5 comments about Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors.

1. In 1999, my husband was very sick. On the day we went to the hospital for his bone marrow aspiration Evan appeared on a TV talk show talking about Time On Fire, I think it had just gone to paperback, or maybe he was just sharing. My husband was diagnosed with ALL, a kinder gentler leukemia. We almost lost him 3X's, but he is here to tell the tale. I felt that Time On Fire was written extremely well, and I am so glad that Evan was so honest about his feelings. His book helped me to help my husband, and to question authority. There were many times I questioned nurses, they became upset with me but if I had not they would have ruined his chest line (hickman for anyone who knows the terms for such things). Evan's candor also helped me to be the best wife and friend I could be to my husband during this awful time. Feelings I would never have considered, I did because I had read Mr. Handler's book.
   Evan Handler, you have helped countless people I am sure with your words. I am so thankful for this book, it is a good read without having a husband who has cancer, it will give you insight to be a better friend to someone who does have cancer, and it will help you to see just how wonderfully precious our lives truly are.
   It was not a coincidence that you were made known to us on a cold rainy day in December of 1999.
   I am sure that I will love your new book as well and look forward to reading it.



2. Time on Fire is a riveting book. Evan Handler is honest and intelligent. He captures his experience and dives in with great detail to the many facets of his process of walking the devastating road of cancer. He holds nothing back. He exposes those around him. He exposes himself too, everything bold, down to every frail and frightened thought. Sometimes his descriptions were so graphic that I found myself cringing and covering my eyes. Sometimes I wanted to "walk out of the room" because maybe what he wrote about was too intimate for me to be watching. Sometimes I found myself cheering because he said what we wish more people would say. Sometimes I cried because he endured and witnessed more pain than anyone should have to. Mostly I marvel at his ability to put it all out there, to remind me that we are all human and that includes a whole spectrum of history, desires, reactions and responses.
   
   I recommend this book to people in health care, allopathic and naturopathic! (The people you serve are precious, living souls who matter, and it matters how you are with them!) It's a wake up call. I recommend this book to people who are searching and walking within the medical system and the alternative medicine scene for healing. (Take responsibility for your health care!) There are messages there for those who are in positions of support to people with serious or chronic health challenges (like make sure YOU have a good support system for yourself!).
   
   I do recommend this book highly.



3. I recently met Evan Handler at a book event in Los Angeles. Little did I know what a talented writer he is. Soon I was glued to the pages of his "Time on Fire." It is very well written. Somehow he manages to find humor in facing the horrors of leukemia treatment.
   
   It's David Sedaris with cancer! Plus Evan's will to survive shines through.
   
   Would be interesting to see the play on which this memoir is based.
   
   Evan mentioned that he is working on a new book, and I look forward to the read.



4. Once a year, I revisit this story, as every nurse and physician should. Take an active role in your treatment, and be an informed consumer...these days, healthcare is a business. Don't let the residents and fellows treat you like a pincushion. This book changed the way I do my job.



5. An amazing book. Funny and terrifying. It makes me think of Catch-22 -- a strong, independent character forced to survive in an insane and dangerous world.

   I've read this one several times, and it's a can't-put-it-down adventure each time.

5 comments about Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy: A True Story of Discovery, Acting, Health, Illness, Recovery And Life.

1. Yes, Dirk Benedict is apparently a great guy, and a healthy guy (putting his cigar-tobacco addiction in parentheses)...I especially like his comment to a drunken sassbacker when he appeared on a British TV reality show (not in this book, but in DB's Wikipedia article).
   
   In this, his auto-bio, Dirk Benedict (Dirk--"Small dagger" and I wouldn't get too loud about that; Benedict from the Latin meaning "well-spoken"; his birth name is Niewoehner) claims he cured himself of prostate cancer. What fun!
   
   Until we find out:
   A) Dirk NEVER WAS DIAGNOSED BY A MEDICAL DOCTOR with cancer. He tells all...how he was diagnosed from a Polaroid negative shot of his whole body, by an Italian psychic...since Dirk refused further medical workup beyond a digital rectal examination.
   
   B) Prostate cancer is ALMOST NEVER developed by men under age 30.
   
   Yes, the guy's funny; the guy's bold; the guy's a success in his own rugged individualist way...and the guy just MIGHT be completely mistaken and therefore be misleading you and you and you Mr. American Public, and me. I'm a guy who did develop prostate cancer, age 55, tried nutritional therapy for a year while the PSA went up and up...and when I left the low-risk range, opted for robotically assisted laparoscopic total prostatectomy. My surgeon told me "The cancer was out to the margins of the sample." In other words, a little more, and it would have been metastatic.
   
   If you like your stories short and sweet, you can Google on metastatic prostate cancer and learn this(from the WebMD site): "Currently, no treatments can cure advanced prostate cancer."
   
   If you want to believe macrobiotics cures all cancer, please explain what happened with Michio Kushi, who developed cancer and opted for surgery, his wife Aveline, who died of cancer, and their daughter, Lily, who died of cancer?
   
   Dirk Benedict rolls a good story, but he might be blowing smoke.
   You can put that seegar in your mouth and chomp it.



2. If you are looking for an auto-biography of Dirk Benedict's life so far, read this. It is well written, entertaining, and has a small amount of useful information about his diet and philosophy of life. It does not, however, provide any practical information to help others through a similar crisis (and he pretty much insists that you are on your own). You will get constant reminders that Dirk was from Montana, has a great disdain for "ordinary" people who watch TV and go to doctors, and you'll get a list of the names of all the women he apparently dated (p 143). And much more irrelevant but harmless information.
   
   Dirk's ego-centric nature is evident throughout this book, which means you won't get an enlightened view of his illness and recovery, but at least you'll get a good story.



3. This is a book by Dirk Benedict aka Face aka Starbuck and so on. I couldn't find the book on Epinions, so I'm writing this as an opinion in general. If someone happens to know if this book is on Epinions, let me know, so I can move this. Please, don't rate it badly if you think it's placed wrong. I didn't mean it.:--(
   
   I thought I was the only person on the planet that beat myself up for every little thing I did wrong, but Dirk has my act beat by a mile. I'm sure if you were to talk to him he would confess sins he was thinking about committing.
   
   You have to wade through about three or four introductions to get to the heart of the book, but I can say it is well written. I can't say that I agree with all he says, but then that's me. If macrobiotics works for him then more power to him. Not everyone can follow the same diet program. It has to be made for the individual, at least that's what I believe.
   
   One issue I didn't agree with is when he said that Gloria Swanson refused a hysterectomy and got along just fine. I don't think this can be said for all women. You just can't refuse a hysterectomy and things come out Ok. I am a shining example of that. I was told in 1999 that I needed a hysterectomy and I thought it was my body and I could do as I please. Well, in early 2003 I collapsed from severe anemia. My hematocrit was 25%, normal is 37-47 percent for a woman, 32-57 percent for a man. My hemoglobin was 7.2 and normal for a woman is over 12. I had to have two pints of whole blood. Needless to say that if I didn't get surgery I would have died. This was all because I refused to get the surgery I needed. And I want to add to that, I was BORN a vegetarian. I didn't have to have it taught to me and I've always been a health nut. I do, however, agree with him that doctors don't know everything. In this modern day and age you practically have to be medically educated before showing up for an appointment. I always research anything I'm diagnosed with to death before making any kind of decision.
   
