the office. While Norman watches her through a peephole in the office, Mary resolves to return the stolen money. With this weight off her conscience, she takes a shower. An old woman enters the bathroom, but Mary doesn’t see her until it is too late. The intruder kills and decapitates Mary with a knife.

Norman’s conversation with Mary leaves him shaken. In the hotel office, he gets drunk, recalling how his mother threatened to kill Mary when he put her to bed that night. Norman passes out from the whiskey. When he wakes up, he discovers Mary’s body. He contemplates turning Norma in to the police but decides against it. Norman puts Mary’s body in her car and submerges it in a nearby swamp. He cleans the crime scene as thoroughly as he can. He finds one of Mary’s earrings but not its mate and assumes the other is still in Mary’s ear.

Sam Loomis sits in the office at his hardware store in Fairvale, calculating sales and thinking about Mary. A visitor knocks at the door, and Sam kisses her, mistaking her for Mary. He realizes his error: The visitor is Lila Crane , Mary’s sister. Lila explains that she has not heard from Mary since she left home without warning a week ago. The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Milton Arbogast, a private investigator that Mr. Lowry’s firm hired to investigate the missing $40,000. Arbogast grills Sam and Lila until he is convinced they are not accomplices to the theft. Lila wants to report Mary missing, but Arbogast asks for 24 hours to follow up on final leads. Lila and Sam spend an anxious day waiting for Arbogast to call, wondering how well they really know Mary. Arbogast calls, saying he followed Mary’s trail to the Bates Motel. He plans to question the old woman he saw in the house’s window. They do not hear from him again.

Norman shaves, thinking of his relationship with his mother. Sometimes he feels like two people, reduced to a child when confronted by Norma. Norman has had to act as an adult to keep them both safe. He spends an uneventful afternoon in the motel office until Arbogast arrives. The detective questions Norman, tricking him into admitting he had dinner with Mary. Arbogast declares that he saw Mrs. Bates in the window and pressures Norman to allow him to question her about Mary. Reluctantly, Norman goes to the house to warn his mother. Suspiciously calm, Norma prepares to meet Arbogast. After she lets him inside, she kills him with Norman’s razor. Norman cleans up his mother’s mess, waiting until dark to roll Arbogast in a rug and dispose of him the same way he did Mary, rolling his Buick into the swamp. Norman locks Norma in the fruit cellar for her own protection and concocts a story to cover for Arbogast’s absence.

The next morning, Sam and Lila go to Sheriff Chambers, who listens to their story and guesses that Arbogast had found another clue about Mary and left town. He calls Norman, who tells him that Mary indicated she was heading to Chicago and that Arbogast left upon learning this. Further, Arbogast must have been lying about seeing Norman’s mother, who has been dead for 20 years, since she and her new husband, Joe Considine, died by suicide together. Norman was so traumatized that he spent several months hospitalized in a mental health facility. Lila discovers that Arbogast checked out of his hotel and intended to return for his bags but never did. She and Sam return to the sheriff to request a formal inquest. Chambers goes to the Bates Motel, and Norman allows him to inspect the property, but the sheriff finds nothing amiss. Unsatisfied, Lila wants to go to the motel herself. She suspects that the woman Arbogast saw in the window might have been Mary, held hostage in Norman’s house.

Sam and Lila check in to the motel under phony names as a married couple. Norman, drinking again, sees through this façade but makes no objections, even allowing them to rent the room where Mary died. Norman watches through the peephole as Lila finds Mary’s missing earring behind the shower stall, along with what Sam thinks is dried blood. Sam convinces Lila to go to the sheriff while he keeps Norman busy.

In the lobby, Norman offers Sam a drink while they talk. Sam tries to keep calm as Norman’s conversation becomes increasingly disturbing. He claims that Norma is still alive; he exhumed her body, which was in a state of suspended animation, and revived it with something akin to magic. Norman reveals that he saw Lila park the car up the road and walk to the house. Before Sam can react, Norman bashes his head with the whiskey bottle. Lila searches for Mary in Norman’s house, which is like an antique time capsule, eventually discovering the door to the fruit cellar. Inside, she finds Norma’s mummified body. Lila screams. Norman, dressed in his mother’s clothes, with makeup on his face, attacks her with a knife. Sam arrives just in time to wrest the knife from Norman’s hands.

Sam visits the psychiatric hospital sometime later for an interview with Norman’s psychiatrist and relays the information he gleaned to Lila, admitting he does not fully understand it. Norman has dissociative identity disorder, Sam reports, which splits his psyche between his child and adult selves and his mother. He adopted his mother’s persona after he murdered her and Joe Considine. “Norma” surfaced whenever Norman felt threatened. This seems to give Lila closure; she believes that Norman has suffered more than any of them. Later, in Norman’s cell, Norma’s personality assimilates into Norman’s other personalities. Norma sits perfectly still to show she is harmless; she blames Norman for the murders. She lets a fly crawl on her. Norma would not even hurt a fly.

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American Psycho Book Discussion - Spoilers

This may be a stream of consciousness:

Just finished American Psycho and I am pretty confused within myself. Aside from the killings, I thought I liked Patrick, but now I think I hate him, or maybe I like him? Is he an adult Holden Caulfield?

On the killings - I'm assuming only some of them happened since Paul Owen is supposed to be alive, but that could be untrue as well, since everyone confuses each other with everyone else. The story is really ambiguous. I'm really not sure what to believe when it comes to the torture and cannibalism. I can't really make a strong argument either way. I want Patrick to not have done those things, but I'm just not sure.

Questions - I was kinda confused at the ending with Jean. So did Patrick make her get an abortion? Why did he give her those baby toys and clothes?

Did the chapters about music have any value or hidden metaphors? I couldn't find any.

Lastly. I think this last line:

"this is what being Pat rick means to me"

has some sort of meaning to it, but I just can't figure it out.

