5 comments about Patient by Patient: Lessons in Love, Loss, Hope, and Healing from a Doctor's Practice.

1. I loved this book! Dr. Transue has a remarkable talent for expressing and integrating her own and her patients' life experiences. I am a 62 year old woman in pastoral ministry and I would use this book as a text for a class in caregiving. The author's ability to listen actively and respond compassionately is better expressed in this book than in many texts designed specifically for that purpose. In addition, Dr. Transue illustrates how she dealt with significant personal experiences in a way that allowed her not to lapse into martydom or exhaustion but rather to use what she learned in life to minister more tenderly to herself, her family and her patients. I read it in one sitting and then read it again.



2. I would not ordinarily comment on-line about books I have read. However, I would love it if every woman out there who is juggling the emotions and logistics of working (at home or outside home), raising children, and especially for anyone who has a parent or loved one with Alzheimers, to read Dr. Transue's book. You know, until you have "been there" there is no way to honestly share and understand. Dr. Transue expresses her experiences with real life so very eloquently in this book. On one page I was laughing hysterically and one page later I was in tears. I have been searching for the words to describe and cope with the realities of being in this "sandwich generation." Dr. Transue has given me those words and strength through her writing. I will be forever grateful as I feel I have been given a huge gift by Dr. Transue. Thank you for allowing me to share.
   Nancy Lotto



3. I just fell in love with this kind woman. If I was a doctor, this would be the kind I would want to be. Am very much looking forward to reading her first book now. She has the kind of character I wish to have--the way she can talk with patients is maybe what we may think in our hearts but she can actually put into words. So unbelievable to have tragedy mixed with some of the most laugh-out-loud moments. Truly a privilege to read her accounts. We need more books like this.



4. Internist Transue's memoir of her early years in practice begins in trepidation and excitement. In her years of training, there were many diagnoses and decisions, but always a supervisor to pass judgment on her findings. Not any more.
   
   "From here on, though I could and often would ask advice of my colleagues, there would be nobody above me. I was on my own. With that first patient, that fact in itself was terrifying."
   
   Trained to think in crisis mode in the hospital, she has to adjust to the new rhythm of primary care in which many people are not sick, or not very. But some are.
   
   Transue introduces a variety of patients, some old and ill, some young and healthy, some dying. Through it all, her patience and ability to listen characterize a practice that combines compassion with confidence and laughter with tears.
   
   Though her days are varied she naturally dwells deepest on those whose days are ending. A terminal diagnosis is only the beginning of their care and Transue involves her patients in decision making, striving to balance longevity, dignity and comfort, no small task in these days of many options.
   
   Transue also weaves her own life into the narrative, which provides further depth. Her father, a brain cancer survivor with progressive dementia as a direct result of his treatment, is a heart-wrenching case. As he slips further from her, a new grown-up dynamic develops with her very elderly grandparents.
   
   Self-aware but not self-absorbed, Transue matures over the course of her book, learning acceptance and turning it into wisdom. She's funny and outspoken as well as deeply empathetic. Except for time frustrations and health-care bureaucracy issues, she doesn't address any negatives in her practice - no hypochondriacs or personality clashes or patients who won't be helped.
   
   Transue, whose first book "On Call," was a memoir of residency, will make many captivated readers wish she was their doctor.



5. Dr Transue eloquently lays out the struggle every new physican goes through: how to balance your professional life with your real life. Most, if not all, residents unergo this "shock" when trying to transition from student to doctor. I highly recommend this book to anyone, but especially to those who are progressing through a medical career.

5 comments about Patient: The True Story of a Rare Illness.

1. I'll admit I picked this up mostly out of curiosity as a longtime fan of Everything But the Girl. What kept me reading, however, was Ben Watt's skill as a writer. His story is gripping and harrowing, but told with a dry wit and wonderful observations. This book is not just about one man coming to terms with serious illness, but how that experience affected his relationships with his loved ones and his view of himself. This would be a great book for anyone in the health care field to read; it gives you a sense of the patient as a full human being, not just a "problem" to be fixed. Ben Watt's writing skills are as strong as his ample skills as a musician/songwriter. This book has my highest recommendation.



