Welcome to this week’s blog, and our roundup of your comments and photos from last week.

I have to admit that I’ve been knocked sideways by last week’s election here in the UK. I might have even started to feel a little bit of hope for a better future. Luckily, this post from TheCourtOfOwls, who has been reading You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney, set me straight again:

Basically a series of essays backed up by scientific research showing that we’re all self-obsessed, self-deluded, and self-sabotaging.

Although it did confirm a few long-held suspicions and theories of my own, can’t help feeling a little depressed after reading it that we’re all so very easily duped and led, and why that is.

An eloquent comment from roadwaterlady (on Someone Else’s Skin by Sarah Hilary) also tell us more than we might like to know about human nature:

Yes, it is a detective story, but it’s really a study in abuse, all kinds of abuse that people inflict on others, women, men, boys, girls babies. What is it about mankind that makes some only find satisfaction by being cruel? Maybe some don’t realise that they are but only want to satisfy themselves, their needs, their desires, their sense of worth. I found it quite hard to read at times - it made me think and weep.

Luckily an alternative kind of thinking was provided by Vesca based on The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, which has been republished as a Penguin Modern Classic:

Odd book. Odd man. And I don’t think this is really a philosophy, or at least not a coherent one. But then I found myself wondering if the first thing that comes into someone’s head in a particular moment (which seems to be what we’re getting here) is really less true, or less valid, than something that person has thought hard about. Isn’t there a danger that taking time to second-guess and think too seriously and put everything into nice tidy chapters is as distorting as it is useful. Does it even matter if he’s making it up?

And this world can also produce things of great wonder. The late, and oh so great, Denis Johnson’s Angels has been impressing kmir:

Let me get my breath back. Wow! That was devastating and devastatingly good.

And since Tom Drury is one of the finest living writers, let’s finish with excerpts from a long thread on his work started by nicandrach88:

I have just got to the end of the End of Vandalism. The book follows the lives of groups of American, present day people, in an everyday, almost soap opera style narrative, where the reader gets to know the daily life of the characters. But just as I think ‘Oh yes, this is as I expect’ then he throws in some curveballs to show you that you really don’t know the characters at all. It is as dry and flat as can be with some great lines that are funny or maybe I just don’t understand the context.

This was endorsed by samye88:

Drury has such a way (or he’s diligent to note down every funny and True remark he’s heard) with deadpan expressions that tickle you to no end. What I admire more is his subtle but ambitious theme that underscores all that humour: the quiet sadness even despair of the nice decent rural small town people stumbling along with their lives trying to make do.

And Tom Mooney recommends we read even more:

The rest of the Grouse County trilogy is just as good. Like Kent Haruf, Drury restores your faith in humans. He is a kind, optimistic writer.

Kind and optimistic. He sounds like just what we need.

Interesting links about books and reading

• Enjoy a gallery of Pan book covers.
• Just because: Jarvis Cocker’s favourite books.
• Missed the Hay festival? Catch up with the Hay Player.
• An animation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell Tale Heart. (Hat tip to gardendwarf)

If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.

If you’re on Instagram and a book lover, chances are you’re already sharing beautiful pictures of books you are reading, “shelfies” or all kinds of still lifes with books as protagonists. Now, you can share your reads with us on the mobile photography platform – simply tag your pictures there with #GuardianBooks, and we’ll include a selection here. Happy reading!