   Dirk takes you through the first twenty six years of his life and then spends the rest of the book repenting for them. He lives faithfully by the cause and affect theory which I have to say I do, too. I have always believed that what goes around comes around. Don't wish something bad on someone or you will get it, too. He keeps quoting this saying of "The back is as big as the front" which seems to mean for whatever you do that is wrong the punishment will be as bad. The trouble is, I think Dirk has over estimated what he has done wrong. When I read the book I got this vision of that albino (Silas) from The Devinci Code whipping his own back until it bled. If Dirk did this there would be no flesh left.
   
   The book is interesting when he is telling about his life or the way he eats, but when it gets to the parts where he repents about it all hunker down.
   
   Dirk has been hurt a lot in his life and he seems like he is scared sh*tless to try a relationship again. I really can't say I blame him. If you read the book, you'll know why. If I had been hurt that much, I'd give up relationships, too.
   
   I recommend that anyone read this book. It is not graphic in any way. There is no bad language. He explains things very well. I just think he should forgive himself and forget. I have learned through reading this book that Dirk must be a very sensitive, loving person. He would be the kind of friend you'd want around in a pinch. But, Dirk, please, get down off the cross. You love carpentry. Make some bird houses out of the wood.
   
   The most important things in Dirk's life are his boys, Montana, and the way he eats and judging by this book, he takes care of all of them quite well. Don't be afraid to buy it. You aren't wasting your money if you do. I thought the quirky title would be a reflection of the book and I was wrong. So, buy and read away.:-)



4. If you have an open mind I highly recommend this book; and even if your mind is closed you might find yourself thinking differently after reading this book. We live in a society that over medicates it's people. Dirk's book shows his personal struggle with cancer and how by taking control of his health naturally through food and not medications he was able to fix the imbalance within his body and kick the cancer out. His stories of the ups and downs of life (relationships, Hollywood, etc) are very entertaining and enlightening. This book is an easy and great read. Just remember, the bigger the front the bigger the back, and don't forget to chew!



5. We live in a yogi-riddled age, where just about every shmuck with enough coinage to open a curd stand, self-publish a book or fund an infomercial is out there preaching his or her own "enlightened" method of living, eating, sleeping, dieting, thinking, exercising or making love. Most of these people are cranks or con-men, and their advice is worth about as much as a bean-curd pastry at a Texas chili cook-off. Having read CONFESSIONS OF A KAMIKAZE COWBOY, I feel compelled to say that Dirk Benedict, former star of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and THE A-TEAM, is n-o-t one of them. You may not agree with everything he has to say, either on the medical establishment, diet or philosophy, but he tells an interesting story and makes a passionate and perhaps even credible argument for embracing a totally different way of relating to the world.
   
   Benedict was born in rural Montana (hence: COWBOY) and grew up on what might be referred to as an all-meat diet, a diet he later blamed for his arthritis, acne, receding hairline and ultimately, for his prostatic cancer, and CONFESSIONS is largely an examination of his lifelong journey to really grasp the meaning of the phrase, "You are what you eat." The book is subtitled "A True Story of Discovery, Acting, Health, Recovery and Life" and on every part but the "Acting" this is true. Readers hoping for the inside story on his up-and-down career in front of the camera will be disappointed, for with the exception of some anecdotes about getting cast as Starbuck on GALACTICA and a hilarious recollection of his guest appearance on CHARLIE'S ANGELS he has almost nothing to say about Hollywood (except, of course, for its pill-popping, soul-destroying culture). This lends credence to his oft-repeated mantra that he really doesn't give a damn about acting, fame or money, which is kind of refreshing from a guy whose looks certainly should have made him as superficial as a nightly news segment.
   
   In CONFESSIONS, Dirk preaches the virtues of a macrobiotic diet, which ain't easy, because macrobiotics is/are one of the toughest culinary disciplines out there, eschewing all animal flesh, all dairy, all caffine and alcohol drinks, all sugar, all flour products, all fruits, nuts, and oils (with one or two exceptions), and all tropical vegetables, in favor of "50 - 60% whole grains, 20 - 30 % cooked vegetables, 5 - 10 % soups, 5 - 10 % beans and bean products, and 5 - 10 % cooked sea vegetables." The only acceptable beverages are water and a couple non-stimulant teas, such as bancha or seaweed. (In other words, jack-all.) Hand-in-hand with a macrobiotic diet, however, Dirk also preaches a macrobiotic way of life, founded on the principles of yin and yang (hence: KAMIKAZE) which, if I may reduce it to a phrase, stresses a life dedicated to the understanding and examination of causes, rather than the treatment and reaction to effects.
   
   Dirk's grudges, against American culture specifically and modern society generally, are numerous and bitter. Like Kevin Trudeau, who has made untold gazillions with his NATURAL CURES books, Benedict puts a steel-toed boot up the a*s of organized Christianity, the medical establishment, the dairy association, the drug concerns, the fast-food and sugar-soda empires, and so on. Like Trudeau, he blames our diet and consumerist, materialist, effects-driven culture for all the evils of the world, from rape and cancer to wars and nuclear proliferation. Diet, he maintains, is the essential, the central, the first cause of all behaviors and world-outlooks, and a diet laden with garbage causes not merely physical disease - like he had - but emotional and spiritual disease as well. Through a macrobiotic approach, Dirk purged his body of a life-accumulation of toxins and whupped his migraines, his impotence, his receding hairline, his acne, his arthritis and finally, his cancer. And the proof's in the pudding - he quotes his stats as of 2005 as: pulse 45 (!), bp 106/60, cholesterol 145. He adds gleefully that he never gets tired, hasn't had a headache in 15 years, sleeps like rock, and has the sex drive of a 18 year old. Dirk ain't stupid, he knows sex sells, and if he is ultra-sparing with details of his acting career, he makes no bones about how it greased the wheels of an envy-inducing sex life.
   
   To be sure, D.B. has some out-there ideas and not a few of his opinions had me doing the oh-come-on dance, but the same charm he exuded on TV as "Starbuck" and "Faceman" glosses over even his more obnoxious moments, such as when he claims that rape is a side-effect of bad diet or that nobody gets anything in life he doesn't deserve. On the whole however his writing style is erudite and enjoyable. If he often bogs down in pseudo-profundity, he just as often entertains with wonderfully mean-spirited assaults on all the soulless b*stards in the world that profit from obesity, disease and human vice generally. His ultimate attitude is, "If you want to know what's in my 'medicine cabinet', look in my kitchen."
   
   Most people are either too brainwashed by modern corporate Kultur, with its never-ending emphasis on bigger-faster-more, or too unwilling to give up everything that seems worthwhile in the fridge just to add a few years to the back-end of their lives, to follow Benedict down his path. I'm not sure it's for me, either, but I'm willing to take a few steps and see where it goes....

5 comments about Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood at FDR's Polio Haven.