2. The fact that Watt's story lacks a significant plot (outside of the onset, diagnosis, and treatment of his rare condition) is largely forgivable. For those of us who know Watt primarily as a musician/songwriter, the somewhat static storyline here is acceptable. All that's missing from "Patient" is Everything But The Girl's enlightening bed of music to be heard under Ben's delicately articulated prose. Typical of many great songs, Watt occasionally blurs the line between the first- and third-person narration, and "Patient" is better off for it. Perhaps even better than the great writing, though, is the genuine and intimate portal into the lives of Ben and Tracey rarely afforded to EBTG fans. It's a relatively short read, but each page gives plenty to be absorbed as the result of Ben's crafty alliteration and his uncensored, yet careful, approach to the fog of medical lexicon. Not for the weak of heart--or stomach--Watt's book exacts distinct feelings of sobriety and contemplation...with an ending portrait that expertly convey's his trademark understated hope.



3. I purchase this book many years ago simply because I was a big ebtg fan. I casually knew what he had been thorugh and felt terrible for him, but was going through the process of losing and then grieving for a loved one.
   When I read the book, it offered me a perspective on what life may have been like for my loved one as he suffered illness. What a wonderful gift Ben Watt has given. He writes without self-pity, in his lyrical style without being flowery or glossing over the ugliness of illness. I am so glad that he survived for selfish reasons-the music he (&Tracey) has(have) produced (before and after the illness) has been a diverse gift to the world.
   And I am so greatful that he wrote this book. Experiencing the death of a loved one through being a spectator to horrible illness, was, in a strange way one of life's best gifts to me. No I didn't learn to be greatful for my health and all that crap-I learned that true joy comes from giving to another and expecting nothing in return. Ben Watt's Patient, gave me an extra perspective on that experience, and sometimes helps me to remember the life-lesson from it all.
   In summation, read Patient for more of Watt's lyrical writing, read it to find a surprisingly good story with plot twists and turns, read it to learn what severe illness truly is. Fascinating. A gift-thank you.



4. I'd been a fan of EBTG for quite awhile before this book came out. Their soothing music has always been a favorite so I was really interested to see what this book was all about.
   
   It turned out to be a very disturbing account of Ben Watt's freak-show illness, blow by blow. His commentary is riveting and one gets the feeling that he does not feel sorry for himself in the least, but instead follows his own story as if he is an observer who also happens to be its main character.
   
   I was heartened to read toward the end of the book Watt's own musings on what may have brought all his health problems about. Though he left it vague, his illness seems to be among those new "diseases of civilization" caused by many factors in our surroundings that lead to hard-to-define ailments where environmental toxicity and the overuse of pharmaceutical medicines are certainly not to be discounted.
   
   In any case it seems that his passion for music transcended all, and was at least in part a contributor to his recovery. Most of all he deserves a thanks for telling his story, unadulterated. For sure it has made this reader not feel so isolated.



5. Sad, but not hopeless, biographical account of a young musician stricken with a horrifying illness. Heartfelt & honest without being overly sentimental. Written in a captivating & sometimes humorous tone, not witholding any details. I have been reading this as a physician, and will recommend the book to any young patients I have with grave illnesses.

No comments about The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife's Memoir.

5 comments about On Call in Hell: A Doctor's Iraq War Story.

1. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in military medicine. The author gives an accurate description of what being a doctor on the modern battlefield is like. I find it an inspiration to continue my medical education and eventually serve in the US Navy.



2. I heard the book on CD, I did not like the narrator at all. I have read many books on the battle of Fallujah and for some reason this story didn't quite capture it for me. I didn't care for the way the book hopped around and it just lacked in certain parts.
   
   I do respect the man for what he did to care for our Marines, and for his vision. I only wish the military would follow his ideas and suggestions. They are excellent.



