No comments about Profile of Abuse: Through Co-Dependency.

5 comments about Being with Rachel: A Personal Story of Memory and Survival.

1. Honest and beautifully written memoir of a mother whose daughter sustained a traumatic brain injury. Unsentimental but profoundly moving and often humorous. I admire the author and I wonder if I could be as brave if something as horrible as this happened to my child. Makes you stop and think!



2. A very interesting memoir. I thought the blend of medical and personal was very good. The author (Rachel's Mom) wrote a very moving memoir.



3. This book is a must read for anyone who has had a family member suffer a TBI (traumatic brain injury) and I wish those who don't deal with TBI's to read it so they have an understanding of those who do have one. I have a son who suffered one and even though his wasn't as severe as Rachel's, there were parts of Rachel's problems that he also dealt with.
   
   This book is also a wonderful story that miracles do happen. I think Rachel's mother was the driving force in her recovery.
   
   Great Book



4. Atop all the courageous acts in this story, the final and most lasting one is Karen Brennan's commitment of her story to print. In her turmoil's depths, she attests to uncomfortable truths and confesses her impassioned dismay that love is sometimes mixed with guilt, that hope is a hairsbreadth from dread, that the cruelest and most unjust penalty is in another light a largesse with unending rewards. Most impressive is the revelatory presentation of an active mind (or perhaps two minds) learning, reformulating, performing. In her new role as caregiver researching her daughter's brain injury, Brennan confronts anew terms she had understood as fiction instructor and critical theorist: reading this, you'll come to know that what you appreciate in your favorite author or in your best friend's letters is your own innate complicity in a good act of perserveration or confabulation or dissociation. The gradual reunderstanding of memory and narrative is a thrill to experience.

   Notwithstanding her publisher's marketing strategy, this is far more than a story of survival; and though she may share with Mark Doty or John Bayley a life marked by caregiving and loss, Brennan authors a far finer literary memoir, imaginatively and unsympathetically crafted, with a style more akin to the radical sincerity of J.R. Ackerley or Annie Ernaux or Herve Guibert.

   These are your best friend's letters. Karen Brennan is your favorite author.




5. Karen Brennan's Being With Rachel ... tells of a family's changes when a 25-year-old daughter is gravely injured in a motorcycle accident. Her mother's account of her daughter's slow recovery, determination to walk again, and lasting brain injuries makes for a moving story of rebirth and courage.

5 comments about A Beautiful Mind : A Biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr..

1. Here are typical descriptive passages from A Beautiful Mind. My comments are in square brackets.
   
   Description of Nash: "He had the build... of an athlete, 'a very strong, very muscular body,' one fellow graduate student recalled. He was, moreover, 'handsome as a god,' according to another student... His hair flopped over his forehead; he was constantly brushing it away. He wore his fingernails very long, which drew attention to his rather limp and beautiful hands and long, delicate fingers." [I do find very long fingernails so fetching on a man. He is the very model of a modern major general.]
   
   There are similar descriptions of other mathematicians. For example a professor of Geometry is described as having the "body of a gymnast." [Just the indispensable thing for a professor of Geometry. One cannot help but picture him doing cartwheels in the lecture hall to illustrate a rotating pentagon.]
   
   Another mathematician, Artin, is described as follows: "Slender, handsome, with ice-blue eyes and a spellbinding voice, Artin looked like a 1920s German matinee idol. He wore a black leather trench coat and sandals throughout the academic year, wore his hair long and smoked incessantly... He was well known for screaming and throwing chalk at students." [Sound like a matinee idol to you? ... or like Gary Numan on Benzedrine.]
   
   The book is pathological, diagnostic of the author's (somebody named Sylvia Nasar) insanity. Also, Nasar includes lengthy technical accounts of mathematical ideas without any attempt at explication, leaving the reader to think, "Deep stuff, I guess..." She also describes in words a board game Nash allegedly invented ("Hard evidence of his genius") without any diagram of the board, the starting array of playing pieces. She seems to want the reader to get aload of this board game (modestly named "Nash") but is so incapable of straight thinking that she does not just provide a diagram, showing you how to make a board and play it. The reader is left clueless. Nasar is an example of ordinary madness of the very lowest water.



