No comments about Against Medical Advice: One Family's Struggle with an Agonizing Medical Mystery.

5 comments about Pretending to Be Normal: Living With Asperger's Syndrome.

1. This was the first book on Asperger's Syndrome that I read. I loved it and still often go back to it and reread sections. It is very well-written, logical, engaging, and informative. I enjoy autobiographical books about people living with challenges and this one really holds my attention. I read it just before I was "officially" diagnosed with AS and I was so touched by what Liane shared and could identify with so much of it. It has really been a blessing to me. Pretending to Be Normal: Living With Asperger's Syndrome



2. I couldn't believe the resemblences I found in this book.
   At 51, I have been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, as is my Son of 17.
   Liane Willey could be my twin, with all she went through. I wasn't too sure if I had written the book. Anyone needing validation should read this book. It covers growing in all aspects of Asperger's. Childhood "fits" and College idiosyncracies. A great read for any "Aspie"or anyone with a suspision of "Aspies". (Asperger's Syndrome)[[ASIN:1853027499 Pretending to Be Normal: Living With Asperger's Syndrome]



3. An unbelievable book. I laughed, I cried...
   I learned more about my son, I learned more about myself.



4. I have now read several books by adults with autism or aspergers. This is a good book to read if you want a better understanding of the autism spectrum and how it plays out in children who otherwise appear "normal". The author describes very well what life was like for her in high school and college. She also writes about her marriage and some of the challenges in that. I believe that this is the first book I have read that goes into that type of depth of close relationships. At the end of the book she has chapters such as organizing your home life, employment options and survival skills for college students. I will probably read those chapters again and in more depth when my son is older. I think that many of the suggestions would be helpful to someone on the AS.



5. Pretending to Be Normal: Living With Asperger's Syndrome
   This book is must read for anyone dealing with Asperger's children, teens and young adults. L. Wiley's insights into her own responses and feelings enables a better understanding of the behaviors we see, and also insight into some of our goals, that may not be shared by those with whom we are working.

5 comments about Paula: A Memoir (P.S.).

1. I am a big fan of Isabel Allende's work in general, but this book, based on her daughter Paula's illness, is certainly one of her best. The story is haunting as Allende works through and chronicles her grief and tells us some of her own life story. It is certainly not a light hearted read or full of the adventure and mystery that fill her fiction, but it is equally or even more moving than her other work and is, as always with Allende, written in exquisite prose. However, if you have never read Allende before, you may want to start with "House of Spirits", which I think is her best fiction, or "Daughter of Fortune", a close second.



2. I like this book very much, but it is sad... The way Paula dies is just terrible, and Isabel Allende suffered so much!!



3. This story is so inspiring. It is so amazing how Isabel Allende shows the love to her daughter in this autobiographic story. We gave the graduating palliative care fellows this book as a gift. It demostrated very well all that there is to life that goes beyond death.



4. When Isabel Allende's daughter suffered a calamatous illness, Allende did what came naturally. She wrote a story. On its most basic level, this book is about a mother who is losing her child. She goes through the stages of grieving, sometimes even arguing with herself on the pages about what might come next. It goes much deeper, though. There is a point in the book when it seems she has discovered she is no longer writing the book for her daughter. A seer told Allende that her daughter would be known throughout the world. At some point in the writing, Allende discovered it would be through her own efforts, not her daughter's.
   Allende has so many fascinating pieces in the story of her life, not the least of which is the fact that she is an extremely famous author. She is also a historical figure, being the niece of the Chilean president ousted by a military coup. She witnessed this and talks about it in the book. She was also raised by a man in the Foreign Service of Chile. She has traveled around the world and experienced what it is like to be accepted and what it is like to be rejected. She has been an exile as well. She wonders in the book whether her life has been very interesting. To her, it seemed normal and boring.
   This is really one of the best books I have read. The vulnerability with which Allende writes is devastatingly beautiful. In her sorrow, she chooses to share her story and the story of her daughter with us. I feel honored.



5. In this book, Isabel Allende downplays her first two traumatic experiences. The central focus is her third trauma, her daughter's illness.
   