Thoughts? Opinions? Related or completely unrelated to my posting, I just want to talk to someone about this book.

25 Best Psychology Books to Read in 2024

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25 best psychology books to read in 2024.

Have you ever found yourself trying to work out what mental processes lead humans to do what we do? Thanks to the internet, even in isolation we have a continual stream of information about what people are doing — and with this uniquely modern view of the world around us, we have more fodder than ever to think: “Hmm, I wonder why we do this or that?”

As a human, it’s natural to want to understand these things — not only about others, but also about yourself. In this post, we’ve put together a list of the 25 best psychology books you’ll definitely want to read to pursue that understanding! Whether you’re a beginner with a newfound interest in psychology or a seasoned psychology expert looking to branch out, we’ve got you covered.

1. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt

A professor of social psychology, Jonathan Haidt wrote The Happiness Hypothesis as an accessible vessel for his research into moral foundations theory. In this book, Haidt takes the ancient wisdom, or “Great Ideas”, of historical thinkers — like Buddha, Plato, and even Jesus — and reveals their applications in light of contemporary psychological findings.

Haidt first describes the basic meanings of ancient lessons on happiness, virtue, and personal fulfillment. This leads into what Haidt extracted from these findings to develop his own “10 Great Ideas” about happiness and connect them to modern living. After all, while ancient wisdom is tried-and-tested, it’s essential to update old methods to match modern-day life — Plato, Jesus, and Buddha never spent hours doomscrolling or procrastinating on Instagram, for example.

2. Influence : The Psychology of Persuasion (New and Expanded) by PhD Robert B. Cialdini

Influence, New and Expanded is Dr. Robert B. Cialdini’s 2021 republication of his one of his acclaimed bestselling psychology books Influence (first published in 1984) — complete with new research, examples, and insights, especially regarding the age of the internet. Backed up by his 35 years of scientific research, Cialdini describes seven practicable principles of influence you can use in your everyday life (with the newest edition being “Unity”).

Each of the seven principles has a dedicated chapter to describe how it functions, where it’s most applicable, and — most importantly — how you apply it in your own life. If you’re looking for a book on psychology to help you learn more about the art of ethical persuasion in a modern context — and how to see through other people’s deceitful attempts — then this is the book for you.

3. Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me) Third Edition: Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris

Ever been curious what causes people to deny vaccines, join cults, or engage in extremist behavior? The next entry on this list might clarify some of these seemingly illogical decisions: in Mistakes Were Made, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson discuss the systematic mental patterns which feed into development and radicalization of human beliefs. These include cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and positive feedback loops, among others.

To further explain how people’s attitudes can become so polarized, Tavris and Aronson walk readers through the effects of these mental patterns on people in various real-life cases and controversies. With its many compelling links to real-life events, this book is the perfect read for psychology and politics readers alike.

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4. Upstream: How to Solve Problems Before They Happen by Dan Heath

Life can feel like we’re constantly sprinting to put out fires as they arise. But of course, endlessly reacting to problems without a second to breathe and prepare for the next is pretty exhausting. Dan Heath’s Upstream is his solution to breaking that cycle of reaction and starting to prevent problems before they start.

This begins with knowing the psychological forces that cause it. For example, one force that Heath attributes as a large factor is “problem blindness” — when a problem becomes so persistent that you start to register it as “normal” and therefore stop “seeing” it (or, naturally, trying to fix it). Heath shows how to step up and bolster your defenses against such problems by using real-life cases of individual thinkers, businesses, and even whole institutions that overcame their own. Thankfully, the uniting factor among these case studies is simple: all they had to do was change their mindset.

5. The School of Life: An Emotional Education by Alain de Botton

Many of us spend over a decade in school and, regardless of academic success, emerge feeling like something is missing. Sure, you can do complex algebra or give me an in-depth analysis of the symbolism of triads in Shakespeare — but can you navigate a workplace? Can you endure failure? Do you understand yourself? Whether you’re about to graduate or have been done with high school for years, you’ve probably found yourself wondering these things.

Aptly titled, The School of Life is Alain de Botton’s answer to questions like these — with the express aim of equipping people with the tools and self-knowledge to thrive in the modern world. From increasing your productivity at work to handling the dilemmas of interpersonal relationships, there’s a chapter for everything you need in The School of Life. This emotional education is sure to help you to develop resilience to life’s dilemmas and become a maven of emotional intelligence.

6. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein

You may recognize authors Daniel Kahneman and Cass R. Sunstein from their respective bestsellers, Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge (or from a Reedsy Discovery post !). In a similar vein, Noise tackles the topic of variability in judgements and how we’re influenced by external factors. The overarching conclusion in Noise is that the majority of our decisions are unconsciously affected by the noise at different times and places.

The authors combine their scholarly expertise with additional research to deliver this in-depth guide outlining what we already know and their new theories about noise. For those interested in why we make decisions, this is one of the best psychology books to strengthen your understanding of the extraneous factors that can shape or bias decision-making, how to minimize those factors, and improve your thinking.

7. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip G. Zimbardo

The Lucifer Effect is Professor Philip Zimbardo’s first detailed account of his infamous Stanford Prison Experiment and the conclusions he took from it. The Stanford Prison Experiment was Zimbardo’s 1971 study looking into the effects of different situational factors on conformity by putting college student volunteers into a fake prison environment for -2 weeks. Without giving too much away, the experiment ran into some serious roadblocks that meant it had to be discontinued after only six days. (The controversy was such that there was even a mostly-accurate movie dramatization released in 2015!)

Zimbardo’s thoughts on the experiment are interesting not only because he conducted it, but because he was a part of it, acting as the prison warden — which, needless to say, has serious ethical connotations. The following chapters discuss the study’s effect on the decades of subsequent research into psychological and social variables that cause “average” people to commit immoral acts — making it one of the most influential books on psychology you can pick up today. Most people with an interest in psychology might have an idea of the original experiment, but the research afterwards should definitely not be overlooked!

8. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

Put simply, The Psychopath Test takes us through the modern-day mental health system, asking us to think more deeply about whom it labels “psychopathic”. Jon Ronson starts with a man who faked madness to escape a prison sentence, his method being to act charming, glib, and well-presented in contrast to other patients in the psychiatric hospital. Ronson takes these alleged tell-tale signs of psychopathy and applies them to people in other walks of life, making the startling discovery that psychopaths appear everywhere.

This is where the doors to the so-called “industry of madness” are truly flung open. How many of our most influential CEOs, researchers, and world leaders are psychopaths? Can any good come of our newfound access to the best psychology books or theories if they facilitate diagnoses of strangers based on their “maddest” parts? If these questions interest you, pick up The Psychopath Test and see what you think.

9. Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships by Eric Berne

We’ve mostly talked about complex mental health issues so far in this post—but maybe you want to know about the psychology behind our most basic social interactions. If so, Eric Berne’s description of functional and dysfunctional social interactions in Games People Play will be right up your alley. Berne claims that we play “social games” all of the time, be that power games against authority, sexual games, marital games, or competitive games within friendships.

Berne divulges the types of mind games that everyone can fall victim to indulging: in status contests, the game becomes a back and forth game of “I know better”, and couples are prone to playing mental games claiming each is holding the other back. Berne doesn’t just name these interactions, but he also exposes the meaning behind them as unconscious ploys and maneuvers that rule our lives. It’s these creatively poised insights that make this book on psychology an influential and striking bestseller.

10. The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk

Described as “the Bible of trauma” for struggling readers, The Body Keeps the Score is the culmination of Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk’s entire career. One of the world’s leading experts on traumatic stress, Van Der Kolk highlights the clear effects that trauma has on literally reshaping the body and brain. Drawing on his status as an active therapist, continually learning from what works for his patients best, Van Der Kolk delivers a wonderfully personal yet analytic approach to trauma recovery. Considering the frustrating physical effects of trauma related by his patients, Van Der Kolk suggests a fresh paradigm for treatment.

The ideological heart of this method is to make it safe for trauma survivors to inhabit their own bodies by moving away from the “standard” combination of talking therapies or drug therapies and instead using a new approach that heals the mind, brain, and body. One size never fits all, but Van Der Kolk suggests that therapeutic interventions like neurofeedback, theater, meditation, play, or yoga may play a larger part than first thought in healing. The Body Keeps the Score provides a unique perspective on trauma and recovery relayed in a compassionate yet truthful voice, making it accessible to readers of all levels.

11. The Comfort Book by Matt Haig

Ever just really felt like you needed a hug? The Comfort Book answers that craving: it is a warm and personal hug in the form of a book — something even the best psychology books haven't focused on before. If you’re looking for a guide to self-love, contentment, and emotional strength, then Matt Haig’s reflections on the conflicting feelings that come with being alive are for you.

The essence of this book is that many of our best and clearest revelations are made when at our lowest — but we also shouldn’t have to figure everything out ourselves, especially when we’re suffering. Haig’s reflections are built on what he’s learned in hard times, with the hope that they can get you through similar situations. It’s a great comfort to know that you’re not the only one that’s dealt with something hard, and Haig understands that. Drawing on maxims, meditations, and inspirational lives of others, he aims to nurture your inner strength and deliver advice like a wise, commiserative old friend.

12. The Oracle of Night: The History and Science of Dreams by Sidarta Ribeiro

What really makes a dream, why do we have them, and how do they affect us? Sidarta Ribeiro takes these questions and uses them as a springboard for his completely fresh and enthralling study of dreams, tracing them all the way back to our ancient ancestors. It’s in the earliest cave paintings that Ribeiro finds the first traces of human dreams and begins unlocking revolutionary conclusions about the role of dreams in human evolution.

Some will also know that contemporary neuroscience and psychology have uncovered many findings about dreams, such as their role in healing trauma or in consolidating what we learned in the day prior. The Oracle of Night then explains Ribeiro’s advancements on these topics: the role of dreaming in memory recall and transformation, and, startlingly, their oracular nature as confirmed by new research — making this a great book club book to ignite a conversation! Ribeiro combines his absolute authority on the topic with a clear, compelling writing style to make this book a page-turner from the first page to the last.

13. Everyday Vitality: Turning Stress into Strength by Samantha Boardman

Psychiatrist Samantha Boardman believes that an essential factor in healthy aging and overall well-being is a sense of vitality. Which is to say: knowing that you’re up to a task both physically and mentally. This belief is the jumping-off point for Everyday Vitality, a book full of strategies for cultivating vitality by focusing on improving a little every day, instead of reacting to fix what’s wrong as it arises.

While vitality wellness is often associated with managing aging, Boardman posits that vitality can help all of us no matter our age. Whether you’re eighteen or eighty, you may recall times you’ve felt mentally exhausted from the constant barrage of media every day, or physically drained after a long day at a desk. Boardman explains three routes to better vitality for everyone: meaningfully connecting with others, taking on experiences that push your limits, and contributing to something beyond just you. If you want to cultivate your own wellness, why not pick up this book and discuss it with someone you love?

14. Survival of the Friendliest: Understanding Our Origins and Rediscovering Our Common Humanity by Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods

Humanity’s success as a species has developed in leaps and bounds during our relatively short time on Earth. Many people have hypothesized what might be the cause of these advancements: is it our strength, intellect, curiosity, or something else completely? Authors — and husband-and-wife duo — Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods believe in the latter, making the case in this book that humanity’s progression is actually because of our “friendliness”.