3. I finished this book in two days. I couldn't put it down, and literally read myself to sleep the first night I began reading it. First of all, it is a very engaging book - I really like Dr. Jadick's style of recounting his experience. That aside, my review of this book comes from a clinician's point of view. This book really helped me put into perspective the day to day, minute to minute, second to second experience of a combat soldier/marine in Iraq. This book's importance to me as a clinician is that it really helps me "walk in the boots" of a soldier in order to gain one millionth of one percent of insight about how they experience combat. As a V.A. Social Worker, I truly know what I don't know - that is to say, I will never "know" the true feeling of serving in combat, but my patients do their best to educate me and give me a "flavor" of what their experience is like. What I appreciate about this book is that you really do get a "flavor" of the combat experience through Dr. Jadick's narrative. While I know that this is his "story" and an actual recounting of his brief tour in Iraq during one of the most intense campaigns (in Fallujah) - the therapist in me kept wondering about the true impact of his experience - in terms of how severe his PTSD must be. He did make some very brief references to this, but in the end, he did not make much of it - but I think that if he did, it would probably have affected the book's marketability. Having said that, all in all, the book is great for clinicians - and great for medical personnel - and honestly, probably required reading for all Americans - because I think we all need to know about and APPRECIATE what these fine young Americans are sacrificing while we sit here and pontificate about the war in general.



4. I don't use the hero word lightly for good reason. There are way too many political pigs doing that nowadays. Dr. Jadick is a strong writer that guides the reader through the hardships that military personnel experienced first hand (this includes him as well)in the leadup to and actual battle for Fallujah. Instead of coming across as a we kill these blankity blanks yeah yeah stuff what you instead see is that even under the most ardous of conditions men and women will fight not only to kill one another but rather to help save one another. I am still floored by the injuries and brutal deaths that he described. Please keep those men and women that fight in your hearts and minds (after reading this book Im sure no one will have to remind you to do so).



5. I rate this book 4 stars because even though it really was a good book, there were some parts that just carried on and on that wasn't relevant to what was happening in the chapter. Besides that, I really enjoyed this book. It gives you a whole different side to war that you never hear about. It was interesting to read about because it is a new kind of story, and a good one too!

5 comments about All My Patients Have Tales.

1. Dr. Wells has brought the world and challenges of being a Veterinarian into your home in this wonderful and well written book about his experiences. I bought the book for my niece, but had to read it before she ever got it. She is in Vet school and bought more for her friends. My brother, a M.D., enjoyed it immensely. We ordered more for other members of the family and friends. It is not only stories about dogs (as the cover indicates) but animals - large and small - that Dr. Wells has helped. It is touching, warm, educational, interesting, intriguing and a most enjoyable read! Any Vet wannabes or just people loving animals will enjoy this book. I highly recommend it.



2. The title of this book is what first caught my attention; I loved the "play on words" with tales and the picture of those wagging tails on the cover!
   
   Being an animal lover, I enjoy reading stories of people sharing their experiences with pets. My husband and I joke that our two cats are cheap entertainment as we watch them slide across our floor to bat at a toy, chase their tails or chirp at the birds outside. When I began reading Jeff's stories about his experiences with animals and their owners, I found I could not put the book down until I reached the last tale. Jeff is a wonderful story-teller; one moment, you experience the emotional heartache of owners and Jeff as a vet tending to a sick or injured pet, and the next, you are roaring with laughter at the antics of the pets - and owners!
   
   A great read and wonderful book to take with you when traveling.
   
   Kelly Johnson
   Cornerstone Virtual Assistance, LLC



3. This book is so well written, and truly IS a modern-day James Herriot book, like I read in the other review. If you love animals, this is a MUST read. You will have a new appreciation for what veterinarians do on a daily basis, and the people that they come across, too. I highly recommend this book!



4. "A breath of fresh air" applies to Jeff Wells' collection of stories that demonstrate "why veterinary medicine is a true calling." Sure, he's sloshed through a lot of poop, been rained on by vomit, and reached into the abyss of numerous cows and horses, but he's also treated a leather clad chihuahua named Megadeath, released puppies stuck in their father's? birth canal, and experienced a lifetime of opportunities to laugh at himself. Read ALL MY PATIENTS HAVE TALES. Inhale deeply.



5. This is a very easy read and certainly illuminates the life of a vet! It's so interesting to hear the story behind the person. My wife and I both read this book in our spare moments each day. We always looked forward to to our opportunities to read about the next 'adventure', often sharing a chuckle between us! After the last chapter, we found ourselves wanting to read still further!

5 comments about More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction.

1. I love the way Elizabeth Wurtzel writes in this book. It's a style that's cocky and self-assured while simultaneously vulnerable and unrelentingly honest about self. I think it details the confliction those of us who tackle the task of learning about our true selves, and how to cope with our behaviors, all go through.