2. (Spoiler alert) The book wasn't anything like the movie, but an excellent and engaging read. Nasar does a thorough job of including an adequate amount of detail about the influences in Nash's life without getting too bogged down in name dropping (the list of influences is interesting). The progression of his life, as told in the book, and the events that shaped his influence in the fields of mathematics and economics, all leading to his Nobel Prize award are put together well to keep the story moving. A fast-paced, compelling read.
   Two minor criticisms were the omission of occasional details about who people were or specifics of some events the reader was expected to be familiar with, and the lack of explanation about some of the theorems and proofs Nash worked with that would have provided additional insight into the level of his genius (but might also have weighed the book down).
   Overall, "A Beautiful Mind" is a very worthwhile read and exciting, non-mainstream biography.



3. I read this book about two weeks ago, and I couldn't put it down. Maybe my opinion is biased because I have schizophrenia myself, but I found this story to be particularly encouraging in terms of my own recovery. The genius John Nash refused the coercive treatments of psychiatry and recovered naturally as some people do. I think it's sad that John could never reach the height of his mathematical genius again, after his illness, but it's still a hopeful story because he made a complete recovery, in my opinion. This book explains the mysterious and challenging symptoms of a misunderstood illness, and it also tells a tale of a person with the classic schizophrenic personality. It seems Nash was predisposed to the illness, and his behavior leading up to his first episode is characteristic of they typical schizophrenic. The difference between Nash's story and those of so many others with this difficult illness is that John was a true genius, became mad, and then recovered through sheer willpower. I think this book challenges the prevailing biopsychiatric model of schizophrenia and demonstrates that people can indeed recover without the use of toxic psychiatric drugs. You can also learn a lot about the politics of the Nobel Prize in this book.



4. I saw the movie and loved it, BUT the book is much, much better. I am a physician and have treated patients with schizophrenia. This book is a must read.



5. I assisted Nash with the C programming language at Princeton and was a source for the book.
   
   I found the book accurate, well-written, and readable. The part of the book that talks about the period in which Nash's economics prize was considered was indeed one in which this very private man was under a microscope, and my supervisor warned me to be very sensitive to his condition.
   
   Sylvia Nasar knows her craft very well. The book is narratively organized, and she doesn't need to do dramatic flashbacks or grabbers to get you to keep turning the pages. It's a man's life, in America of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s...to the early nineties, by which time Nash had become the Phantom of Fine Hall.
   
   But, Phantoms have a story too. Anyone interested in the human side of math and science, anyone interested in psychology, anyone who is impressed by women who both "stand by their man" and get a career of their own, will enjoy reading the story.
   
   The book is much more detailed and far more accurate than the movie, which had to take liberties with the truth to be entertaining. It includes Nash's other common-law wife Eleanor and a son by that marriage, which was very different from Nash's relationship with Alicia.
   
   The book is long but will probably be very rewarding for most readers.

5 comments about Man Made: A Memoir.

1. A prolactinoma is a pituitary gland tumor that produces excessive amounts of the hormone prolactin. This slow-growing tumor accurs in both men and women and is often not identified as the source of health problems until it has grown to a rather large size. In a male, excessive prolactin has an emasculating and feminizing effect. Testosterone levels decrease, the sex drive all but disappears, and erections are practically impossible to achieve. To make matters worse, when prolactin reaches high enough levels in the blood, it can cause males to lactate.

   At least 10 years of Ken Baker's life was spent in the confusing world created by his prolactinoma. He was unable to understand why the rest of the guys around him were so sex-obsessed. He could not figure out why 500 sit-ups a day didn't flatten his stomach even though his fellow hockey players were able to build up their bodies with less dedication. He didn't understand why a young athletic male such as himself could rarely ever achieve an erection. He didn't know why his headaches were getting worse, and he certainly had no clue why he was lactating. But to designate Ken Baker's years living with a prolactinoma in his head as an emasculated hell would not do justice to his profound experience. He has had the rare opportunity of observing the members of his own gender with the mindset of someone somewhere between male and female. He saw us for what we are. The obsession with sex, the never-cry-in-public manliness, the male chauvinism, and other characteristics we as males possess, Ken Baker could not relate to. When finally diagnosed and treated (most importantly, when sex drive and erections returned), he was finally able to understand why so many men possessed the characteristics that he had disdained for so long.

   This book several other storylines besides the chief one of the author's struggle to understand his "emasculation." He describes his relationship with his father who he loved very much despite the fact that he was often unsupportive, tempestuous, and even racist. The descriptions of his relationships with his brothers invoke both laughter and sadness.