1. When I was a boy we had this lady come into my creative writing class at school, and she read to us from one of her novels. Many of us fell in love with her at first sight, and especially when she began reading the pages of her book, for her voice as many now know, is low and enchanting, the sort of voice that could launch a thousand ships. She was born a little too early to get into the phone sex business but she could have cleaned up! Now comes the tragic story of her heartwarming travails back in the late 40 and early 50s, when she was one of the "polios," as they called themselves, installed among other children in the long hot hospital they called "Warm Springs."
   
   in little Susan's day, the specter of Franklin Roosevelt, the most famous polio victim, was ever present. His photo was in the office of the main doctor, and the little children toasted to his memory (the President had died only five years before, keeping the extent of his paralysis a top state secret, but among the stricken, he was always eager to share).
   
   She was a difficult child born to a wonderful mother who was a top chef and did everything perfectly. Stuck in Warm Springs, her fantasy life really took off and she was forced to be the roommate of sullen, disapproving Caroline, and also she found herself a little boyfriend called "Joey Buckley," which made living in the enforced conditions of Warm Springs a bit more bearable. Her mother sent her many clippings to read, but only one book, oddly enough it was Shirley Jackson's THE LOTTERY, which Susan didn't read but Caroline did.
   
   She had a strange but understandable passion for Father James, the hospital padre, who could make any girl forget her vows. A charming man, James had what we would call today, "charisma." I enjoyed this book but came to feel that she, Susan, was spinning out tale after tale based on tiny scraps of memory, for no one could remember all that, but embroidery is what the novelist does best: we learned that long ago at Ms. Richards Shreve's knee back in the classroom at school.



2. I was anxious to read this book because like the author, I spent a good part of my childhood life in Warm Springs. I truly enjoyed this memoir which brought back memories and feelings of my own childhood. I laughed and cried and relieved many of the author's experiences which were very similar to my own. The book is very well written and I have lent it out to friends that have not had any ties to polio, except knowing me. Everyone has enjoyed this light and entertaining reading.



3. Being a post-polio survivior myself, I took great interest in this true account of a young girl's memory of her years there. I was a little disappointed in the building up of Joey's "flying thru the air" to the actual account of his breaking of both his legs...and thats all that was said of that. I gathered she was forced to leave after that,
   as the story seems to abruptly end right after that.
   I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of Warm Springs and FDR's Splendid Deception. ( His bout with Polio at Warm Springs.)



4. This book was beautiful, honest and thoughtful. To remember what it was to be 11 or 16 or 25 and what was important to us then and to keep from judging our younger selves seems to be part of our job after middle age. After being parents ourselves we can be more forgiving to our own parents and having been children we can keep from judging our children. Susan Shreve takes her story and through her gaze helps me see what was important what is still important and how those things have changed. I will be thinking about this book for a long while.



5. There is not a whole lot out there, as far as recollections of the most recent polio years in the US. Having had the disease in 1954 myself, I found this to be a friendly book. It's a great story of how polio people never quit. We, as a group regardless of our various disabilities, have had successfully full lives. And those of us who are dealing with Post Polio Syndrome just keep on keeping on, as does the author of this book.
   
   Hats off to Susan Richards Shreve. Thanks for a good read.

5 comments about Intensive Care: The Story of a Nurse.

1. I am not a nurse, but I found that the fullness of Heron's easy and poignant storytelling brings the reader into her life to share in the joys and frustrations of being a student, nurse, mother, and human being. I came to know the characters as if they were my own friends, coworkers and acquaintances. The reality and detail of the human life portrayed in the pages of this book reminds us of the universal experience of what it is to live. Her experiences are sometimes dramatic, tense, uplifting, sad, frustrating, or funny but always, always spellbinding. It is a true story of how to live, learn and grow. It is simply the best biographical narrative I have encountered.



2. A Nurse's Story: A Review of Echo Heron's Intensive Care
   Imagine a student nurse's first day being assigned to the emergency room of a big city hospital. She can't decide if her nervousness or her impulsive enthusiasm is to blame for the beads of sweat forming on her forehead as her jittery legs take her down the hallway. She stands before the big double doors and decides she is ready to enter the world of on the spot medicine.
   As she walks through the doorway to the emergency room she stops abruptly and allows a small gasp to escape from her lips. The turmoil and noise is overwhelming. Her eyes scan the room as she tries to comprehend what she has gotten herself into. Every available bed is occupied. A young woman covered in blood is in one bed moaning a rhythmic beat, a wailing child is in the next bed, and an old man yelling for a nurse is in the next. A tiny woman is muttering to herself as she mops us vomit from the tiled floor. The student nurse closes her eyes as she considers turning around and sprinting out of the building. Something deep inside tells her that she and her new career will have a love-hate relationship.
   In her autobiography, Intensive Care, (Atheneum, 1987, 370 pgs.), Echo Heron relates the story of her nursing career from her early training in the mid 1970's to the burnout she suffered toward the end of her work twenty years later. Heron compels the reader to wonder why anyone would be drawn to this occupation and why anyone, even the most caring, would want to leave it.
   