   The first trauma is a predator who's incomplete seduction is enough to scar a child; moreover, she sees the man's death. The second trauma is that of her uncle forced from office in an air bombardment and dies (perhaps at his own hand) along with many supporters, precipitating a military coup in which thousands die, flee and/or are tortured. She is not numbed by these, but she is by her third trauma, her daughter's coma.
   
   It took about 100 pages for me to get into it. I almost put it down. After about 100 pages, the breezy language and cryptic metaphors seemed to stop and Allende opened up. She became frank about about her married and extramarital life, but continued to restrain the prose relating the first two traumas. For instance, the childhood predator story is told like it was someone else's. Her uncle is like a stranger, and if how she is related to him is mentioned, I don't remember it. There is some discussion of family members who oppose the uncle, but nothing about their actually knowing him.
   
   There is some of the language of magical realism present in her novels. This book is worth reading for it's description of letting go. There are some vague descriptions (admittedly not the focus of the book) of life in Chile after the coup and life as an exile. I think there is a bigger memoir inside of Isabel Allende yet to be written.

5 comments about Pretty Is What Changes: Impossible Choices, The Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied My Destiny.

1. I really appreciate Jessica's candid memoir. It is very helpful to women who are in the same situation. Also, for the friends and family, to help them understand the patients point of view. Thank you, Jessica.



2. After reading this book I realized the medical community has only identified 3% of BRCA mutation carriers!!! We all need to go to www.myriad.com and see if we meet the red flags to be tested so we can educate ourselves to prevent a first or second breast cancer.



3. This book is a must for anyone with the BRCA mutation or anyone who wants to understand a woman's journey after she finds out she has a BRCA mutation. It is brutally honest and therefore, absolutely compelling. As one who has walked this path, I can tell you that Jessica is very brave to lay it all out there for others to benefit from. I wish her health and happiness.



4. The author explained her gene risk for breast cancer and ovarian cancer in an emotional informative way. I purchased the book because my daughter, twin sister and myself had just been tested for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation. Our test results are that we all have a "variant" that is the same so it is genetic but it is a variant that the lab has never seen in the whole world thus it is "uncertain" what it means other than it is genetically being passed in our family. Reading this book helped me understand gene mutations. The author truly is "beautiful" inside and out.
   Joan Reams



5. I am faced with the same genetic predisposition to breast cancer and it was a life-saver to read about another person's triumph.

5 comments about Mountains Beyond Mountains: Healing the World: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer.

1. Tracy Kidder's brilliant biography of Dr. Paul Farmer is at once disturbing and exhilarating: disturbing, as it points out all the inequalities in living conditions and health care between the rich and the poor and the staggering statistics about disease and the lack of available medical aid in many parts of the world, and exhilarating to read the selfless commitment of one man to change these situations. Not only is the information in this inordinately readable book fascinating but also the superb writing style of Pulitzer Prize winning author Tracy Kidder is some of the best to be published in recent years.
   
   Kidder concerns his book with one Paul Farmer, a poor lad who grew up nearly homeless (unless one calls living on a riverboat a home) in Alabama, a gifted thinker who climbed out of his beginnings to discover the inequities in the big world, went to medical school at Harvard, and then proceeded to commit his life to changing the pitiful poverty and disease-ridded Haiti, establishing not only viable medical centers but also spreading his warm personality into the hinterlands of that little country making day-long walking housecalls for the poor families who as human beings deserve as fine a quality of medicine as those who live near the wealthy comforts of the major city medical centers.
   
   How Kidder accompanied and observed Farmer as he sought funding and supplies and training not only in Haiti, where the diseases of tuberculosis and AIDS were decimating the population while the world just silently watched, but also extending his beneficence to Peru and to the prisons of Russia, attack tuberculosis and AIDS with the same ardor is the basis of this book. Farmer's accomplishments created the Partners in Health organization that in turn stimulated the World Health Organization to wake up to the disasters that reign in the third world countries, eventually supplying the much needed medicines, cash, buildings and personnel to begin to make a change in the world health care.
   