Combining their respective expertise in cognitive neuroscience, research science, and journalism, Hare and Wood have come up with a theory about this evolutionary friendliness. The theory is elegantly termed “self-domestication” — a remarkable propensity to coordinate and communicate with others. Instead of coveting our individual successes, we often share them with others to help advance and protect each other. This capability, Hare and Wood argue, has allowed us to achieve the impressive cultural and technical marvels that we’ve culminated today. However, this friendliness may come at a cost: when threats to those we love become a target for our worst instincts, our evolutionary propensity for bond-making may be a double-edged sword.

15. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

In Blink, critically acclaimed author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell hopes to revolutionize your understanding of how you (and others) think. Why, for example, are some people exceptionally fast decision-makers, when others choke under pressure? Why does “following your gut” work perfectly for some, while others fall short? And do situational variables like our immediate surroundings affect our abilities to make these decisions?

Gladwell posits that a key factor towards people’s ability to make better decisions is “thin-slicing”: the unconscious ability to analyze patterns in scenarios based on brief flashes of experience, and come to a conclusion based on that knowledge. Gladwell draws on real-life examples to illustrate these ideas: from a psychologist who could predict whether a marriage would last from just a brief interaction with the couple, to antiquities experts who only need to glance at an object to tell it’s a fake. Put simply, Blink proves that the main difference between a good and a bad decision-maker is their mastery of “thin-slicing.” Can you learn to do it, too?

16. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz

Have you ever walked into a clothing store and found yourself overwhelmed by choices among different shirts, skirts, or jeans, all of which look eerily similar? Not to mention the stress of weaving through other shoppers, worrying about prices, and working out your size. Barry Schwartz believes that this abundance of choices to make “no longer liberates, but debilitates” shoppers with consumer anxiety. The solution? Eliminating consumer choices (within reason).

Of course, Schwartz acknowledges that autonomy and freedom of choice are still critical to our well-being. It’s just that, while modern Americans may technically have more choice than ever before, they are no longer benefiting from it psychologically. The Paradox of Choice neatly establishes the psychology behind why choice overload makes us suffer — constant comparison, opportunity hunting, and buyer’s remorse, for example — and how to avoid consumer anxiety in the first place.

17. Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us about Life, Love and Relationships by Camilla Pang

Explaining Humans is an intriguing in-depth exploration of the complexities of human behavior, as explained by hard science. Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at an early age, author and scientist Dr Camilla Pang struggled to untangle the mess of the world around her — even asking her mother if she could find an instruction manual for humans. When she found that not even the best psychology books of the time provided such a manual, the only solution was to write her own.

Backed up with copious amounts of scientific research and her own hard-won expertise, this book on psychology examines obscure social customs, what it means to be human in different cultures, and where proteins and molecular chemistry fit into all of this. What does it mean to understand someone? How do we recognize people’s motivations or expressions, and what dictates them to begin with? Whether this all feels foreign or far too familiar to you, Pang is sure to deliver some surprises.

18. Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker

The goal of Rationality is to make you more rational and help you understand why there is so much irrationality in the world. You may think that sounds pretty lofty, but try reading author and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker’s analysis before making concrete judgements!

Pinker rejects the cliché idea that humans are an irrational species — how could any species discover and achieve so much without being inherently rational? Despite this, we live in a dichotic age of rationality vs. intense irrationality. Pinker’s explanation is that humans tend to think within the context of the low-tech settings in which we spend the majority of our lives. As a result, we don’t take advantage of the tools that our best thinkers discovered previously: critical thinking, logic, probability, correlation vs. causation, and ways to update our beliefs individually are not a part of our education. Fortunately, you can find these tools (and analyses of the crippling effects of irrationality) presented clearly and with good humor in Rationality !

19. Rapport: The Four Ways to Read People by Emily and Laurence Alison

We’ve all had to interact with difficult people before, whether that’s an annoying customer, a high-maintenance friend, or even a demanding stranger on the train. But imagine you had to deal with some of the most difficult people possible, managing extremely high-stress interactions: criminal interrogations. These interactions are a specialty of forensic psychologists Emily and Laurence Alison: they advise and train police, security companies, and even secret services on how to maneuver interviews with dangerous suspects.

After experiences over the past thirty years that the “average” person could only imagine, the author duo have developed a revolutionary model for interpersonal communication. According to them, every interaction follows one of four types: Control (the lion), Capitulate (the mouse), Confront (the Tyrannosaur) and Co-operate (the monkey). It might sound abstract now, but once you’ve been taken through these types in Rapport, you’ll understand why they’re so praised. Learn to understand and apply them to your own goals and you can shape any conversation at will.

20. Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realise Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment by Martin E. P. Seligman

You may have heard of this entry after its launch in 2004 caused international debate over the nature of real happiness. Authentic Happiness was the starting point for the science of Positive Psychology and the discussion of happiness in a scientific way.

According to Martin Seligman, happiness has less to do with factors such as genes or luck, and more to do with focusing on your internal strengths rather than weaknesses. This isn’t to say that situational factors based on your genes wouldn’t impact you, or that being lucky enough to win the lottery wouldn’t change your life. Seligman’s point is that maintaining a positive mindset and building on one’s strengths is the most dependable route to long-lived happiness. To that end, Seligman supplies exercises, brief tests, and interesting programs that will help you identify your virtues and use them most efficiently.

21. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman

It’s no secret that a high IQ doesn’t automatically make a person smart or good (not to mention the long-standing debate over the reliability and biases of IQ tests). That said, what actually makes a person smart or good? Daniel Goleman’s innovative analyses in Emotional Intelligence certainly brings us closer to understanding. This book breaks down human processes into “two minds”, the rational and the emotional, to detail how they together shape the ways that we move through the world.

Goleman draws on contemporary cognitive and behavioral research to show the factors that make higher IQ flounder where those with average IQ excel. The factors that go into this disparity are: self-awareness, self-discipline, and empathy, and their presence adds up to a completely different manner of intelligence. Luckily, this kind of emotional intelligence can be developed and strengthened at every age to ultimately benefit our health, work, and relationships.