   The author's narrative reveals how she had the desire to make people's lives better from the age of eight but didn't pursue her dream until she spent many years working as a legal secretary. Heron was a divorced single mother of three and one-half year old Simon when she decided to follow her dream and apply to nursing school. She wasn't alone in her journey, her best friend Jane had applied at the same time. Together they were ready to save the world in their white stockings, crisp white uniforms, and the obligatory nurse's cap pinned to their hair. Heron quickly discovers the nursing program is extremely demanding. Intense studying into the night and long days striving to get through clinicals leaves her exhausted, skeptical, and reminiscing about the benign and boring days she spent as a legal secretary. Heron's resolve and determination prevails though even after fainting the first time she tries to inject a patient.
   Faced with some of the ugliest of humanity and the pain people inflict on one another, the emergency room must be one of the most troublesome areas in a hospital for a nurse to work.
   Though difficult, Heron learns to love the work in the emergency room. She thrives on the adrenaline rush created by the often chaotic atmosphere. The compassionate act of healing another human being among the onslaught of many patients at one time is what she has been training for. As Heron relates early in the book, "The familiar subtle thrill began to well up inside me as I walked to the nurse's station. Even though I had memorized my lines for the scene, no one ever really knew what was going to happen" (4). In one instance, Heron is assigned to work in the emergency room while she is still in training. Early one morning a man brought his wife to the hospital with burns covering 75% of her body. The couple had been drinking heavily the night before and the wife had passed out while smoking a cigarette. The husband wouldn't let her call paramedics for fear of disturbing the neighbors so they waited three hours for him to sober up. He dropped her off at the emergency room doors and headed to the bar. Compassion is not easily shown when confronted with human beings harming one another.
   Children are frequently the most rewarding, frustrating, and heartbreaking of all patients to care for. Heron describes many stories of working on children especially in the emergency room. Most of the stories have happy endings but some endings are particularly sorrowful. Heron relates the story of one such unhappy ending in chapter six of Intensive Care (52). An exhausted looking mother brought her young toddler into the emergency room. The child is unresponsive as the medical team rushes him into a trauma room while the harried mother is escorted to a quiet waiting room. It was discovered while interviewing the mother that her son had wandered into the family's backyard pool while she was napping on the couch in the family room. Heron, still a student nurse, was given the task of informing the child's mother that despite the doctor's best efforts, her son was dead. As Heron struggles to come up with the right words to say, she realizes nothing about this is right. Tears fill her eyes as she thinks of her own son, who is safe at home, and the mothering instinct blends with her nurse's training as she finds the words to speak to the grief stricken mother who just lost her only child. As Heron explains, "Nothing I thought of saying would come close to touching the woman's anguish. In the end I said nothing at all and rocked her in my arms" (88). No amount of training prepares nurses for this moment. It's just another time where their heart leads them to do the right thing.
   The population of intensive care units is often terminally ill patients. Instead of healing the sick and releasing them, nurses are frequently conflicted by tending the sick while they face their final days of life. Heron accepts a position in the intensive care unit when she graduates from nursing school. She is passionate about her work in this department although she finds it difficult to come to grips with the mortality rate of the patients she cares for. The recollection of
   these people and the continuing fight to sustain life in these patients bleeds into her personal life and memory banks on a daily basis. Heron describes the scene as one of her favorite patients, Turk, is dying. "Joe bent over from the waist, placed the paddles on Turk's chest, and jolted him with four hundred-watt seconds of electricity. It was one of those certain sounds that stayed with me, never to be lost from recall" (235). Inevitably, Heron takes her work home with her which slowly becomes a contributing factor of the burnout she suffers.
   Death is a natural part of life. Quite often, especially working in the intensive care unit, part of the author's duties was to increase the level of pain medication given to a terminally ill patient. Knowing that by increasing these levels nurses are essentially speeding up the progression of death goes totally against the oath a nurse takes to save and preserve lives. Heron often struggles with this during her career as saving lives is what her goal has been from a young age. Freeing people from pain for which there is no other release is another part of nursing.
   Echo Heron was born in Troy, New York. She moved to San Francisco in 1967 and worked as a legal secretary for eight years. Heron went back to college to become a registered nurse in 1975 and worked for the next 20 years as a nurse in emergency rooms and intensive care units in hospitals along the west coast. In 1983 she submitted a story that was printed in the Reader's Digest and from that was contacted by a publishing house to write an autobiographical
   account of her life as a critical care nurse. Intensive Care quickly rose to the New York Times bestseller list where it stayed at number one for two months. Heron has written an additional
   seven books, both fiction and nonfiction, all dealing with the medical field. She is currently an activist for patient and nurse's rights and a public speaker while working on additional books.
   In their review The New York Daily News reports, "Echo Heron is a very special nurse dedicated to healing and helping in the harshest environments. Intensive Care is unique, penetrating, and unforgettable. Her story is real." Heron does a wonderful job in taking her audience through a passionate and often painful look at nursing. Nursing has many times been characterized as an overworked, underappreciated choice of occupations but it has never been described as being glamorous.
   Intensive Care is recommended to anyone interested in employment in the healthcare industry. The author shares her frustrations as well as triumphs as she puts into perspective the real inner workings of a hospital and the naivety of prospective student nurses entering the medical field. Little things like shaving an elderly man, foot rubs, wiping brows, and talking to unconscious people are important to the patient as well as the nurse. Heron's writing requires the reader to contemplate the decision to make nursing a career as she soundly illustrates both the challenges and rewards of nursing.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   



3. This is a great book to read and get a bird's eye view to some of the things that nurses deal with. She has great chapters with great scenarios, stories and writing on some of the emotions that are dealt with in the course of a nurse's day.
   
   I can't help but think that some of the stories centered around her nursing school days are anything but Glorified and richly enhanced in terms of what she actually said and did, but nonetheless it's a great, easy read.



4. I first read this book in 1995 when I was starting to toy with the idea of leaving a paralegal career and pursuing a career in nursing. I found her descriptions and experiences to be very accurate, and her ability to tell a story very entertaining. Nursing is truly a career that comes from the heart, because nobody would do it only for the money! It has remained one of favorite books and I give it to those I know even considering pursuing a career in the nursing field. All her books are excellent, but I think this one is the best!



5. I enjoyed this book overall, but Ms. Heron seems to be quite arrogant. Was she the only good student in her nursing classes? According to her, you'd think so! In her hospital tales (which ar equite entertaining), she seems to know more than the doctors and much more experienced nurses. Some parts are a bit dramatic. Like in the opening tale, a grandson comes in to see his dying grandfather and Ms. Heron draws all these assumptions from their quick reunion. If you can get past all that, this book really is enjoyable and I will be reading her other books.

5 comments about Bryson City Secrets: Even More Tales of a Small-Town Doctor in the Smoky Mountains.

1. I have been a long time fan of Dr. Larimore's books. The Bryson City books are very well written, informative, fun, sad; real life! It makes one feel like they are right there with the Larimore family and the characters are so life-like that we feel like we actually know them. The part of each book that I enjoy the most is the Spiritual aspect that is so much a part of Dr. Larimore and his calling to be a Doctor. He is very open about the huge part in his skills, patient relationships and healing the Holy Spirit is involved in. I hope that this won't be the last in this series of books, I look forward to getting to know this area, people and his wonderful family even better!



2. I did not enjoy this book as much as the first two that Dr. Larimore wrote, possibly because much of it was material from the first two books. His insight as a Christian is wonderful though, and his response to problems faced by us all was uplifting and insightful. The book just seemed to be somewhat of a let down with regard to the story line.



3. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I had previously read the first 2 books of Dr. Larimore, Bryson City Tales and Bryson City Seasons, and I enjoyed this book.



4. I have read all of his books and they were most enjoyable. I have visited in that area many times and feel I knew places he was talking about. I also have enjoyed Deep Creek with my family. He is an excellent writer. I couldn't put the book down, couldn't wait to see what would happen next. Many sad things took place, but ended with a good satisfying ending, knowing all those involved would come through in being honest.



5. This is the third book of a trilogy by Dr. Walt Larimore who writes about his memories as a young husband, father, and doctor in the small town of Bryson City in the beautiful Smoky Mountains. As in the first two books, this one contains a lot of self-deprecating humor, such as when Dr. Larimore is coerced into being a bridesmaid in a "womanless wedding", a local fundraiser. There are humorous moments when Walt is called on to be a vet rather than a doctor, touching times of treating a blind man and his seeing-eye dog, and amazing incidents such as the first birth of triplets in the county. At the end, the story turns darker and the Larimores are faced with a difficult decision which they make through prayer and good advice from friends. This book and the other ones in the series are highly recommended reading.

5 comments about William Osler: A Life in Medicine.

1. I purchased 5 of these books as a "Thank you" to 5 excellent physicians who supported me as an oncology nurse practitioner. Since I was retiring, I wanted to say "Thank you" and each physician was thrilled to receive a copy.