   Kidder's gift as a writer lies not only in his detailed and well researched biography of a modern saint, but also in his ability to allow us to get to know the very human creature named Paul Farmer. He touches on his personal life, his struggles with his own diseases (he nearly died from hepatitis), and his indomitable spirit in facing a bureaucratic conundrum that prevented the poor of the world from receiving care. It is a touching story, it is a superlative investigation into one man's spirit and selfless commitment, and it is a book that demands our attention on many levels. Tracy Kidder's sharing of Dr. Paul Farmer's life is a poignant reminder that the individual CAN make a difference: it is a matter or devotion to an ideal that can become a reality despite obstructions the world places in the path. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, December 06



2. An excellent story of the impact one dedicated person can have on the world around us.



3. a really wonderful look at the work of Dr. Paul Farmer an amazing physician who has contributed greatly to help treat Aids and TB in parts of the world where noone believes they can be treated. This book will make you reexamine some of your beliefs about access to healthcare--both for the poor in this country and around the world.



4. Loved this book, and especially loved the subject. Tracy Kidder is, not surprisingly given his track record, an accomplished and skillful writer. He tells the story of Paul Farmer and, while he is part of the story, he is careful to never become the story. The focus is always on Dokte Paul.
   
   Paul Farmer is a character who will haunt you, if you have any inclination to serve others. He does so completely and thoughtfully and, at the same time, irrationally. He treats his patients in Haiti with dignity and passion.
   
   I highly recommend this book. It's hard to resist the combination of a compelling subject and a masterful writer.



5. One of the best works of nonfiction we have ever read and a truly inspiring story of what genius + boundless caring can accomplish.

5 comments about Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood.

1. I couldn't get through this book fast enough, always wanting to know what was happening next. Would recommend this book.



2. I was hoping for a better-written, more insightful story. It was okay, but not a keeper.



3. Horrible story and yet inspiring that this little girl who suffered such abuse and missed so much valuable education came out the other side to become an educated, talented writer, and a normal, healthy person.



4. I loved this book! I couldn't put it down! It really showed how this disease affected one family. The pictures in the book made it all very real!



5. It amazes me that this was allowed to go on as long as it did. Doctors, Nurses etc.. Just sad, and this is far from an isolated case, my heart goes out to this girl who is now a woman and I hope she has been able to truly put this behind her, but I'm not sure that is possible. Children are innocents and need protection, just sad.

5 comments about Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence.

1. Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence
   
   This is a MUST book for young people of all types and ages. The philosophy expressed herein is essential to their success. We have ALL our students read and absorb it. Mary Kessler, Beehive LDS Schooling, LLC. St. George, Utah



2. Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence
   
   This is an awesome book. It is a must read for students struggling in school or struggling with life.



3. One of the greatest stories I have ever read. It is a true reflection of one who leads by example in what he says. The author's recognition of the importance of reading and a refusal to dwell on the negatives is a true understanding of what it takes to maximize one's potential. His recognition of God is also significant in the fulfillment of one's purpose. The author is in agreement with the author of Breaking Free: The Key to Empowerment, Happiness & Fulfillmentin his understanding of the power of the mind and positive thinking. This book is a must read for all persons from the moment they can read!



4. I read this book years ago when I was still in school. I read it quite a few times since then. It inspired me to be more and do more. I admire Dr. Carson, and I thank him for sharing his story and road to success with me.



5. Continuing his desire to share what he has learned in his journey to greatness, Dr. Carson lays out in very plain terms his philosophy of life and how it has become so important to him. T-H-I-N-K-B-I-G could completely overhaul this country in profound ways. It's worth the time to dig into this and find out how it can affect your life.

5 comments about Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality (Vintage).

1. Thoughtful and moving essays by a transplant surgeon with roots in Taiwan, which cut to the bone of death and dying, or morbidity and mortality as the docs may put it.



2. Pauline Chen has written a touching memoir, one that captures the emotions of patients and their physicians that must confront their own mortality. From experiences with death as an adolescent to the daily experience of a transplant surgeon with life and death issues, Pauline beautifully captures her and her patient's emotions and courage with life threatening illnesses. This book should be required reading for all medical students and has a lot to offer for anyone interested in how physicians and their patients deal with life and death.



3. I picked up Final Exam from the "new" table while perusing a used bookstore. It spoke to me as I was struggling with the loss of a dear friend. While this dear friend was a canine, it brought to the surface the fact that I don't acknowledge one of life's most unavoidable truths very well.
   