22. The Psychology of Pandemics: Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease by Steven Taylor

Published in October 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Steven Taylor’s book about the importance of psychology in curbing the spread of deadly pandemics — stating that, at the time, the next pandemic could be soon — turned out to be frighteningly prophetic. Taylor posits that, while vaccinations and behavioral methods are crucial for stemming infection rates, psychological elements are equally important.

The Psychology of Pandemics explains psychology’s role in nonadherence to vaccination and hygiene programs and in mental health as people cope with the threat and loss of life. Taylor talks through every reason why understanding psychology is essential to managing societal problems that go hand-in-hand with pandemics. You need only consult a few history books to see that the same problems recurr every time we face a pandemic. These problems range from excessive fear to maladaptive behaviours to the xenophobia that occurs when people feel threatened by infection. Sound familiar? If you want to understand why the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in the way it did, this is definitely on the list of the best psychology books to try.

23. Human Givens : A New Approach to Emotional Health and Clear Thinking by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell

Feeling like something a little more laidback? Human Givens is a guide to emotional and physical health, as well as education, using the “human givens” approach. Authors Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell chronicle what some call the best psychological insight of this age — that we are all born with innate knowledge patterns known as “human givens”. These givens are experienced as physical and emotional needs, and only when those needs are met can one reach their full mental and physical potential.

Griffin and Tyrrell suggest that how your innate needs connect with the world can shape not just your own health and happiness, but that of your family and friends. Human Givens takes this idea and looks at what every person needs to flourish, as well as how to actively pursue those things. Of course, this isn’t all just speculation: Griffin and Tyrell back up their approach with new scientific findings and ideas about how the mind works — as well as how to use those ideas to overcome the anxieties of the modern world.

24. Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View by Stanley Milgram

The next book on our list is what some might call a psychology classic. Psychologist Stanley Milgram performed a series of famous experiments in the 1960s with the view to better understanding obedience to authority, after numerous war criminals on trial had claimed they were “just following orders”.

The experiments were controversial at the time, because they involved volunteer subjects being instructed to administer what they thought were progressively more painful shocks to another human being — the aim of this was to see how far people would obey orders even when they knew them to be morally gray. Though Milgram’s experiment was criticized for being immoral itself, it has since been vindicated as a breakthrough in understanding both obedience and psychology as a whole. Obedience to Authority has long been thought of as one of the best psychology books, offering Milgram’s personal insight into his groundbreaking methods, theories, and post-experiment conclusions.

25. Consciousness and the Social Brain by Michael S. A. Graziano

The final entry on our list delves into one of the great mysteries of the human race: the brain. How are we conscious, what is consciousness, and how does the brain create it? Why do some people have more of a constant running internal monologue than others? These are the big questions that Michael S. A. Graziano aims to tackle in Consciousness and the Social Brain.

The human brain has evolved a vastly complicated circuitry which allows it to be socially intelligent — one function of which is to be aware of others socially, to understand when someone other than oneself is thinking or feeling. Graziano’s theory is that the brain’s internal machinery that allows it to be aware of others also allows self awareness. The crux is that human awareness is layers upon layers of information that the brain has gathered, processed, and rendered — a wholly physical phenomena in the same way that generating heat or electricity might be. This is, of course, a hotly debated topic, with many people believing that to reduce the brain to only physicality would be reductive. Regardless of what you believe, Graziano’s scientific journey is a thrill to the last page!

Seeking more answers about human interaction? Check out our lists of the 60 Best Nonfiction Books of the 21st Century or the 40 Best Leadership Books of All Time !

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Copa America

How Argentina, Lionel Messi lifted a third-straight title with Copa America victory against Colombia

Argentina win 2024 Copa America on a dramatic day

The Copa America final between Argentina and Colombia was delayed by more than an hour after chaotic and dangerous scenes saw thousands of fans prevented from entering the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.

The match finally got underway at 9:22pm ET, 82 minutes after it was scheduled to start . Argentina went on to beat Colombia 1-0 after extra time to defend their Copa America crown, despite their star player Lionel Messi being forced off with an injury.

Miami-Dade Police Department said that there were “several incidents” before the gates opened at the stadium. Fans spoken to by The Athletic blamed organizers CONMEBOL . “It’s a disaster,” one said. “They won’t even give water. Not even water!”

Supporters, including young children, were left stranded outside the stadium in large numbers with the searing heat in the area only adding to the issues. And a number of fans were ejected from the stadium throughout the game. For a full recap, click here .

Argentina beats Colombia to win record-breaking Copa America title

Scaloni: 'This team never ceases to surprise'

Getty Images

As they did in their last two major-tournament campaigns, Argentina pulled a rabbit out of a hat when they needed to do it most against Colombia. Scaloni was asked if a third-straight trophy was an era-defining one.

“I don't know if it marks an era, but it's true this team never ceases to surprise, they overcame the difficulties of a very difficult match, with a very complicated opponent and without a good first half,” he said.

“In the second half I think we improved and deserved to win and then always in extra time, in the long run the team always finds something extra, so it's gratifying to see them play and I'm eternally grateful for the way they give their all.”

Lorenzo: 'We're just getting started'

The narrow extra-time defeat marked a first defeat for Colombia in 29 matches and coach Lorenzo was upbeat when he spoke afterwards.

“Of the two finalists there is one who is marking an era, it is not a coincidence and before this era they lost two Copa America finals and a World Cup final,” he said. “Scaloni has been with the boys for seven years, I congratulate them. We’re just getting started.

“I hope we play in the next final and qualify for the World Cup. I’m proud of the boys. I thank the players.”

Pre-match delays had an impact, says Lorenzo

Speaking after the defeat, Colombia coach Nestor Lorenzo claimed that the pre-match delay affected his side's preparations.

“I think we had a very good build-up to the game but then some unusual situations started to happen,” he said. “(The players) warmed up, cooled down, warmed up again, before the kick-off. Then we had 25 minutes of half-time, strange things for both teams.”