2. This is one of the most absorbing and readable biographies of Sir William Osler. Michael Bliss' book is considerably shorter and easier to read than the monumental Pulitzer Prize winning book by Harvey Cushing, Life of Sir William Osler.
   As a retired general practitioner, Sir Willam's life and example is particularly close to what I have been practicing for the past forty years. When one reads this account one can begin to fathom this great man's ability, perception of human suffering, natural curiosity and dedication to the patient's welfare. This book reveals to us some of his other unique abilities and qualities namely his bibliophilia,vast reading, writing close to 170 papers, teaching scores of students, and having the honor of holding responsible and prestigious positions in the fields of medicine and the humanities. In addition to all these were his literally developing Johns Hopkins Hospital and University into the best in the world in his time and marshalled the achievements of hospitals in Philadelphia, Montreal and Toronto. As Regius Professor at Oxford from 1915 to 1919 he was a towering giant . He therefore stands in my eyes as the greatest doctor of the 19th.,20th. and perhaps the 21st. centuries. Not Sydenham, not Hunter, not even Lister could do all that Osler managed to do and do so with so much energy, dedication and humility.
   We doctors who were not with him on hospital rounds, clinical demonstrations,lectures, lunches, teas and dinners and amazing conversations with him are very envious of those who were blessed with these opportunities.
   He set a living example to his protege the way a doctor should live and work to earn that mark of nobility that the profession has had for centuries. He was the healer of all healers and inspired many to literally follow his foot steps. To mention two such would be too few but the likes of Harvey Cushing and Wilder Penfield come to mind and they both became superb neurosurgeons even though their hero, Osler , was an internist. I was astounded to read the great numbers of international luminaries who were treated by him. He ministered to doctors and their families, medical students and staff and was thus a doctor's doctor both as a teacher and physician.
   His love of little children, the youth, the aged and his own extended family was exemplary to say the least.
   How sad that such a doctor left the world at a mere 70 years of age. Three great nations, Canada, the U.S. and Britain all claim him as their own son. That honor and adulation no one and no doctor has the distinction of achieving. He served all of them so well.
   We all stand in awe of this stalwart of modern medicine and Michael Bliss has opened our eyes to this individual so well.



3. Despite almost a century since his death, William Osler persists as the `the grand old man of medicine', a life devoted to doctoring and doctors, who has supplied inspiration for many generations of physicians in the United States, Canada, Britain and the Continent.
   
   Osler's life was a remarkable achievement as a medical teacher, (important in America in giving medical students real medical experience, as clinical clerks in hospitals) physician, prolific author, councillor, researcher and mentor to literarily thousands of men and women embarking on the profession in the medicos. It was the philosopher and great teacher, William James, who commented to Osler, marvelling and his energy and interests. Osler replied, that he was terribly conscious of time that it was a commodity he wished he could buy more of, as there was so much he could do with it. (p. 502) Osler's zest for work and unbounding passion for medicine set the standard for medical women and men in the twentieth century.
   
   After reading Michael Bliss's brilliant biography of the pioneering neurosurgeon, Harvey Cushing, another remarkable medical man, and Osler's first biographer, it seemed only natural to read about Cushing's mentor. Both biographies are first rate and it really would be a disservice to compare them, because both works are thorough, educational, inspiring and definitive contributions to the greats of medical history.
   
   Osler is the author of the currently classic text, The Principles and Practice of Medicine, which became the core textbook for students and practicing physicians during his life. It became a yearly task for the doctor to revise later editions, (sixteen in all) and in present time, for modern doctors, according to Bliss, has now become patient-centred and a historical document of the state of 19th century medicine.
   
   Osler is famous for his bedside manner, the notion of empowering patients and autonomy in clinical practice. The man's faith in medicine and the legendary "aura" of healing that surrounded him, causing patients to regain the faith in their own healing ability, has caused a renewed interest in humanities joining forces with science, a proper balance, ensuring an optimal treatment and outcome for the patient.
   
   How did the man accomplish so much in one lifetime? Similar to the 18th century philosopher, Immanuel Kant, people close to him could adjust their clocks to the second by the philosopher's movements. Osler was the same: his day was usually planned down to the minute, rising at seven and retiring by ten-thirty everyday.
   
   He was also a man born with writing disease, never a day would go by without putting pen to paper, as his articles, correspondence, speeches and books certainly reveal. A consummate bibliophile, his collection of medical texts and related subjects, at the end of his life reached eight thousand, taking many years to catalogue, ending up being donated, as was his wish, to McGill University.
   
   An excellent biography of an extraordinary man of medicine.



4. William Osler remains an iconic figure in American medicine. Osler is taken often to epitomize the physician who brings a crticial and scholarly approach to the bedside in conjunction with compassion and empathy. In this very well written biography, Bliss traces Osler's life, his achievements, and examines how he assumed iconic status and whether or not this status is deserved. Bliss is particularly well equipped to undertake this task. A well known specialist on Canadian history, he has written other fine books on medical history in a Canadian context.
   Bliss presents Osler as a product of the rising British Victorian middle classes. The remarkable son of impressive parents, Osler was the son of an English naval officer turned Anglican minister and his equally intelligent wife. Raised in rural Ontario when this part of Canada was still a frontier, Osler's parents inculcated respect for learning, dedication to hard work, and clearly taught the value of community service. William Osler was not an outlier in this family. One of his brothers became a prominent businessman and two other brothers became important figures in Canadian law and politics. An early interest in natural history (biology) lead Osler to medicine. Trained in then provinicial Toronto and Montreal, he finished his education in some of the great teaching hospitals of Europe. Spotted by his mentors in Montreal as a future star, he was brought back to McGill to teach at the modest medical school. At McGill, Osler launched the career of careful clinical observation, pathologic correlation, and teaching that would propel him to the apex of his profession. His growing reputation led to appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and then to the nascent Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. At Hopkins, he became the first Professor of Clinical Medicine and introduced the teaching methods that revolutionized medical education in the USA. Relatively little of what Osler did was truly novel. Clinico-pathologic correlation has been standard method for expanding medical knowledge for decades and the clerkship method of teaching had been used in Britain and continental Europe for some time. Osler carried these methods to new heights. In his clinical practice, in his teaching, and in his great textbooks, Osler summarized and codified almost all of 19th century medicine. He was not a notable scientist, though his description and characterization of several important clinical conditions was very valuable, but he brought the best science of his time to the bedside and set clinical medicine on the course of drawing from systematic scientific work. In terms of his personal accomplishments and the example he set for his numerous trainees, his impact on 20th century medicine was immense.
   Osler's reputation as a fine physician was deserved. Bliss shows him to be an warm and compassionate individual who was regarded often with great affection by his patients. Blessed with a generous and kindly personality, he enjoyed a wide circle of friends and a happy family life. In important respects, Osler exemplifies some of the most important and most admirable features of the Victorian period. His sense of virtue and service was very strong but he was not a prig and had relatively liberal values. Traveling in Germany towards the end of the 19th century, he noted and deplored rising anti-Semitism. He appears to have been devoid of overt anti-Semitic feelings and had a number of Jewish trainess, all of whom he appears to have treated with his usual combination of high expectations and civil behavior. Alone among the faculty at Hopkins, he supported the admission of women, though he did not really believe in female equality. Bliss spent years immersed in Osler's extensive writings and tremendously extensive correspondence, clearly likes and admires Osler, and his regard for Osler is reflected in the tone of this biography.