   To think that doctors didn't either both scared and enticed me into the impulse purchase.
   
   Chen's writing is so adaptable, at once crisp and purposeful but never too cold or stale. From early on I was amazed at her openness and honesty, about a subject that clearly many of her counterparts would not appreciate as it would only call forward their own challenges and failings.
   
   The prime element of handling mortality is woven through HER story which she presents with interesting detail about childhood, medical school and clinical training. Interwoven are brief intimate looks into the lives of some of her patients, and you come away from the book feeling more human and more educated.



4. This book is a call for doctors to provide comfort to patients when cures are no longer viable. She urges doctors to engage with persons as a complex, integrated whole rather than as an impersonal clinical case. The book is a heart felt philosophical argument against medical deconstructivism that illicits almost knee-jerk "do something" responds to illnesses. Complicated ritualistic processes or treatment algorithms focus on the disease rather than the person who suffers. Dr. Chen is amazingly courageous in writing this much needed book and she openly questions herself as well as the medical culture and educative process that "made her."



5. Very moving at times. The medical profession is a world of its own. Power is too concentrated. The education process is to dehumanizing. It's difficult for human beings to emerge from the process.

5 comments about On Call: A Doctor's Days and Nights in Residency.

1. I really enjoyed this in depth book about residency and the continued process to achieve the doctor status! Very well written and bright!
   I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in the medical field and those searching for info on the process of becoming a doctor!



2. Dr.Transue does a great job of infusing her story with accuracy and gory details, but still keeps a very human approach and doesn't lose sight of her patients as people. This book is so interesting for anyone (and most of us hopefully have)who has been on either side of medical care to see both sides. It is a great book to help patients realize how human their doctors truly are and the enormous amount of stress their caretakers are under,and yet they still manage to have patience and grace under fire.



3. I recommend That's How the Light Gets In: Memoir of a Psychiatrist by Susan Rako, M.D. The title comes from a song by Leonard Cohen: "There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." Rako's book is fascinating, illuminating, and wonderfully well-written. The writing just flows.



4. 
   AS a doctor I can see myself in her story and experience... Difficult to cope with other people sufferings and wonderful when you can help it...



5. It's a honest encounter of residency years of a Internal Medicine Physician. It's mostly like a diary of her years in residency.

5 comments about Death Be Not Proud (P.S.).

1. Death Be Not Proud is a story written by John Gunther about his son, Johnny Gunther, who developed a brain tumor when he was just the young age of seventeen. Throughout the time of Johnny's months with his tumor, his professors at Deerfield Academy, friends, and family are impressed by his courage and patience through the worst times. From the time when Johnny first finds out about his illness, and the likelihood that it would never be cured, Johnny has the strength and courage to go on with his studies and act as if his illness is not affecting him, even if the tumor is worsening. This book shows the struggles and the hardships of a family and their son, who is "slowly being taken by Death," (Johnny's mother, Frances Gunther) while maintaining a positive outlook. Overall, the book was fantastically written and the father and the author, captures every moment of this time in Johnny's life. The book is almost like a series of pictures. John describes everything with such rich detail that I feel that everything could be expressed in a series of photographs.
   John Gunther writes "Johnny died at 11:02 P.M. Frances reached for him through the ugly, transparent, raincoat-like curtain of the oxygen machine. I felt his arms, cupping my hands around them, and the warmth gradually left them, receding very slowly upward from his hands. For a long time some warmth remained. Then little by little the life-color left his face, his lips became blue, and his hands were cold. What is life? It departs covertly. Like a thief, Death took him." This quote shows how much Johnny meant to his family, and later letters sent to his parents showed that the accomplishments Johnny made while he was sick, would surely never be forgotten by the ones he knew and loved with all his heart.
   After reading this story, I found myself contemplating the thought of Death stealing me or one I love away. Johnny Gunther not only gives me the strength to go on with life if you loose someone you love but also has become my hero. Hearing about the challenges he faced, and how much of an inspiration he was, I believe that there is no other way to die; to be at peace knowing the your loved ones are safe, and will go on remembering you.