2. First of all, Wurtzel is an excellent writer. More, Now, Again is a memoir of her addiction. So like most memoirs, if you haven't actually lived through similar experiences, you are only getting the story while "attempting" to understand the feelings. Addiction is a very complicated thing, and most likely if you are not an addict yourself, you will not ID with Wurtzel. Now, for those in recovery, this book is a MUST read! It dives into the true desperation and and denial of addiction, and you can feel her pain every step of the way.
   
   I've read many memoirs, especially those of people in recovery. More, Now, Again is top notch, and provides strengh and hope to those who have lived through the dark shadows of drug addiction.
   
   Once again, if you're not an addict and are bashing this book in any way, it's simply because you just cannot understand something as deep as this without living it. Sorry to all you normal people! =D



3. Okay, so at least this was better than "Prozac Nation", but seriously Miss Wurtzel, can we put away the ego and inferiority complex for one minute?
   
   The recount of her slip into addiction was interesting, not Wurtzel's story, but the process of her transitioning into a full-blown addict. The sad part is that once she got clean, I couldn't stand her.
   
   I would recommend borrowing this from the library, but not buying it. It was just okay.



4. I have read this book about twenty times and love it as much each new read as I did the first time. Elizabeth is a phenominal writer and takes a person to the depths of addiction, through her dispair, and pain, and brings you back to her normalicy which is only normal in the way an addicts life can be. You feel her misery and hold your breath with each twist her story brings. I'm too tired to write a longer review or I would. Just read it and you'll understand what an addicted woman goes though when she's in the trenches and how hard it is to get sober no matter what you have. I'm a recovering addict and she told my story minus the Harvard education. Elizabeth is great and so is her book. It's entertaining as hell even if you could care less about addiction.



5. If a book can be written in "real time," this one was. There isn't really any direction: It is simply a download written in whatever order things happened to occur. Actually, I liked this book; I thought Elizabeth Wurtzel had something to say, and she did a good job of getting her thoughts down in writing. However, I would be slow to recommend More, Now, Again to anybody else. I do not think it is a book that would appeal very much to the majority of people.

5 comments about My Father's Heart: A Son's Journey.

1. Steve McKee has written a touching, nostalgic and informative book that will appeal to everyone.
   My Father's Heart is about Mr. McKee's family's experience of his father's fatal heart attack that came in the prime of his life. The book explores the personal and biological legacy of Mr. McKee's father's death. Cutting back and forth in time and geography Mr. McKee creates an engaging story that weaves themes of family and community relationships, coming of age and how he has come to terms with his father's heart attack and death.
   The book is also very informative about the current state of medical arts concerning healthy heart care and healthy living; the interplay of biological predispositions and the impact and control we can have on our own medical destinies. Mr. McKee leaves us with the reaffirming message that we are capable of influencing the course of our physical wellbeing and our life outlook.



2. As a teenager author Steven McKee watched his father die of a heart attack in their living room, part of a family chain of heart disease and death caused by lifestyle and family heritage. Disappointed by his father's ignoring of his disease, the author vowed to keep his heart in top condition - yet a lifetime of dieting and exercise didn't change his own diagnosis of serious cardiovascular disease. McKee's probe into a family heritage of illness makes for a moving story blending health and genetic insights with his own discoveries of motivations for change and health, making for a moving, engrossing survey hard to put down. Both health libraries and general-interest collections will find it involving.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch



3. A touching book that brought me back to my own childhood...I am thankful to the author for impressing on me a very important lesson, that is, even though our fathers may pass on physically, their memories continue to live in our hearts forever influencing us in very important ways. Even though I was fortunate to have my father until he was 84 years old, it will always feel that he too was taken from our family too soon. My father's death, like the author's, from a heart condition, taught his children how very important it was to take better care of ourselves physically before it was too late. I especially appreciated the author's depiction of his childhood years, growing up in a neighborhood similar to my own in suburban Detroit. The author brought it all alive for me. This book is a GREAT read and I highly recommend it...



4. The number one killer in the United States has a personality. In Steve McKee's family odyssey--as with most people's--heart disease is very personal. It can snatch the life of your father, turn your world upside down, make you obsessively interested in your family tree, drive you to swear oaths of healthy eating and exercise, wring your worried hands over living long enough to see your own children make it to adulthood, curse the universe because you got what your father got, and finally understand that the life you want is up to you. "My Father's Heart" is as much about healthy hearts and loving hearts as it is about hearts under siege.



