3 comments about Cambodia Calling: A Memoir from the Frontlines of Humanitarian Aid.

1. I picked this book up in the airport before traveling throughout Cambodia. It was my hope to add to my experiences of this beautiful country by also reading about someone else's. This did not happen. The author is a self-obsessed doctor, on mission in an effort to move up the ranks within a non-profit organization back home. His dislike for Cambodia does not work well with his title "Cambodia Calling". In fact, he cannot leave the country fast enough. The author attempts to associate his experiences through works of art. It fails miserably. Throughout the book you will learn more about his personal tastes for wine and cigars than you ever will about Cambodia. I am not exaggerating when I say this was the most meaningless book I have ever read. Do yourself a favor and leave this one on the shelf.



2. I bought this book and couldn't put it down. A phenomenal journey into the politics and trials of aid workers with deep insight into the day to day interactions of the people they help. Heinzl wrote a powerful book that provokes reflection on humanity and values.



3. I thought the book was interesting and insightful because it showed another side of international development work. The author shows the daily grind of working in a remote, sleepy very poor village. It's not glamorous, but shows the joys and difficulties of the work.
   
   I also thought the book was well written. It moves from lyrical descriptions of the places he visits to vivid descriptions of the characters he meets. It's very funny as he writes about some of the situations he finds himself in.

5 comments about The Hospital by the River: A Story of Hope.

1. Seldom has a missionary painted such a compelling portrait of hope from darkest despair as Dr. Catherine Hamlin in her inspiring memoir, THE HOSPITAL BY THE RIVER. When she and her husband, Reg, embarked on their careers in gynecology in Australia, they never dreamed their work would eventually take them halfway across the globe to the third world country of Ethiopia to establish a teaching hospital.
   
   Ethiopia's insistence on child-brides and the poor obstetric care in that country is responsible for the high incidence of women who suffer from fistula, a childbirth injury that results in constantly running urine and terrible internal injuries. The personal stories of these women as told by Dr. Hamlin will break readers' hearts. Divorced by their husbands and rejected by their families, many of these injured women live out the remainder of their lives ostracized alone in dark rooms --- all for want of an operation costing only a few hundred dollars.
   
   A simple operation can alleviate their suffering, and most women are curable. (Hamlin takes payment in everything from live chickens to jewelry.) But although two million women suffer from fistula, less than 7,000 are treated each year. The challenges to create a hospital that serves these women --- and then maintain and finance operations --- are formidable.
   
   Hamlin's descriptions will move even the most jaded readers to tears --- and sometimes to a queasy stomach. In one gruesome anecdote, she tells of a woman mauled by a hyena while giving birth (the hyena ate her baby while she was helpless to protect it). However, Hamlin wants us to understand the depth of this despair so difficult to relate to --- the horrific conditions these women live in --- in order to arouse our deepest compassion for their suffering.
   
   In one memorable passage, she describes the life of one such outcast, discovered in a village by a medical worker:
   
   "...They reluctantly showed her a side room. Inside it was dark, and the smell was almost unbearable. In the far corner, against the wall was a raised platform. Peering through the gloom they made out a woman lying on her side with her legs drawn up in a flexed position. Her bladder and bowel contents were leaking into a pool underneath. Because she had been in this position for five years the joints had become stiff... and she could no longer walk...."
   
   This woman --- like more than 20,000 others --- was cured by Hamlin and her team.
   
   This is a book of contrasts, from the gatherings thrown by royalty to the extreme poverty that most of the people of Ethiopia experience. Although the reader has to mine a bit too much detailed memoir to get to the good storytelling, it is well worth the effort. Her tone throughout is one of gratitude. Hamlin is quick to offer copious amounts of praise for others, even those who have perhaps wronged her in some way. She is vulnerable about her own shortcomings, especially as a parent.
   