2. "Death Be Not Proud" could have been the worst book ever written. Consider: John Gunther, Jr. loses his only son to a brain tumor in 1947, when the boy is just 17. And Johnny was no ordinary boy --- he was brilliant, caring, funny. The kind of kid about whom, after his death, people say, "He was loved by everyone he ever met."
   
   And that's just the summary. In fact, this kid was off the charts. He did original thinking in mathematics and wrote to Einstein --- and Einstein wrote back to encourage him. Unable to attend his boarding school because of his tumor, he got all his work done, aced his college admissions tests and would have gone to Harvard had he lived. And, through his 15-month ordeal of operations and treatments and diets and doctors and hope and despair, he never showed his parents how much he was afraid.
   
   Here's how amazing: When his surgeon told Johnny he had a brain tumor, his immediate response was "Do my parents know this? How shall we break it to them?"
   
   Imagine having a kid like that. Your only kid. And then sitting down and typing 150 pages about him.
   
   Only the geezers among you will recognize the author, but John Gunther was, in his day, a megastar journalist. Just after World War II, he published a book called "Inside Europe," and it was so successful he went on to write a series of "Inside" books. His novels flopped, but no matter. He was a born journalist --- he knew how to tell a story with style and economy.
   
   And "Death Be Not Proud" is the proof.
   
   "Johnny came home for the Christmas holiday in 1945, and he looked fit and fine." That's the first sentence of Chapter One, and it's a model. You know the boy is going to die. You know you're in for an emotional wringer. But you also know this father is going to serve it up straight, adult to adult --- he's inviting you to rise to his level.
   
   Big ideas? They're offered as sparingly as adverbs: "What I am trying to tell, however fumblingly and inadequately, is the story of a gallant fight for life, against the most hopeless odds, that should convey a relevance, a message, a lesson perhaps, to anyone who has ever faced ill health." What he doesn't need to say: That's you, dear reader, that's all of you, later if not today.
   
   This is the story of an emergency --- can the Gunthers find a cure for the tumor before it takes their son? --- and so the writing is, correctly, terse. Over this non-fiction medical thriller Gunther lays a story just as exciting: Johnny's effort to preserve his intellect, to make his mind triumph over his body.
   
   Of course there is no hope. Of course --- cruelly --- Johnny gets better. Several times. Only to relapse. Each time, Gunther just lays it out. You can feel him fraying as he writes, reliving how he frayed as he lived it. But he didn't crack then and so, if only for accuracy, he won't crack now.
   
   There is a scene in this book that should be required reading for everyone who ever has to write. It occurs at the end, when Johnny leaves his bed in New York to attend graduation at Deerfield Academy in Western Massachusetts. He's desperately ill --- he'll die just eight days later --- but he's determined to walk into chapel with his class and grasp his diploma in his left hand, just like his friends.. Gunther takes you through that walk, step by step, the chapel rocking with cheers --- good luck forgetting those pages.
   
   And then the end. The doctors are --- let Gunther have this metaphor --- "helpless flies now, climbing across the granite face of death." The world contracts. Now it's mother, father, son, in the saddest of scenes:
   
   "Johnny died at 11:02 P.M. Frances reached for him through the ugly, transparent, raincoat-like curtain of the oxygen machine. I felt his arms, cupping my hands around them, and the warmth gradually left them, receding very slowly upward from his hands. For a long time some warmth remained. Then little by little the life-color left his face, his lips became blue, and his hands were cold. What is life? It departs covertly. Like a thief, Death took him."
   
   An epilogue follows, but that's it, really. What can I say? Emotion doesn't come cleaner. You could throw a coin against those sentences and it would bounce back --- there's not a weak thought, an excess word.
   
   "Death Be Not Proud" was published in 1949. It isn't likely to go out of print any time soon. The saga of a boy dying? Sure, it grabs you and holds you. But that's because the broken, grieving man who wrote it was so professional he got out of the way and just... told the story.



3. A journalist and occasional novelist, John J. Gunther (1901-1970)was best known for the series of geo-political books he wrote during the 1930s and 1940s; today, however, he is best recalled for DEATH BE NOT PROUD. Published in 1949 and subtitled "A Memoir," it is a short work describing the final months of son Johnny Gunther, who died of a cancerous brain tumor in the late 1940s. Over the years many people have recommended this book to me, describing it as poetic in style, deeply touching in story, philosophical in content. Having at last read the work, I find the descriptions of it largely inaccurate and myself sharply unimpressed.
   
