Reading the late Paul Kalanithi’s spectacular memoir When Breath Becomes Air, a meditation about love, literature and science in the face of a terminal cancer diagnosis was a strange experience “The good news is that I’ve already outlived two Brontes, Keats and Stephen Crane,” Kalanithi wrote to a friend. “The bad news is that I haven’t written anything.” He was trying to be funny, using the kind of dark humor you get from people facing the unfaceable. But it also revealed Kalanithi’s tremendous ambition. He […]
Less painful than I thought it’d be
My book club picked Still Alice and I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t excited to read it. My grandmother with dementia died not too long ago and reading a book about early onset Alzheimer’s disease sounded unbearably grim. It took me longer to get through than most books, but I’m glad I read it. While sad, it wasn’t nearly as depressing as I thought it’d be. I think what saved it from being maudlin was the way Genova set up the book. As readers, […]
Slow Medicine
One of my dearest friends sent me this book for Christmas. I’m glad she did because I had never heard of it, and it’s not something I necessarily would have picked up in the store myself, but it was a fascinating read. God’s Hotel is the story of one doctor’s journey and experience with the last American almshouse in San Francisco called Laguna Honda Hospital. It’s also the story of some of her patients and the changing over from practicing “slow” medicine to providing “efficient health […]
An abusive boyfriend that lives inside your mind
A friend lent this book about eating disorders to me so I could better understand certain aspects of her struggle with food and body image. While 100 Questions & Answers About Eating Disorders was a great generalized introduction, Life Without Ed got into the nitty-gritty of trying to escape the grasp of this mental illness. Although this is one woman’s story and it’s not going to represent every ED sufferer’s experience, I’ve been told that most would identify with at least some of Schaefer’s experience. […]
A Must-Read for Anyone With Connections to Eating Disorders
I have close friends who have struggled with eating disorders and even though there is a lot of good information available on the internet, I was feeling like I needed something comprehensive and basic to educate me. It’s really hard to be ignorant and supportive at the same time. This book is the perfect beginner’s guide to the complex world of eating disorder recovery. The book is divided into small, readable sections answering basic questions about eating disorders. Here’s a sampling of some of those […]
Yes, It’s About Sugar. But Not In the Way I Expected.
This is another book where I should have read the description more closely. I thought this would be a book about the ills of sugar, and in a way, it was. But what it more specifically was about was one man’s experience with type-two diabetes (including learning from his father, who lost most of his leg and his life to the effects of the disease). It was a compelling story, but the mixture of arrogance and naïveté that the author manages to put forth left […]
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