   I recommend this book to anyone who accepts the fallacy that male attitudes, sex drive, and the such are solely under the control of the mind and that males just choose to be what they are. Ken Baker is proof that a little hormone called testosterone has quite a bit more to do with it than you think.




2. As a man diagnosed with the same malady as the author, reading about someone who had endured the same misery as myself was both shocking and reassuring. Ken Baker describes his journey in compelling and sometimes painfully honest prose. His description of a descent into a torturous abyss is rivaled only by his ascent from the very depths of despair. Most of my family and closests friends have read this book and have a new found understanding for the hell some of us have endured. Mr. Baker's book is a worthy example of the power of the human spirit.



3. Many women seem not to recognize that men can go through much of the same sex-related anguish that they themselves must suffer. While we may not be as vulnerable as women, cultural confusion, ignorance, shame and stinging embarassment are all in the mix for most men to whom sex is not always the big joke we make it out to be. It is often a great frustration, even for the well-adjusted. Mr. Baker's story highlights these issues through his own severe case (thank God it's rare) giving hope to anyone who has ever felt like the only one in the world who isn't getting any.



4. Ken Baker's Man Made takes you into the world of a boy searching for his own manhood in a world that tries to dictate it for him. It is well written. Humor is peppered throughout what was a tormenting experience for the author. It is about a disease but it is not a book about being sick, but rather a book about living and overcoming the obstacles life presents.



5. I could not put this book down. The writing is superb, the story truly amazing. What an incredible story told so well.

2 comments about Seeds of Disquiet.

1. There is no doubt that Cheryl Heppner rose above her diversity to do many great things. I was particularly excited to know she had an autobiography out, but I must admit I was rather dissapointed at the this book.

   I started this book four times and three times I couldn't get past the middle. The fourth was forced and I did finish the book. Although it has some interesting insight, it's rather dull and I found myself asking, "Why has she gone on for four pages about (such and such) boring subject," many times throughout the book. I am not insulting Cheryl herself or her life by no means. But to sit through that book again would be ... well, unthinkable and I don't recommend it for reading pleasure. Perhaps for a sleep aid.... That's just this deafie's opinion. :o(




2. I am amazed by this woman!! I grew up in a deaf household and being hearing myself, I have a whole new understanding of what my parents went through during their lives. I think anyone with a curiosity for deafness should read this book because it is extraordinary. I applaud Cheryl Heppner for surviving in the hearing world and finding her way.

1 comments about For the Love of Teddi: The Story Behind Camp Good Days and Special Times<br> The 2001 Edition.

1. Do not pick up this book if you are not prepared to weap...and be inspired as well. One cannot help but be moved by the story of a young girl (Teddi) who faces cancer with the strength and dignity rarely seen in adults--much less children. This book is wonderfully written and I was left wondering how I could feel so sad for the plight of this girl and so inspired at the same time. A must read.

5 comments about The Girl Who Gave Birth to Rabbits: A True Medical Mystery.

1. I'm an avid Pickover fan, and I found this book to be a very interesting diversion from his usual hard science writing. As the book reports, Mary Toft was a young woman who lived in the 17th century. She had a peculiar passion and appeared to give birth to something inhuman. From that moment onward, she was plunged into a world she never dreamed existed -- a dark, medical subculture flourishing in the King's court. Mary careened out of control, a pawn in the hands of the powerful while she forced her contemporaries to question their most basic beliefs.

   This book describes many medical oddities, modern day hoaxes, and sexual superstitions. Mary Toft was the Monica Lewinsky of the 1700s. Both women elicited a barrage of media coverage, jokes, and national shame. Monica's story cast a bad light on American politics; Mary's affair placed the eighteenth-century London physicians in a bad light.
   
   Other topics discussed in the book: multiple personality disorder, child abuse, hypnosis, repressed memories, Torquemada, sexuality in the Bible, fringe science, psychic surgery, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Fox sisters, spiritualism, Piltdown man, Joanna Southcott, Joanna, virgin birth, alligators in sewers, gerbils, LSD, sooterkins, cadaver art, UFOs, garadiavolo, Cottingley Fairies, Cardiff giant, Feejee mermaid, cryptozoology, witchcraft, vomiting frogs, obsessive compulsive disorder, rectal objects, dinosaur fossils, the state of medicine in the 1700s, the effect of the mind on how we perceive reality...