   Almost four decades after her work began, it's understandable why Hamlin has been called "The new Mother Teresa for our age" by the New York Times, and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. This fascinating account of Dr. Hamlin's work will break your heart --- and offer hope that even the worst circumstances can be changed if we care enough to help. Keep the Kleenex handy.
   
   (...)



2. This book tells a remarkable story. It is the autobiography of Dr. Catherine Hamlin and the work she and her husband have done to establish a hospital treating obstetric fistula in Ethiopia. What an amazing story. I had never heard of obstetric fistula till a few days ago. I did not know that so many young women (girls, really) in some parts of the world have child birth complications that cause holes in the vagina through which feces and urine leak constantly, leading to the women becoming abandoned pariahs. And the repair surgery costs only about $300 -- but this was essentially unavailable until the Hamlins came to Ethiopia in 1960. What wonderful work they have done, along with their wonderful, competent Ethiopian staff and colleagues. In addition to that basic theme, Hamlin tells an engrossing story about the overthrow of the emperor, the years of communist regime (many of her friends were murdered), and then the current improved situation. What a story! This book about her faith and her work is well worth reading. I hope many, many people enjoy this book and are inspired to donate to this hospital.



3. I and my friends who have read "Hospital by the River" have all liked
   it very much. It tells about an Australian couple
   trained in obstetrics who went to Ethiopia and established aa hospital
   to help woman in Ethiopia who had suffered the bad effects of early
   child bearing. I believe it shows how the Christian life should be lived.



4. It is said that in some parts of the world the foulest curse that can be uttered is "May you be born again as a woman!" and after reading this story, I now understand why. We in the developed world have no idea what it would be like to be an Ethiopian Woman: betrothed as a toddler, married at nine (the groom promises not to have sex with his bride until she is "old enough." - ha, ha.), pregnant at twelve and left for four or five days, utterly alone, to try and give birth unaided. As in the developed world, many babies are not in a position to be born easily, but unlike here, there is no sterile hospital and a doctor ready to perform a C-section. A girl has no option but to push and push and push until she gives birth to her baby (who has been dead for days by this time) or until she dies.
   
   Death would be the kinder route, once you learn about the mission of the Doctors Reg and Catherine Hamlin. As the poor undeveloped, undernourished girl pushes for days, the corpse of her child causes horrific injuries to the woman's body. She is left leaking urine and often, feces, with no control over her body whatsoever. In a land where water is scarce for drinking and nonexistent for bathing, and where a man wouldn't dream of trying to buy some rags for his wife to keep clean, life becomes a torment that a woman prays would end every day. She is no longer allowed indoors or near other people. Her husband, who has to have at least one son to secure his own future, abandons her and finds another child-bride. Her mother (if she hasn't died in childbirth herself) will probably allow her to return to her home village, but she will be banished to a ragged lean-to that she builds herself with castoffs. Speaking of castoffs, that is all she will be allowed to eat and wear. So she lies completely still, because of an old wives tale (even though there are few old wives) saying that a girl who lies still enough will eventually heal. She may lie this way for twenty years or more, and healing never comes.
   
   If a miracle happens, she hears about the Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa. Her injuries, which we now now are called Fistulas, will be healed and she will be able to return to her people and her village, ready to begin life again. The Doctors Hamlin, devout, old-world Christians, dedicated their lives to these poor, forgotten souls. Once Fistulas were as common in Europe, Australia and the US as they are in Africa today, but minimum marriage ages and proper care during childbirth have so solved this problem that the Hamlins had to develop methods of surgery to cure this condition. In the past sixty or so years, they operated upon and cured at least twenty thousand women, all while the world passed them by.
   
   Dr Catherine Hamlin describes a childhood in an Australia that is long gone, and a life that is as full of hardships as any western doctor has ever lived, but she speaks of her life with joy and a devotion to G-d and the women that have no voice, even in their own homes. Dr. Hamlin, devoted and saintly as she sometimes is, can drive you (me) batty with her old-fashioned ways. She and her husband had a motto: these women want what every woman wants -- a live baby in her arms. They were horrified by the 'free love' of the 1960's, and spoke with great reverence for the last Emperor of Ethiopia, before he was overthrown.
   