He then discussed the difference in experience of the two teams.

“Generally the tension is felt more by those who have less experience in finals, and it took its toll on us,” added Lorenzo. “It’s not easy to play in a final for everyone, the boys felt a bit of the effort of the whole tournament, they played six games in 21 days.”

Argentina are special – Copa America proves they just win

There’s something special about Argentina, but it isn’t their football. The three-time world champions stumbled their way to a second consecutive Copa America with a 1-0 extra-time win over Colombia. It proved one thing: Argentina just keep winning .

That’s what champions do. Over four weeks in the United States, Argentina never found their best form. Their possession-based philosophy didn’t overwhelm their opponents. Lionel Messi, who won his 45th title as a professional, was a shadow of himself.

Messi, 37, was impactful in flashes but he has been hampered by a groin injury since June 25. He was substituted in the 66th minute of the final with what appeared to be a painful right ankle injury. Yet still, Argentina walked away with their third straight major trophy — the 2022 World Cup sandwiched between the 2021 Copa and this one — becoming the first South American team to do so. The Albiceleste matched the great Spain team that achieved the same feat from 2008-2012.

As did Lo Celso

Those three extra-time substitutions from Lionel Scaloni will go down in history for Argentina as they all played a key role in the goal.

Paredes won the ball back and gave it Lo Celso who played a perfectly timed pass into Lautaro and you know the rest!

That was Lo Celso's 14th assist for Argentina since Scaloni took the job as manager in 2018 — only Messi (with 16 assists) has more in that time.

Substitute Paredes made a telling contribution

Like matchwinner Lautaro, Leandro Paredes was introduced in the seventh minute of extra time. And like the Inter Milan striker, Paredes made his presence count.

He made four tackles during his time on the pitch, more than any of his team-mates throughout the entirety of the match. He also became the first player in the 21st century to make that many tackles as a substitute in a Copa America final.

Oh, and it was one of those tackles that started off the move for the winning goal.

Some contribution from the Roma midfielder!

Di Maria: 'I'll always be grateful to this generation'

As he said leading into the match, Di Maria knows only too well how it feels to be on the losing side at a major tournament. He was part of the Argentina squad beaten in the final of the 2014 World Cup as well as those in 2015 and 2016 Copa America.

"I'll be always grateful to this generation who gave me everything, helped me win what I always wanted and today," he said after the win against Colombia. "I am leaving like this. It could not be better."

Thankfully Argentina didn't need Di Maria's goals

36-year-old Di Maria turned in a vintage performance for Argentina who, for once in a final, didn't need one of his goals.

He scored in the 2021 Copa America and 2022 World Cup finals as his country lifted the trophies on both occasions. This final marks the first in 30 years that Argentina have won without Di Maria being on the scoresheet.

By the time they make it to another final, they will be without the former Real Madrid winger...

The worst time for Colombia to draw a blank

Colombia led 2024 Copa America for goals scored with 12 across their seven matches.

They managed six throughout the group stage and six in their first two knockout games. But when it mattered, in the final, they failed to find the net for the first time at the tournament, despite having eight more shots across the 120 minutes than Argentina.

Lautaro joins Batistuta in Argentinian folklore

Lautaro Martinez's winning goal in extra time was his fifth goal of 2024 Copa America, earning him the Golden Boot.

Since the start of the 1960s, he is just the second player to score more than four goals in a victorious Copa America campaign.

The other? Countryman Gabriel Batistuta who scored six times in the 1991 edition.

Scaloni on Lionel Messi’s injury

Lionel Scaloni has said that Lionel Messi attempted to play through the pain in the 2024 Copa America final “because he did not want to let his team-mates down”.

Messi received medical treatment in the first half and was withdrawn in the second with an apparent leg injury. Cameras later showed him on the bench with a badly swollen right ankle.

“Leo has something that everyone should have. He's the best in history and, even with an ankle like that, he doesn't want to go off,” Scaloni said.

“But it's not because he is selfish, but because he does not want to let his team-mates down. He was born to be on a pitch.”

Lionel Messi ‘didn’t want to let Argentina team-mates down’ after Copa America final injury

Sanchez: ‘Colombia deserves everything but we go on’

Tonight’s result means that Colombia’s incredible 28-match unbeaten streak has come to an end. Their last result prior to tonight? Argentina, in February 2022.

Davinson Sanchez, formerly of Tottenham Hotspur and now plying his trade with Galatasaray in Turkey, was one of the few Colombia players to front up after they fell at the final hurdle.

“It hurts after a tournament that the whole team fought for, it hurts when you compete to win and we felt we deserved more. But we have to thank the people,” he said.

“We wanted to give the victory to a country that deserves it, Colombia deserves everything, and we leave empty-handed, but we will go on.”

Scaloni on Di Maria: ‘He ran like he was 25’

Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni is full of praise for the departing Angel Di Maria, who disappears into the sunset this evening having won 145 caps for his country, along with two Copa America titles at the 2022 World Cup.

Scaloni said: “He’s had some spectacular games for us but today was one of the best.

“He had the energy to press high when others were faltering. He ran like he was 25. I tried to convince him to carry on, at least to play again in front of his public. He's a legend.”

Needless to say Di Maria isn’t 25 — he turned 36 in February.

The Argentina celebrations continue

The Athletic

It is 1:45am in Miami and Argentina players, families and friends are still on the pitch.

It’s unlikely the celebrations will end any time soon.

Aguero celebrates Argentina's win

Sergio Aguero, one of the players who just missed out on this run of trophies for Argentina, has tweeted his praise for the team. "Thank you so much for another dose of joy," he wrote. "I'm proud of you. You're the best. I love you."

Stonewall Martinez

Incredible stat here: Emiliano Martinez has now played 45 times in goal for Argentina. He has kept 33 clean sheets. THIRTY THREE! That is beyond spectacular.