   To hear his father tell it, Johnny Gunther was an entity without flaw, a seventeen year old who was charming in his shyness, brilliant beyond his years, corresponding with Einstein even as he bemoaned his lack of skill at sports, the perfect child, a paragon beyond paragons who endured great suffering with a smile. While I can easily accept the brilliance and integrity and strength of character--such people do exist--the portrait quickly becomes cloying; Gunther elevates Johnny to the level of plaster saint and it is tiresome in the extreme.
   
   Gunther's prose is not in the least poetic; it is in fact the workman-like writing of the journalist he was. As for philosophical tone, this seems to consist of asking the time-honored questions about life and death and little more. In the end, DEATH BE NOT PROUD is the emotional purging of a grief-stricken parent who considers his loss to be unique instead of universal and therefore lacks the scope that one would really wish of this sort of memoir. Recommended, but primarily for the details it offers of the way in which cancer patients were treated in this era.
   
   GFT, Amazon Reviewer



4. My Mom had me read this old classic when I was about 10, only the book was not all that "old" then. I've reread it several times, and introduced my two kids to it at a young age, though certainly not at 10. This is WAY too heavy for the average youngster; fortunately, I've got pretty good reading ability.
   
   John Gunther was a well-known author and journalist of the 1930's thru the 60's, famous for his "Inside" books; in April, 1946, his only child, Johnny, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor....he lived 15 months, most of it miserable, with small doses of hope thrown in. Gunther and his ex-wife, Frances, joined forces and did all that could have been done.
   
   This is the story of Johnny's courage and determination. No child is as great as Gunther paints his son, but a father can be forgiven. The events surrounding Johnny's high school graduation somehow make the fight worth it. That Johnny fought without the comforts of religious faith is, of course, tragic...still, he fought.
   
   An excellent picture is given of cancer treatment in the late 1940's, with introduction to Wilder Penfield, and other grand master neurosurgeons of the day. Chemotherapy was in its very infancy; diagnostic imaging was far different, and often brutal, with CAT scans and the MRI far in the future. We get to meet Max Gerson, and his controversial diet; I believe it's still in use. Cancer treatment is much different now, and the results for many types of tumors much better, but one irony is that the prognosis of glioblastoma multiforme is essentially what it was 60 years ago. And radiation therapy and neurosurgery are still rough.
   
   My Mom was right about one thing; this book is still around long after John Gunther's other work is dated, and forgotten. A father shared his grief...I forgive him his excesses, and still recommend the book.



5. I was in the Barnes and Noble on Broadway and couldn't find "Death Be Not Proud." I was looking in the biography section and needless to say I was surprised on not finding it. I called an older clerk over and he looked too. He knew the book and he knew Johnny's story. He, too, was shocked.
   We went to the computer and found out that it was classified as Biography, but as "Literature."
   That started a conversation between the clerk and me. I told him that I just got back from Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, NY and seen Johnny's grave. I wanted to buy a copy of the book as a remembrance. He took a break and we had an interesting and thoughtful conversation about it.
   More than a biography, more than a piece of literature, Death Be Not Proud is a celebration of life which is also a celebration of one particular life. The book is written by Johnny's Dad and tells the story of the last year of Johnny's after he developed a brain tumor. The humanity and decency of his parents, his doctors, but mostly, Johnny comes through on every page.
   I was reading a critique by someone who thought that the book was pablum and a failure. They just don't get it. Johnny the whole time he is dying is keeping everyone else's spirits up. There can be no greater act of selflessness, than cheering up those who love you while you fight the good fight, even when you know that you aren't going to win. I think Johnny knew he was dying from the beginning and he dealt with it by "filling the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run."
   A few weeks before he died, Johnny received notification that he had been accepted by Harvard. Over a year of suffering but he still attain his greatest goal.
   Johnny Gunther was a man and, to me, "a man for all seasons."
   I know that it is highly unlikely, but I wish everyone who faced death had a father, brother, sister, mother or friend like Johnny's Dad. Thanks to John Gunther Sr., Johnny will live forever.
   And that is only right.