5. I heard about the book, "My Father's Heart: A Son's Journey" during an interview with the author, Steve McKee. The reason for the interest was loosing my husband suddenly last July 30, 2007 to a massive heart attack.
   We have 4 children, 2 boys then 2 girls. They range in age 41 - 47 years old.
   
   The children have become very conscious of making sure that they are getting thorough doctor examinations every year, something that, especially the men, have not been faithful in doing. They all do exercise. So this part is good. However, they are all having a very difficult time in the grieving process because of the closeness to their father. He was a very animated and loving man, so the void is great.
   
   When I listened to the interview on the Today Show, I thought that this book might just be something that the children should read to help them in their loss. I purchased 4 copies and gave a copy to each one on Valentine's Day.
   
   I have started to read the book and have found many similarities that I know they will be able to relate to.
   
   I was very happy to have found the book on Amizon.Com. The cost was a lot more reasonable then if I had bought these copies at a book store. I received the books 3 days after I ordered them.
   
   This book depicts the love of family and the loss of a very dear member of that family, even though the father, knowing his condition, did not take care of himself as he should have.

5 comments about A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning.

1. In this book, Ehrlich uses many different techniques that all work together to make a good book. Basic ground rules of writing command us to ?show, don't tell? and keep the reader as involved as possible in the story. In general, Ehrlich uses special techniques where the story of her journey might become too abstract, too metaphysical, or too obtuse, or too personal to sustain us as readers. Here are a few techniques I found interesting.

   If I understand Ehrlich's intent, this is a book about a journey. But the journey isn't just a physical journey (Wyoming to California to North Carolina to California then back to Wyoming), it's also a spiritual, religious and emotional journey. In this sense then, this is partly a book about ideas.

   Interestingly, Ehrlich does not begin the book with a big set of ideas. She begins in the present tense, a voice and tense of intimacy and immediacy. She places us at the beginning in a dream or a dreamstate she experienced at the moment of the lightning strike. It seems to me, this sets Ehrlich up nicely to deal with the potential problems of a ?talky, head-game? narrative. My guess is she knows she's got a long journey ahead of her, filled with speculation, thoughts, feelings, readings, science facts, and what not, so she looks for devices to keep the narrative grounded and interesting. Her first technique is the present tense opening. Another technique she uses is to concentrate her details on the natural world. Although we learn about the physics of lightning, Ehrlich spends countless paragraphs describing every species of plant and animal one can encounter in California or Wyoming. With such a heavy dose of color, shape, sound and smell details I never encounter the accumulated feeling that I am too much absorbed in the narrator's head.

   Ehrlich's attention to the sensory details around her help us trust her as a narrator on subjects we don't understand. We trust her when she tells us how kelp smell, how fish look and feel, how the birds fly, the feeling of snow between her toes. Likewise, when she tells us something about lightning, about it's electrical charge, about the currents it follows, or tells us something about Tibetan philosophy, we believe her. Her credibility as an observer of nature carries over to her explanation of abstract or unobservable phenomenon. This makes the whole story much more believable, richer, and more concrete to us readers.

   In one section, Ehrlich talks about a legend she read about a lighting victim always being thirsty. In the next paragraph she switches to a scenic description of her filling water bottles because she's always thirsty. She goes on to cite some more similarities between her situation and the legend she read. This works to her advantage as a credible narrator because now, in other places, I will subconsciously project the description of other legends onto her.

   In Chapter 24, Ehrlich comes right out and tells us why the book is structured the way it is. She says it is shaped like a convection cloud, and that inside the narrative would zigzag like lightning. When I read this page, I admit it did make the structure of the book clearer to me, but I have to admit I don't like it. First of all, she says she dreamed this. I don't believe it. It seems incredible that in the middle of this search for peace and health, she would dream about the structure of a book. This bothers me most because, now I doubt all her dreams. When is she really dreaming and when is she dreaming for the convenience of putting something interestingly metaphysical at just the right place in the book.