Argentina conceded only one goal in this tournament, becoming just the fourth team ever to play at least five matches in a single edition of the tournament and concede one or zero goals.

Winning goal was a rare sight

Prior to this match, there hadn't been an extra-time goal in the Copa America final since 1937! Lautaro Martínez’s winner was only the fourth ever in extra time of a Copa America final.

The other three were one by Arthur Friedenreich for Brazil against Uruguay in 1919 and two by Vicente de la Mata for Argentina against Brazil in 1937.

Argentina conceded 1 goal at Copa America 2024

Emi Martínez has become the first Argentina goalkeeper to record five clean sheets in a single edition of Copa América. He allowed just one goal, coming from Ecuador's Kevin Rodríguez in the quarterfinal.

Martinez was instrumental in Argentina's victory in this tournament, particularly distinguishing himself during the penalty shootout against Ecuador.

Reader reaction: 'My heart rate won’t recover for a while'

We've had more than 600 comments on our discussion page for this match, and here are a few of the choice ones reacting to Argentina's victory.

Carlos M.: I think Colombia was the best team of the tournament. But Argentina knows how to win these games. The fact that Colombia had one less day of rest and had a tougher semifinal game than Argentina really showed beginning in the 75th minute.

Caroline C.: Lautaro!!! I’m so glad he scored and decided it after a confidence diminishing World Cup (for him). I’m so happy Paredes came in too. The De Paul, Lo Celso, Paredes midfield is class. Though credit to Mac Allister and Enzo for playing great too. Fair play to Colombia. You guys played really well and my heart rate won’t recover for a while. It was an even game. We’ll see you for qualifiers.

Jose A.: Was this a Colombia bottle job or Argentina rising to the occasion, again? Colombia arguably played the best football in the tournament, with James doing a true comeback MVP performance, but LOS MUCHACHOS have so much experience at this, they can limp though a tournament like this and still have the resources to get it done. Much more impressive is that this one was won with Messi being sub-par for long stretches of the Cup, with injury problems to boot in the final.

Literature & Fiction
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Psycho Paperback – June 15, 1991

Print length 224 pages
Language English
Publisher Tor Books
Publication date June 15, 1991
Dimensions 4 x 0.5 x 7 inches
ISBN-10 0812519329
ISBN-13 978-0812519327
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Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books; First Thus edition (June 15, 1991)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0812519329
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0812519327
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4 x 0.5 x 7 inches
#7,812 in TV, Movie & Game Tie-In Fiction
#7,986 in Ghost Fiction
#86,037 in Suspense Thrillers

About the author

Robert bloch.

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Customers find the plot suspenseful, exciting, and gripping. They also appreciate the straightforward, engaging writing that gives great detail into the life and thoughts of the characters. Readers describe the book as a quick, enjoyable read that's very short.

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Customers find the plot suspenseful, interesting, and hard-boiled detective fiction style. They also say the book is a riveting page-turner that makes the movie more understandable.

"First off Alfred Hitchcock did an amazing job doing the novel justice there is slight changes which I won’t spoil just read it the cool thing is..." Read more

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"...Norman Bates is a wonderfully complex , broken man, and is one of my favorite flawed literary characters of all time...." Read more

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Customers find the book very short and entertaining.

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"...What a delight. The writing is suspenseful and clear. The characters are well drawn and three dimensional...." Read more

"...the odd-intentions analytical mind of Norma, and crafts characters who are obviously memorable , specifically Norman and "Mother"...." Read more

"A quick read with a good storyline. The characters are somewhat developed for their purpose in the story...." Read more

