If there is one book that will give you deeper insight into the heart of every man, it would certainly be John O'Hara's "Ourselves to Know."Every page of the book will take you into a journey of discovery about your own self, an understanding of your own life. As you read the life of its protagonist, an old man, that is to say, who murdered his very young wife, you will come in peaceful confrontation with the self you have tried to ignore, not to see, in fear of seeing your own ugly demon.
The book is not written in a way that will make you say that is a "page-turner"; it is far from that, and in fact you can stall reading it for a week or a month. However, for its own good, the book is succinctly written the way a biography of a not so ordinary man, who has lived a plain, ordinary life, was told in a manner that captures the reader's interest, or rather curiosity, as to how a man passively lived and actively reacted to life events and circumstances that are out of his control.
"Ourselves to Know" does not attempt to capture you using the "thrilling effect" that fiction books usually use. More so, it is not a book which you will read from beginning to end in just a night. It is a piece that will make you read, then stop to ponder. It is not a book for those seeking to be entertained, but for those seeking to know their own heart.