2. My first exposure to this author. Well researched, but I think it could have used some more colorful writing. I know it is more of a historical document, but I reallt think Mr. Pickover could of had a lot more fun with it. Plus, there are many, many medical mysteries that aren't even touched. I wish he would have more compare and contrasting. Easy read.



3. I bought this book the other day, and I have to say I never saw anything like it. The best part was that the story is true. There really was Mary Toft who seemed to give birth to rabbits. One warning: there are some strange "side stories" here that you might need a strong stomach to read. But when you finish the book, you will have learned a lot about history and medicine and science. Well written. Fast pace. Nice figures.



4. I'm a bit disappointed by this book.

   Although the idea of a girl giving birth to non-human creatures is interesting and sensational enough, I get the feeling that more could have been done with the subject matter. It's a fun enough read, as promised by the publisher's blurb, but there's very little meat here. While reading it, I had the feeling that the book was slipping through my fingers, as it were. The author kept hinting that something amazing was about to happen, but it never really did.

   The general point of the story seems to be that even experienced medical men and scientists can be fooled if they really want to believe in something, but the premise is not explored anywhere near deeply enough to make this book really stand out.

   There ARE some attempts to draw parallels with modern hoaxes and to put the story in some sort of context, but this comes toward the end of the book and seems like a bit of an afterthought. It almost feels as if the author was trying to justify himself on the eleventh hour.

   The most disappointing part is that the author's sources (especially the brilliant Simons Book of Sexual Records) seem to be more interesting than his actual end product. The various bits of trivia sprinkled throughout the book in order to provide a background to the story are to my mind at least, more interesting than the story itself.




5. I've enjoyed other books by Pickover, and this one is on an interesting topic, but one gets the feeling that the book was slapped together in quite a hurry. There are numerous typos and even some grammatical errors ("affect" instead of "effect" in one place), which suggest a lack of care. While Pickover attempts to put the case of Mary Toft in a historical context, the way in which he intersperses such information with the main tale of Mary Toft just doesn't let the book flow well. All in all, there is more surface than depth here. Many pages are spent just listing examples of strange animals and odd births from the past, much as if the author had made a number of index cards in his researching and then just decided to slap them down here and there to pad the book. The writing style is not particularly appealing - it's as if one quickly dictated one's thoughts just to get them down and didn't go back to reread and rewrite. If there was editorial attention to this book, it doesn't show. Still, it's a quick and easy read, just not nearly as good as I had expected it to be.

No comments about The End of My Addiction.

3 comments about A Real Person: Life on the Outside.

1. If you are an adult with Asperger's Syndrome, which is the spectrum partner to autism, make this book your best friend. Believe me, you will be glad you did because Gerland takes readers through her odessy of ill treatment by people lacking understanding of her sensori-neurobiological condition.
   
   This book is an excellent insider's view of what it means to have Asperger's Syndrome and to cope with sensory issues and baffling behavior on the part of neurotypical (NT) counterparts. One of the most frustrating things people on the autism/Asperger's (a/A) spectrum encounter and endure is not knowing when the Tacit Social Codes & Rules will change. These Rules change always at the behest of the NT population and seems always to suit the needs of the NT population. Gerland has done an admirable job of providing a voice for those with AS. At last people on the spectrum have had their turn at bat - knowing what undefined differences are can make all the difference in the world in helping people on the a/A spectrum cope. Once armed with such knowledge can one gain a better understanding of things that always seemed so nebulous.
   
   This book deserves a place of high honor. It will enrich and empower people and generate tolerance, understanding and ultimately acceptance among the NT population. We need this book!



2. This book is a brutally honest account of the childhood, adolescence and beginning of adult life of an intelligent and insightful woman who did not recieve a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome until adulthood. It shows a side of the "Aspergers experience" that one doesn't read about often, a family and school that were anything but supportive, and the lonely experience of knowing that one is different from other people, but not knowing why. If you didn't know that aspies (people with Asperger syndrome) are often treated really badly by "normal" people, have a read of this book, you will find it informative, but perhaps a bit depressing. I hope the author sent a copy of this book to the evil aunt when it was published!



3. One of the most eloquent first-hand accounts of growing up with an undiagnosed autistic spectrum condition, this book should be compulsory reading for anyone working with, teaching or parenting people on the spectrum.

No comments about Ordinary Daylight: Portrait of an Artist Going Blind.