   By contrast, the surgery scene is told mostly in straightforward scene. We hear the dialogue, see the things she sees without too much reflection and very little mysticism. This strikes me as a wise move, because by that point in the book, I needed a break from thinking too hard. It was nice to get a straightforward dose of scene, something fascinatingly interesting, yet at the same time as presented in scene form, it remained very present and accessible to me. I enjoyed just sitting back and watching the show. This let me catch my breath before hurtling into the thicker and thicker mix of narratives coming together at the end of the book.

   All in all, Ehrlich pulls off a masterful collection of writing techniques to tell a compelling story.




2. This is a strange book. The terrible accident this woman suffers is heart-breaking. Her recovery is slow and she suffers much. Still, reading this book was a struggle for me because the author writes too well, if one can say that. Nothing is ever just described. Each action must be documented in detail, creek crossings must be described with color, texture, recollections of other creek crossings. Finally, it just became too much.
   One other thing that was off-putting for me: as you read the book, it slowly becomes clear that her greatest achievement was leaving Berkeley and moving to Wyoming and working on a ranch. somehow, one bond was broken and another forged. While of obvious importance to her, it is not compelling enough to keep me interested.



3. Not being a fan of travel books, my comments may be biased. Years ago when I wandered the globe, my desire was to live as a part of the places in which I found myself. I made a terrible tourist. I mostly wanted to go where I could speak the language of the natives and getting a letter home took weeks. The world isn't like that any more, nor maybe has it so been for a while for tourists and travel writers. The four books by Gretel Ehrlich I have read run the gauntlet. "This Cold Heaven", tells of her visits to Greenland between 1995 and 2001. It best conveys a feel of what life is like for, maybe the last generation of, Inuit hunters who use dogsleds. And out on the sled is where Ms Ehrlich most wants to be. It is a beautiful book interspersed with Rasmussen's, diaries and descriptions of his life in the north. The reader gets a sense of how the Inuit world is put together, its roots, some differences between various groups and the challenges it faces, at the edge of the internet age. The greatest changes, to a relatively remote First Nation in Canada I am familiar with, were brought about by television. A kind of passivity set in: no more making music and living by one's body became less central. When dogsled, hunting Greenlanders tell Ehrlich that they just want to give their children the experience of the hunt and that the children will decide in their turn whether they will live that way, I sense she is documenting the last of the dogsled hunts. In my First Nation, the elder who last used dogs is now too old, so four wheelers and snow mobiles are a way of life.
   
   What I lose patience with in Ehrlich's writing is most manifest in her book, "Questions of Heaven." She goes to China in search of Buddhism during the early stages of "getting rich is good." I don't quite understand her purpose except relating the difficulties of travel, telling anecdotes about some Chinese and their experiences from "let a thousand flowers bloom" to the cultural revolution, and her frustrated search. She goes to decayed monasteries which are just beginning to be opened to tourists. She is overwhelmed by the density, filth, poverty, pollution, etc. of China. Had she done some homework, all this wouldn't be such a revelation. In the Tibetan areas, she mentions the existence of Tibetan speaking westerners but does not explore who they are and why they are there even though she says she practices Tibetan Buddhism. The most interesting part of the book are her descriptions of the old man who was tortured during the cultural revolution and survived to resurrect traditional forms of music with a rag tag bunch of people from his valley. She doesn't explain why where he lives is more prosperous and happy than other places she visits.
   
   What I find difficult in many nature/travel writers she pours on in this book. Flowery language describing clouds, hills and landscape doesn't do much for me. I have spent much time out of doors. I could wax poetic about the blood red bark of an old manzanita in contrast to the peeling orange brown of a madrone, or the stages of a slime mold or a clown nudibranch grazing urchins. The silence of the redwoods, desiccated by summer dryness just before the coming rains, filled my yesterday's walk. No signs of animal life but a few dragonflies and a fleeting flock of bushtits. A few days earlier I had used "dead" to describe it to a walking companion, and she was a bit offended. A precontact California Indian would have known what I meant. Ehrlich evens makes mention of it during her recovery in California related in book four. But it takes more than poetic adjectives to convey a scene in nature. Reading lengthy passages of romantic descriptions of nature becomes tedious. I want to know why Ehrlich travels and writes, how the places she goes are assembled, the role landscape plays, their history, their challenges, the differences among their inhabitants, etc. If her book is the journey of an American Buddhist, there is very little critical relating to Buddhism except that either nobody she meets practices meditation, even chanting, or she doesn't inquire about it.
   