   Osler was also that quintessential Canadian, the provincial boy who achieves fame on the wider stage of the USA or Britain. At the peak of his fame, he was the best known physician in the English speaking world and something of a minor celebrity.
   Like all fine biographies, this book is about more than its central subject. It is valuable on the development of Canadian society, the growth of universities in the USA and Canada, the history of medicine, and the devastating impact of WWI.
   This will be the standard biography of Osler and it is worthy of its subject.




5. This is, quite honestly, a hefty tome, but no less may be expected when writing about the greatest American physician who ever lived. Bliss presents us with a detailed, well-paced, and engaging biography of Dr. Osler, from his childhood days in Canada to his final years at Oxford. Being both a student of medicine and a Baltimorean (currently), I took a special interest to the chapters devoted to his post as the first chief of medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

   Unlike the time-honored work by Cushing, Bliss's book is no hagiography; it makes no false overtures about Dr. Osler's iconic grandeur, instead letting the reader discover for himself (or herself) that Dr. Osler was, in fact, as great a man as people say he was. (All that being said, I still value the two-volume Cushing biography, and there is no way I will rid myself of the precious first-edition set I snatched up last year at the Maryland Historical Society bookshop!)

   One need not practice Oslerolatry (that is, the veritable worship of Dr. Osler expressed by many of the older faculty at Hopkins and elsewhere) to appreciate this book, though having an interest in medicine and/or medical history may help. Critics often lament that American doctors no longer have any professional integrity, and that taking the Hippocratic Oath is a sham. Read this book, and discover how great the American physician can be...and THEN lament that they don't make them like they used to.

5 comments about Truth & Beauty: A Friendship.

1. wonderfully written. if you put a gun to my head and ask who was a better writer, patchett or her friend lucy grealy, the friend that makes completes this companionship, i'd say grealy. much more forceful, passionate and wild writer, hence grealy is not alive now, but patchett is. good book however. check out grealy's writings too.



2. I don't like memoirs, but I read this one in one day. The two writers Anne Patchett and Lucy Grealy meet at Sarah Lawrence and later are roommates while pursuing Master's Degrees at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Fate deals them both great success as writers, yet their personal paths take completely divergent courses. The bond of friendship spans two decades and countless heartbreaks. Anne Patchett does portray herself to be the 'saint' in this friendship but you would almost have to be to endure the suffering that being friend to Lucy Grealy demanded. The themes of friendship, art, loneliness and love are rendered with realism and depth. Patchett's obvious love for writing and her poet friend is shared in this gift of a book.



3. I'm giving this book 3 stars because I like Ann Patchett's writing very much, but the story isn't as interesting to me as a woman in my mid-40s as it would have been had I read this in my 20s. In my 20s, this would have been a grand sweeping tragedy - a life changing book, a standard by which to judge loyalty and friendship. In my 40s, I went "eh." I read this as the story of two highly dysfunctional people in a suffocating relationship. It feels like Patchett wrote it as a way to exorcise her grief; and also perhaps examine her own less than healthy behavior. It did make me want to read more of Patchett's fiction. I picked up a copy of Patron Saint of Liars and am going to give that a try next. Part of me wants to say, Ann just forgive yourself already. We've all been there and done that. Maybe not in such an extreme way or for so many years... but we've all been sucked in by a charming selfish user. Learn a lesson and move on.



4. Readers will likely recognize the author's name from her previous novels, including Bel Canto, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award, and The Patron Saint of Liars, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Readers also may recognize Ann Patchett from her articles that appear in such publications as Gourmet, the New York Times Magazine, and the Paris Review. No doubt, some readers will recognize Patchett's friend, Lucy Grealy, as the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Autobiography of a Face.
   
   Truth & Beauty is the story of the friendship shared by Lucy Grealy and Ann Patchett. It is at once tender, heartwarming, heartbreaking and complex. Truth & Beauty is neither the story of Lucy nor the story of Ann, but of the parts of each life that were shared. What one lacked, the other offered for the relationship. What one shared, the other reached out to receive.
   
   Ann and Lucy met in the early 1980s while attending college. At the Iowa Writers' Workshop, they began a friendship that would become a lifelong process. This is no ordinary friendship. It is one riddled with emotional upheaval, creative successes and disappointments, health crises, and ultimately the lecherous hold of drug abuse.
   
   This is a phenomenal look at the way in which two exceptionally creative people lived, loved, wrote, and grappled with the realities of life. It is also an extremely sensitive description of the way a woman wrought with illness, despair and depression can one minute create beauty and the next minute search for ways to destroy herself.
   
   Truth & Beauty is the story of two friends who loved one another through the best and worst of times. It is a portrayal of loyalty and devotion over more than twenty years of friendship, and a haunting, heartbreaking portrait of the belief in the invincibility of one who lives so largely despite their diminuitive size. Only to find that no one is invincible...no one.
   
   by Lee Ambrose
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women



5. The reason I even looked at reviews for this book is so that I could gage how trustworthy other book reviews on here are and how seriously I should take them. Now that I look at the negative, totally ridiculous critiques of Truth and Beauty, I'm never trusting another sour review on here again! When somebody asks me, "What's your favorite book?" I used to say something by T. Capote or M. Angelo, but now I reply, without hesitation, "TRUTH & BEAUTY by Ann Patchett!" Seriously. This book is awesome and I'm annoyed even reading other bad reviews on here about it. Patchett writes in a way that makes me stop, re-read the page, and then say to myself, "Damn, this is great stuff! Why didn't I think of something like that?" I think if you are an aspiring writer, or just somebody who appreciates intelligent, well-written prose, then you should read this one. Do not trust the other reviewers on this page - they're probably the kind of people who'd give a Harlequin novel 5 stars.

5 comments about Tales from the Bed: A Memoir.

1. I came across this book in a stack of books my mom had and I read it only because my dad died of ALS when 31 years ago (I was 3 at the time.) Jenifer and her sisters tell a very touching story about their life past and present and about the struggles Jenifer had with living with this horrible disease. I found it very interesting and a way I could picture what my family went through with my dad as I was too young to remember. Kudos to Jenifer and her family for their hard work in doing fundraising for Project ALS. It didn't take me long at all to get through the book!



2. In 1997, at the age of thirty-five, Jenifer Estess was forced to confront life and a debilitating illness head on. She did so with the help of her two sisters, Valerie and Meredith. Years before the diagnosis, the three sisters had made a pact with each other: "Nothing, no one will stop us." They never lost sight of that pact, nor did they lose sight of the powerful connection they had with one another even in the bleakest of times.
   
   This is a memoir of life--of a life worth celebrating and a life learning the fine points of how to live while dying. Jenifer is diagnosed with A.L.S. (amyotropic lateral sclerosis), better known to many as Lou Gehrig's Disease. She sets the stage from the beginning. We know that there will be no "happily ever after" ending, but there will be a legacy of love and concern for mankind.
   