   I loved the book, and was moved to tears at the plight of these poor young women. I admired the dedication of the Hamlins, especially during their early years in Ethiopia, operating in the corner of another hospital, with thousands of injured young women coming to them, and their attempts to create a hospital of their own. I admired them even more during the years of war and revolution in Ethiopia, while they tried to get supplies and continue their work while under constant threat of death.
   
   If you want to be touched and discover once again how lucky you are (and if you can read this, you are darned lucky, I guarantee it), then this book will make you feel gratitude and compassion for your fellow human beings, no matter where they live. If you think that this is just some sob story, then read the book anyway -- you need to have your soul touched, and I guarantee that this is the book to do it.



5. I found this book to be educational, heart-warming, heart-wrenching and entertaining all in one. I enjoyed learning about the history of Ethiopia, its culture and its people. The Hamlins are amazing people who took their love of medicine and passion for helping others and have literally transformed the lives of women in Ethiopia who without a fistula repair would be shunned and destitute.
   
   This is a great book, and I would encourage anyone to read it.

3 comments about The Father of Forensics: The Groundbreaking Cases of Sir Bernard Spilsbury, and the Beginnings of ModernCSI.

1. I've read accounts of other forensic pathologists at the turn of the century, but this one is easiest to digest. It has a smooth reading style, lays out the crimes in sufficient detail that you can follow the 'plot' and then shows how Spilsbury and his associates helped lay the forensic groundwork for conviction. Cases include such well-known murders as "The Brides in the Bath," among others.
   
   Besides the fascination at watching the growth of forensics at the hands of the pioneers (Spilsbury doesn't get all the kudos in this book) you also catch a glimpse of the personal toll exacted by the long hours and hideous conditions.
   
   For readers keen to see a glimpse of early forensic technique and the men behind the emerging technology, I highly recommend Evan's informative book.



2. Colin Evans has written a number of excellent books on forensics and this one is just as much of an edge-of-your-seat page-turner as the others, if not more so. The book's focus is on a subset of the many cases in which Britain's Sir Bernard Spilsbury was involved as the much revered, indeed legendary, forensic pathologist. The main highlights of Spilsbury's life are also included. The author's writing style is as witty as it is engaging, often tongue-in-cheek. The words that he uses to describing these many cases seem to be very carefully selected and put together. But it is much more likely that this excellent style of writing simply comes naturally to this most gifted author; I cannot praise it enough. This book will be indispensable to anyone who enjoys reading well-crafted true crime stories in which forensics plays an important role. Very highly recommended!



3. Evans' writing is very compelling and pushes you easily along the dateline of modern forensic techniques. His storytelling skills are marvelous and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I am only part way through and find myself trying to savor every page by reading only a little at a time. I don't want this book to end!

1 comments about Sigmund Freud.

1. I read this book many years ago. Good info about Frued . Read it and bought it because you cant go wrong with Ralph Steadman.Outstanding drawings asif I had to tell you that.

5 comments about My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of Aids.

1. "My Own Country" combines medical fact with compelling personal history in a way that reveals the true nature of human understanding for what is "foreign" to us all. Dr. Abraham Verghese comes to rural Tennessee as the foreign graduate of a foreign medical school; rural Tennessee being one of the few areas that will allow him to practice in the United States. At the time of his arrival, the AIDS epidemic arrives as well. Dr. Verghese relates the stories of the victims and their families in the setting of his own acceptance among these bewildered people. Through careful detail, Dr. Verghese is accepted among the citizens of Johnson City, Tennessee, just as they slowly come to accept the reality of the AIDS virus and its consequences in their lives. Told in language easily understood by non-medically trained readers, this story becomes a history of our people and their ability to adapt to difficult and heart-rending life experiences. Dr. Verghese celebrates the ability of the human spirit to accept disease and its consequences while he uses his keen sense of observation to show his own acceptance among these "new people." Dr. Verghese's ability for insight into the pain and suffering of patients families and the ultimate triumph of our compasionate nature is beautifully rendered. This book cannot be recommended highly enough for the many areas in which it succeeds. Ultimately, the book becomes a history of AIDS, medicine and the way both interact with victims who little understand the disease itself.