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Psycho (Psycho, #1) by Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch. It was a dark and stormy night when Mary Crane glimpsed the unlit neon sign announcing the vacancy at the Bates motel. Exhausted, lost, and at the end of her rope, she was eager for a hot shower and a bed for the night. Her room was musty but clean and the plumbing worked. Norman Bates, the manager, seemed nice, if a little odd.
Psycho (novel)
Psycho is a 1959 horror novel by American writer Robert Bloch.The novel tells the story of Norman Bates, a caretaker at an isolated motel who struggles under his domineering mother and becomes embroiled in a series of murders.The novel is considered Bloch's most enduring work and one of the most influential horror novels of the 20th century.. The story was adapted into Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 ...
A Full Examination of Robert Bloch's 'Psycho' (Review)
December 23, 2017 in Authors M-Z // Thrift Store Finds: Save the Last Dance for Me October 23, 2017 in Authors A-L // 'Death Rituals' by Josh Hancock (Review) May 20, 2017 in Featured Articles // When in Paris, Revisit Gaston Leroux's Timeless Masterpiece 'The Phantom of the Opera' August 11, 2016 in Interviews // Interview: Jack Ketchum Talks Horror Roots and New Book 'The Secret ...
Psycho: what is Robert Bloch's 1959 novel like?
Psycho certainly sets out to shock, though much of what may have seemed disturbing, devious or prurient in 1959 isn't quite as scandalous now. The book makes for a short read, and is certainly cinematic with or without Hitchcock's influence. Part noir detective story, part breathless tabloidism, the novel remains seductive in its own way.
Book Review: Psycho: A Novel
Trish Martin 12/26/2010 Book Reviews. PSYCHO: A NOVEL. Author Robert Bloch Published by Overlook TP Publication Date: 2010 Format: Black /White - 208 pages Price: $13.95. A girl stops in for the night at an out of the way motel on a remote stretch of road. She seems frazzled and a little road weary but converses politely with the motel clerk ...
Psycho Series by Robert Bloch
Three Complete Novels. by Robert Bloch. 3.79 · 111 Ratings · 19 Reviews · published 1993 · 3 editions. A collection of three complete novels by the autho…. Want to Read. Rate it: Psycho (Psycho, #1), Robert Bloch's Psycho: Sanitarium, Psycho II (Psycho, #2), Psycho House (Psycho, #3), Psyco 1 - Psyco 2, and Three Complete Novels ...
Psycho: A Novel
Robert Bloch (1917-1994) was a horror, suspense, and science fiction writer and screenwriter, best known for the novel Psycho. Altogether, he wrote over 220 stories collected in over two dozen collections, two dozen novels, screenplays for a dozen movies, and three Star Trek episodes. His many awards include the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy ...
Book Review: Psycho by Robert Bloch
Book Review: Psycho by Robert Bloch. POPSUGAR Reading Challenge Prompt: A novel based on a real person. Brief synopsis: Mary's tired of the subpar life she's been living. So, when the opportunity arises for her to snag $40,000 (over $300,000 today), she takes it and hits the road. When she stops one night in a motel, she meets Norman Bates, a ...
Before 'Bates Motel': 'Psycho' (1959) (Book review)
Welcome to a new series where I look back at the books and movies of the "Psycho" franchise before its revival in "Bates Motel," one of the best TV shows of the decade, which will conclude its five-season run this month.. Let's start at the beginning with Robert Bloch's novel "Psycho" (1959). At 125 pages, it can be breezed through in a few sittings.
Review: Psycho by Robert Bloch
On this occasion, I recalled that Psycho was originally a novel penned by Robert Bloch, a book I'd yet to explore. I decided to rectify this oversight, and I must say, I'm thrilled that I did. Bloch's Psycho is an unnerving, pulse-pounding, riveting journey, which, despite its brevity at 227 pages, delivers a powerful impact.
A Guide to Robert Bloch's Psycho Trilogy
It's understandable, but unfair to the real progenitor— Robert Bloch. Bloch's novel Psycho was published in 1959 by Simon & Schuster, loosely based on real-life serial killer Ed Gein. For those who haven't read the book, allow me to give a synopsis. Consider this your warning: I am about to spoil the whole shebang, sequels and all.
Psycho
A review and comparison of the 1959 novel "Psycho" by Robert Bloch and the 1960 film of the same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock.#Psycho #BookVsMovie #Hall...
Psycho Review: Hitchcock's Masterful Suspense Thriller ...
There are a myriad of reasons as to why this film works so brilliantly and its horror elements endure over 60 years later. Sure, the creepy mansion adjacent to the run-down motel, coupled with the ...
Amazon.com: Psycho: A Novel: 9781590203354: Bloch, Robert: Books
Robert Bloch (1917-1994) is the author of the classic horror novel, Psycho, which served as the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's thrilling film of the same name.At the urging of H. P. Lovecraft, Bloch began writing short fiction in the 1930s; his first short novel, The Scarf, was published in 1947.In 1959, the year Psycho was published, Bloch won the Hugo Award for a short story and began to write ...
Psycho: A Novel
Robert Bloch's Psycho captivated a nation when it appeared in 1959. The story was all too real-indeed this classic was inspired by the real-life story of Ed Gein, a psychotic murderer who led a dual life. Alfred Hitchcock too was captivated, and turned the book into one of the most-loved classic films of all time the year after it was released.
Book Review
100 Best Books of the 21st Century: As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
Psycho Summary
Subscribe for $3 a Month. Norman Bates is a timid, middle-aged man running the Bates Motel on the rural outskirts of a small town called Fairvale. Norman's mother, Norma, is a domineering and puritanical woman who still governs Norman's life, even though he is 40. Norman blames his mother for not selling the motel before the state built a ...
Psycho: A Novel Kindle Edition
Robert Bloch (1917-1994) was a horror, suspense, and science fiction writer and screenwriter, best known for the novel Psycho.Altogether, he wrote over 220 stories collected in over two dozen collections, two dozen novels, screenplays for a dozen movies, and three Star Trek episodes. His many awards include the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards (including Lifetime Achievement), and five ...
Psycho: A Novel by Robert Bloch, Paperback
Psycho is the original thrilling novel from multi-award-winning author Robert Bloch—and the basis for the classic film from Alfred Hitchcock. "Icily terrifying!" —New York Times"Psycho all came from Robert Bloch's book." —Alfred Hitchcock"Robert Bloch is one of the all-time masters." —Peter Straub Norman Bates loves his mother. She has been dead for the past 20 years, or ...
Psycho book by Robert Bloch
Psycho is the original thrilling novel from multi-award-winning author Robert Bloch--and the basis for the classic film from Alfred Hitchcock. "Icily terrifying " --New York Times"Psycho all came from Robert Bloch's book." --Alfred Hitchcock "Robert Bloch is one of the all-time masters." --Peter Straub. Norman Bates loves his mother. She has been dead for the past...
American Psycho Book Discussion
A friend of mine sent me an interesting article about American Psycho that makes the case that Patrick is a closeted gay man running around giving AIDS to everyone, the book being either a metaphorical story or just an unreliably told one. What sounds like a bizarre theory actually seems to have a lot of foundation, and explains some very ...
25 Best Psychology Books to Read in 2024
Influence, New and Expanded is Dr. Robert B. Cialdini's 2021 republication of his one of his acclaimed bestselling psychology books Influence (first published in 1984) — complete with new research, examples, and insights, especially regarding the age of the internet.Backed up by his 35 years of scientific research, Cialdini describes seven practicable principles of influence you can use in ...
How Argentina, Lionel Messi lifted a third-straight title with Copa
Speaking after the defeat, Colombia coach Nestor Lorenzo claimed that the pre-match delay affected his side's preparations. "I think we had a very good build-up to the game but then some unusual ...
Psycho: Bloch, Robert: 9780812519327: Amazon.com: Books
Robert Bloch is the author of the classic horror novel, Psycho, which served as the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's thrilling film of the same name.At the urging of H. P. Lovecraft, Bloch began writing short fiction in the 1930s; his first short novel, The Scarf, was published in 1947.In 1959, the year Psycho was published, Bloch won the Hugo Award for a short story and began to write for ...