   The other two books, "Solace of Open Space," and "A Match to the Heart," fall somewhere in between. The former is good in the beginning, particularly in the descriptions of sheep herding, but becomes spotty after her marriage and life ranching. Ehrlich has really lived in Wyoming. She earned her spurs. But it would be great to know more about the strong, silent herders and ranchers: who are they; what is their inner landscape like; what are the tensions and rewards of working as they do? How does machinery effect their lives? During my brief stint as a cowboy, besides pushing cows between gigantic pastures, and sorting out the non-pregnant ones, I spent days building fences and hours in a four wheel drive pickup bouncing off-road. The chapters on the rodeo and Sun Dance give us far too little information on what these institutions are really like and what makes them tick. Ehrlich is also a tease when it comes to her personal life. We learn of the tragic death of her boyfriend which leads to her to stay in Wyoming, but the stuff of her one affair and her marriage are only hinted at. She is a beautiful woman in cowboy country. There has got to be more to it.
   
   In the last of the foursome, "A Match to the Heart," she is truck by lightening and relates her torturous recovery. It is a touching book. I have a lot of empathy with her struggle. Her descriptions of the deep humanity of her cardiologist are beautiful. But the book also leaves me a bit unsatisfied. The husband who doesn't seem to care, her trip to London, which seemed so inappropriate given her physical condition, the people with whom she connects but also seems distant from---I want to know more about her inner processes, her meditation practice. "A Match to the Heart" has aspects of a travel book, a chapter about being on a boat in the Alaska Panhandle without any sense of why she is there: a paying tourist; a guest of scientists or friends? When Ehrlich is on the way to recovery she lays out a map of the world pondering where next. It is hard to fathom, that she runs off from her Wyoming ranch to far distant travels and undertakes similar jaunts during her absences from Greenland. When she casually mentions these, the style of life implicit in so bouncing around the world seems inconsistent with the sense of place she is trying to convey. I am deeply attracted to what she has to say when she really inhabits the places in which she spends, as they say, quality time. I guess I want more of that from her.
   Charlie Fisher author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World



4. This stunning book is about a woman who was struck by a bolt from the blue and lived to learn from it--and to teach others what she has learned. As a story, the plot is simple: a woman is walking with her dogs on her Wyoming ranch when she is struck by lightning. Gravely, almost fatally injured, she begins a two-year battle back to health, helped by parents, friends, a doctor, and a dog.
   
   But this almost surreal plot, compelling as it is, is not the most fascinating aspect of this quite remarkable book. What happens when you're struck by lightning? Here is how Ehrlich tells it:
   
   "I woke in a pool of blood, lying on my stomach some distance from where I should have been, flung at an odd angle to one side of the dirt path. The whole sky had grown dark. Was it evening, and if so, which one? How many minutes or hours had elapsed since I lost consciousness, and where were the dogs? I tried to call out to them but my voice didn't work. The muscles in my throat were paralyzed and I couldn't swallow. Were the dogs dead? Everything was terribly wrong. I had trouble seeing, talking, breathing, and I couldn't move my legs or right arm. Nothing remained in my memory--no sounds, flashes, smells, no warnings of any kind...When thunder exploded over me, I knew I had been hit by lightning."
   
   Erlich spent the next months on the brink of death, her nervous system seared almost beyond repair, trying to find a doctor who knew enough about the effects of electrocution to help her heal. That part of her search was facilitated by her parents, who took her to California and located an extraordinarily caring cardiologist who began to work with her. With his help, Ehrlich began to understand the physical consequences of a lighting strike. As a reader, I was fascinated with this aspect of her experience: what happens in the heart, in the brain, and throughout the body when millions of volts of electricity surge through the human system, short-circuiting the delicate human network. Her need to know became so strong that it later led her to witness open-heart surgery, to become a "traveler, a Marco Polo who had arrived in a place so exotic, few had seen it before."
   