   With a foreword by Katie Couric, we are introduced to Jenifer and her sisters as well as Project A.L.S.,the company they formed to combat this terrible disease. As Katie so eloquently puts it, "ALS robbed Jenifer of so much. But through it all, she continued to appreciate the beauty of life even when her ability to live it was so creully curtailed. ALS couldn't take away her brilliance, and the one muscle it could not destroy was her heart."
   
   This book is filled to the brim with heart. Jenifer used her heart, even when the rest of her body was failing her, to champion the cause of finding a cure for ALS. Through Project A.L.S., the sisters became political activists for stem cell research, speaking before congress along with Christopher Reeve and other well known people. They enlisted big corporate sponsors to fund research for a cure. And they kept on living despite the obvious progression of a killer disease.
   
   Jenifer is one of those uncommon people who exemplifies grace under pressure. She might have withdrawn from the world, hiding behind her failing body and the cruel fate with which she had been presented. Instead, she reached out to the world, to the healthcare community and to her friends and sisters. She was the strength behind them all, even as she could no longer care for herself or use most of her muscles.
   
   To read this book is to feel as though Jenifer has become your friend as well. In the afterword, written by Valerie Estess, we discover: "For Jenifer, having it all was a simple, exquisite recipe... Combine love, work, compassion, and you will some day, in some way, get to the mountaintop. Making the climb is the ultimate honor and privilege."
   
   Jenifer lost her battle with ALS in 2003. Her legacy lives on in the lessons she taught her sisters, this book which is a true inspiration to all who read it, and through Project A.L.S., which continues to work toward a cure not only for ALS but also for its "sister" diseases--Parkinson's, Alzheimers, and Huntington's.
   
   by Lee Ambrose
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   reviewing books by, for, and about women



3. This was another memoir I wasn't sure I would keep reading. I am glad that I gave this book a chance. It is a very moving, sad book. I think about it fairly often.



4. I've never been moved to write a review before, but this is such a moving memoir. Jennifer's story inspired me in every way. Although I'm completely healthy, I could relate to the book. Life is hard but we all should feel lucky for what we have, for what Jennifer didn't get to have. I want to kiss my kids more than I ever did before, after reading this book. And Jennifer was a great storyteller and writer. I'd recommend this to anyone in need of a good read in front of the fire. That's the kind of book this is. Curl up and enjoy.



5. First off, I have to admire how Jenifer used her illness and influence to educate others and raise awareness and money for ALS.
   
   That said, I have to agree with the others who said that this book seemed to be heavy on the early-childhood memories and name-dropping than it was about Jenifer's self-awareness and feelings throughout her illness. I would have liked to know how more about how she created and structured Project ALS--it seemed like she just picked up the phone and called a few of her celebrity friends to organize a fundraiser. It might have been more powerful and meaningful if she had gone into more detail about her feelings and thoughts as the disease progressed.
   
   I'm glad I read this book. I certainly do appreciate the courage that Jenifer and her sisters had around ALS, but I agree with the other reviewers who could have done without the list of her many celebrity friends and childhood stories.

5 comments about Closing the Chart: A Dying Physician Examines Family, Faith, and Medicine.

1. My parents attended the same church as Dr. Hsi but this book came to me through my fiance's mother, a retired nurse in CO, who is passing this book around as a must read after receiving a copy from my parents. Through the years, she was horrified to experience the reduction in her & her peers ability to provide proper care as a result of "managed care" & opted to move into insurance rather than continuing her successful career as a nurse.
   This isn't a typical reading choice for me but was eye-opening & a quick, absorbing read. I'm sure my seatmates on two different plane rides were wondering what was wrong as I dabbed at my eyes in vain to stem the flow of tears.
   Decent doctoring is something we take for granted & we don't always know how or are made to feel guilty or inadequate when we press for answers or explanations from an authority figure such as an esteemed specialist or doctor. We need to push for change & I only hope that books like this become mandatory in the medical study curriculum!



2. I am a nursing student. I happened to notice this title on amazon. I have to tell you, that I know that I will be a better nurse because I read this book. I think that it should be a mandatory part of the curriculum in the every program for all of the health care professions. It is very difficult sometimes, to know what it is like for the patient. This book made that realization abunduntly clear. Dr. Hsi's story is an inspiration. Definitely read this book, whether you are a health care worker, a patient, or just looking for a good book to read!



3. He describes so well what family members go through when a loved one is terminally ill. Doctors do need to look at the whole person, their family and their spiritual side and treat people holistically.
   He spoke quite well of the pain that is often inflicted on those who are the most helpless by those in the position to be most helpful. This definetly is a gift to be given to those in the medical field or those who are thinking of entering it.
   Steve was my doctor when I was growing up and we went to the same church. I remember praying for him when the calls would go out that he needed surgery while praying for my aunt who was terminally ill at the same time...what he describes about being a patient is not far off from what my Aunt experienced while she was hospitalized in Arizona.



4. As a brief patient of Dr. Hsi's and a memeber of the healthcare industry for 25 years, this book struck at the core of my very being. I not only see what he experienced everyday in my line of work but also expierienced it on a different level for myself. Anyone thinking of pursueing a career in medicine, should let this book open your eyes and your heart. It would make sense to have this be required reading for every nurse, pre-med student, intern, resident or seasoned physician. I know with some it would fall on deaf ears, however if it only made a difference in a few, what a difference it could make in so many lives.
   Many thanks to Beth Corbin-Hsi, Jim Belshaw and of course Steven D. Hsi, M.D who gives us wisdom and courage through his words even now.



5. To say that this is a profoundly moving work is understatement. It should be mandatory reading for any patient or care giver, but more especially for any who would be called "Healer". Simply stated ... closing the chart is a magnificient work. It will no doubt become highly acclaimed and will be appreciated by any care giver or patient in the modern world of medicine. It is rich in texture and flavor, providing a remarkable insight into the progression of change that occurs when a family is faced with a profound illness,and must come face to face with the methdologies of modern medicine. This work will provide the next level of understanding in the process of illness, such as that initiated by Norman Cousins in Anatomy of An Illness.

5 comments about The Hand of God.

1. Being a pro-life college student in a liberal university has its challenges. But after reading Dr. Nathanson's book I am no longer at a loss for words when it comes to arguing the abortion issue. I have written many 15-20 page papers on this issue ranging from its moral significance to its relationship with our government, (federal & state). I used much of the information that was in this book. Nathanson gave so much insight and honesty to the history of the issue that it would be impossible not to question any pro-choice stance. I challenge any pro-choicer to read this book. You might find that it is much more challenging to agrue with Nathanson; if it weren't for him you wouldn't have an argument.



2. I think that this is a great and true story by an abortion doctor. It would be good for all, pro-life and pro-choice.



3. As the title explains, Dr. Nathanson was once a bona fide abortion doctor. In fact, as the back cover explains, he "was co-founder in 1969 of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL, later renamed the National Abortion Rights Action League), and was director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, then the largest abortion clinic of the world. In the late 1970's he turned against abortion to become a prominent pro-life advocate."
   
   
   
   This semi-autobiographical work provides a look behind the sterile abortion clinic doors that populate our country. He openly talks of how the abortion movement intentionally manipulated the public to repeal the once restrictive laws concerning this barbaric practice. This included providing bogus statistics to the media and exaggerating existing reproductive problems. He carefully details the history of abortion, explains the many different techniques of performing abortions, and explains what convinced him to forsake his livelihood and give up his lucrative work.
   
   
   
   What to like: Nathanson is intimately familiar with the abortion industry and goes into great detail about what actually goes on at a clinic. He also provides an insider's view on the machinations behind the early abortion movement.
   
   
   
   As I was writing my extensive series on abortion, his book proved to be invaluable. He systematically explores each and every credible pro-choice argument and points out their faulty logic and shortcomings. Believing himself to be a man of science, he increasingly found himself questioning his abortion practice as ultrasound and sonogram technology developed. Soon these fledgling concerns grew to absolute horror as the overwhelming evidence that life begins at conception and not birth, convinced him to abandon his position as the director of New York's largest abortion clinic.
   
   
   
   Nathanson carefully explores the scientific data that clearly shows life begins at conception, not at birth. He also works through the different definitions which philosophy has given to personhood, and details the dangers behind "endowing" a more exclusive group to "personhood". At the end of the book he also talks about proper and improper responses to abortion.
   
   
   
   What not to like: The book starts out a little tedious. I am pretty sure the readers of this book are going to be interested in Nathanson's story only as far as it relates to abortion. Yet the first three and a half chapters of the book barely breach the subject. Instead he goes into painstaking detail on his childhood and upbringing. These do help us understand why he first entered the medical field and later started performing abortions, but they do not warrant the attention he gives them.
   
   
   
   Memorable Quote: "It was ultrasound, which for the first time threw open a window into the womb. We also began to observe the fetal heart on electronic fetal heart monitors. For the first time, I began to think about what we really had been doing at the clinic. Ultrasound opened up a new world. For the first time, we could really see the human fetus, measure it, observe it, watch it, and indeed bond with it and love it. I began to do that."
   
   
   
   Conclusion: For the American grieved by abortion, this book is a valuable resource. Its chronicles of the early abortion rights movement help the reader understand how the practice was legalized in the first place. Nathanson's arguments for the pro-life cause are damning to the abortion movement. His clear scientific analysis of the beginning of life is, perhaps, the best I've ever read and leaves the reader with no doubt that life does, indeed, begin at conception. This book is essential for anyone who wants to learn more about the abortion debate embroiling our country today.



4. This book is a truly fascinating account of one mans journey from the heights (if indeed it can be called that) of abortion fame as a well known abortionis who performed many, many abortions in his time as well as one of those who was instrumental in helping make abortion legal. Now, to see that turnaround, that has to be something. I was interested to see how he began to change his mind and just how difficult that in itself can be when your fame and career (not to mention your self-esteem) is built on it. I admire this man for his courage in coming out and speaking up.



5. Many people, mostly pro-life advocates, see the abortion issue as the modern equivalent of the fight to put an end to slavery. Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, a founder of NARAL and once one of America's premier abortion providers until he saw the light and changed sides, draws parallels between pre-Civil War America, specifically the Dred Scott decision, and Roe v. Wade in "The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind." Those are heady claims indeed. To argue that abortion could bring the country to civil war seems a bit melodramatic. Certainly the other side, the pro-abortion advocates, don't see the issue this way. To them Roe v. Wade and subsequent court rulings expanding the ability of a woman to terminate her pregnancy is a right, pure and simple. It's a right that grows out of the Supreme Court's recognition of an inherent privacy right guaranteed by many of the amendments contained in the Bill of Rights. Any effort to curtail or roll back abortion, they argue, would not only allow the government to exercise control over a woman's body, it would also strike at the heart of the gender equality feminists have worked so hard to achieve over the past four decades.
   
   Don't expect Bernard Nathanson to resolve the issue in this slim book. This is no "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for the pro-life crowd. It's close, though. "The Hand of God" tells the story of how a lowly physician came to embrace abortion, how he began to question what he did for a living, and how he found God when he embraced the pro-life movement. According to the author, his early life played a big role in his later decision to become an abortionist. His father, a Jewish physician with misanthropic tendencies, dominated most aspects of his son's life until his death at the age of ninety-four. An imposing presence with a keen intellect and a hardscrabble background, Nathanson's father passed on to his son a suspicion of the Jewish religion and a distrust of women. For example, he encouraged his son to disrespect his mother. The father also dominated Bernard's sister, interfering in her marriage and all other aspects of her life until she committed suicide in her forties. It's obvious we're not dealing with a kindly soul here, yet Nathanson's father did do a few things to help his son. He secured him a place in medical school, for instance, and passed on a love of learning that, if this book is any indication, served Bernard Nathanson well.
   
   Unfortunately, the Hippocratic Oath Nathanson took after completing medical school didn't quite make the desired impression. His specialization in obstetrics and gynecology coupled with the tumult of the 1960s soon brought the good doctor into contact with several physicians interested in overturning the nation's abortion laws. The author plunged in with both feet, and soon found himself overseeing a clinic in New York that performed tens of thousands of abortions. Before his conversion to the pro-life movement, Nathanson went through a couple of marriages and even personally performed an abortion on a woman pregnant with his own child. The last several chapters of the book move beyond the personal into philosophical and medical discussions on life, death, and the ethics of the abortion debate. Nathanson convincingly argues that new medical techniques prove that life begins much earlier than previously believed. He also contends that abortion is a gateway that could, if it continues to be the law of the land, lead to legalized euthanasia and the establishment of third world "fetus farms" that would supply stem cells and organs for those suffering from various diseases in this country. "The Hand of God" paints a pretty bleak picture of the abortion scene.
   
   By far the most effect part of "The Hand of God" deals with Nathanson's discussions of the types of medical doctors that inhabit abortion clinics. Think alcoholics, drug users, quacks, and bottom of the class physicians. It's ugly beyond belief. He provides a few names and cases concerning doctors who had their licenses yanked for maiming and/or killing patients while performing abortions. One surgeon actually quit performing the procedure at the halfway point and sent the woman home because her husband didn't have enough money to pay for the operation. She later died. We tend to think of these things happening in the bad old days before Roe v. Wade turned the back alley butcher into a white coat wearing surgeon in a licensed clinic, but Nathanson's carefully documented accounts show the fallacy of that sort of thinking. Abortion clinics still draw the bottom feeders because of the morals involved. Most doctors don't want anything to do with terminating pregnancies unless the mother's life is in imminent danger. Perhaps most physicians still take the Hippocratic Oath seriously. Whatever the case, ethics still play a big role in who will or will not perform abortions in the nation's clinics.
   
   I decided to read Nathanson's book after reading about his conversion to Roman Catholicism in Dave Shiflett's "Exodus: Why Americans Are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity." I'm glad I did. I've never been a knee jerk pro-lifer despite being a strident conservative, but this book has moved me further in that direction. There is something seriously wrong with a culture that endorses abortion as a means of birth control, and there is definitely something amiss about allowing a minor to terminate a pregnancy without parental consent. I won't even get into the immorality of partial-birth abortion; I was against that procedure long before I read this book. I heartily recommend "The Hand of God." Prepare yourself, however. You might just find yourself agreeing with the good doctor by the time you turn the final page.