   In her effort to satisfy this compelling need to understand and explain, Ehrlich explores the phenomenon from all angles. She studies the thunderstorms "that keep the global circuits going." She talks with others who have been similarly injured and found a growing network of survivors. She attends a conference and listens to the stories of 65 others, many far more disabled than she, all committed to the need to share, to transform society's ignorance about the dangers of electrical shock. Afterward, she reflects on "those humans who had awakened after being hit and became shamans and healers, and wondered what this new life of mine would be, carved from a ruined body and a ruined marriage, and what special passageways I could hollow out as in a labyrinth of dead ends."
   
   Lightning always follows the path of least resistance, Ehrlich says. It certainly struck her when she was most vulnerable. Separated and preparing for divorce, she was about to leave the ranch where she had lived for fifteen years. Her efforts to recover from the lightning strike took her to Santa Barbara. As she points out, it was an uncanny coincidence: the city is named for a woman whose murderer was struck by lightning, and who later became a saint, the protectress of those threatened by lightning and fire. With her was her dog Sam, who had also been struck, and whose devoted love carried her through the darkest hours of the next few years. "The role of supernatural helpers--guides, ferrymen, or harnessed dogs--stands for the guardian who carries the human spirit forward, whether from death back to life or the other way around....Sam is my guide, my Virgil through these never-ending gaps...that seem to lie before me."
   
   Like those others who became "shamans and healers" after their lightning strike, Ehrlich comes to her own awakening, understanding and valuing in new ways the fragile but durable body in which we all live this human life. And for her, as for many of us, it is the writing process itself that becomes the vehicle for enlightenment. If you are looking for a story of true grace under fire, you must read this. It will show you how to go deeply into the experience without being swallowed by it, how to explore the pain without being consumed by it, and how to open the wound and see the beauty of it.
   
   Susan Wittig Albert
   for Story Circle Book Reviews
   www.storycirclebookreviews.org



5. Four not five because it won't change my life; four not three because I'm happy to own it and suspect I'll be wanting to read it again. Local libraries didn't have a copy within reach, and I was impatient after two people recommended the book to me in two days.
   
   Life = recovery from major injury is like that (like what Gretel describes in the book). My own path involves art, and a lightning strike, and doctors who thought Ativan was appropriate treatment, and a long winding trip back where every stage feels like progress, only until more progress is made.
   
   Lightning changes the way you process the world. That experience is conveyed in the book but it's possible some readers might not recognize that is some of what they're reading.
   
   Agreed, there's not a lot of hard science. That wasn't available in 1994. The book wanders. Forcibly re-wired brains do that. Skim the part that doesn't catch your attention; the topic shifts are generously marked. The book is self-centered. Illness and injury will do that to you. Stories of recovery that trace the reality of how long and slow the journey can be are useful. Match to the Heart may well be a book that gets passed on to friends in need of that knowledge.

1 comments about Goldberger's War: The Life and Work of a Public Health Crusader.

1. The quality of the book is excellent. I received my order within 2-3 days. Thank you!

3 comments about Seeds of Hope: A Physician's Personal Triumph Over Prostate Cancer.

1. A great book! Prostate cancer, and possible treatments, are not subjects that are easy to explain. However Dr. Dorso is able through his position as not only a physician, but also a patient, to explain possible cancer treatment options in a clear and understandable way. His story is personal and compassionate. Thoughout the book I found his experience became my experience. His sincerity and authenticity shine throughout. "Seeds of Hope" is definitely a must read for anyone who has cancer or who knows someone that has cancer. If I were a doctor I would prescribe it!



2. This is an essential source of information if you are diagnosed with prostate cancer. This has certainly been a real eye-opener for me, here is a doctor, who suddenly finds himself as a patient. So well written, so personal, and yet so easily understood, none of the "latin" that we sometimes get from doctors, you feel as though you are actually sitting there with him, or even in his brain. He shares ALL his worries, frustrations, anxieties, relief's and his joys too as he moves forward in his goal to be truly the master of his own destiny. I highly recommend this book, to anyone who is having to cope/deal with prostate cancer. Doctor's too, cancer affects so many people, this book can even give you the professional a lot of insight into patients perspectives. BUY it NOW!



3. This is an excellent book, written by a physician, but from the perspective of a patient considering the many options available for prostate cancer treatment. It is particularly beneficial in describing the details of the seed implant treatment, and the impact of this disease on spouse and family. It should be read by every man who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer before a treatment choice is made.