2. Dr. Verghese beautifully captures the Appalachian essence of innocence and trust, and the clash that happens when a feared viral intruder puts its mark on relatives and neighbors. The exposure and initiation of a foreigner to country ways and mindset makes for some comical moments. The text is very creative, expressive and easy to read



3. I read first this book shortly after its initial publication. The impact was enormous. I even went to a signing event an hour away from where I lived. What made this book great was that not only it talked about the real tragedy in rural, little educated America, that AIDS wrought there, but it was finely written, with feeling, and instructive. Such a rare blend in this type of litterture. This was not a report from the front, it was also the journey of a man whose whole life principles are challenged, and changed in front of other people's tragedy. Today, as I read it again, it has already that flavor of historical witnessing, but its emotion is still fresh. For those of us that are blase about too many tragedies in our lifes, we could read this book again to regain some of the compassion that we might have misplaced as our everyday life demanded our atention.



4. The child of Indian expatriates, himself an immigrant, Dr. Abraham Verghese found a home among the country people of Tennessee and an extended family among this Bible Belt's first AIDS victims.
   
   Verghese, who began his residency in Johnson City, Tenn. in 1980, gives two reasons for specializing in infectious diseases (ID). One, his mentor convinced him it was the only specialty where cure was common. Two, as it was not a glamor field, a foreign ID doctor had a better shot at training at a top university hospital.
   
   Simple, sensitive and scrupulously honest, Verghese's book is alive to the ironies, tragedies and heroism of the first days of the AIDS epidemic.
   
   After training in Boston, where he saw his first AIDS patient, Verghese and his wife returned to idyllic Appalachia in 1985, expecting their first child. Aware of his outsider status, Verghese sets about finding, and making, his place. His rounds encompass two hospitals, the Mountain Home VA, a residence where he sees elderly vets and a lot of lung cancer, and the modern Johnson City Medical Center, the "Miracle Center." The contrast is vivid.
   
   Although Johnson City has no AIDS patients and its single experience with a New Yorker who didn't quite make it home to die is "suppressed like a shameful memory," Verghese sets out to educate the population, to prevent AIDS here if he can.
   
   His first visit to a gay bar to show an educational video is fraught with discomfort on numerous levels. The stiff self-consciousness of his early encounters with gay men in Boston is being consciously replaced with curiosity. "There was an obvious parallel: society considered them alien and much of their life was spent faking conformity." Still, it's a small town and Verghese is a foreigner with a reputation to build.
   
   But his educational efforts bring in his first cases. He is excited, on the cutting edge of medicine. The HIV virus has been identified and a cure is surely just around the bend. He makes house calls, gives patients as much of his time as they need, and in a zealous spirit of medical documentation, friendship and plain human curiosity, elicits histories so personal it's difficult to imagine them spoken aloud.
   
   As his AIDS practice grows, Verghese encounters bigotry and anger among his colleagues and community. But more profound is the bravery and generosity of spirit the disease arouses among the most unlikely people - the poor, the uneducated, the sick. He is touched, humbled, uplifted by the friends and relatives of his patients and often by the patients themselves.
   
   But the hideousness of AIDS cuts a nasty swath. The bravest face a horrible, lingering and disfiguring death, usually in the prime of life. Verghese's descriptions of disease are unflinching.
   
   As his case load grows to 80 and death becomes a commonplace, Verghese is beset by nightmares of infection and feelings of helplessness. His wife, frightened and resentful, withdraws from him. Similar attitudes in the medical community arouse furious bitterness. All around him, his new friends, his self-made family, are dying. After five years his endurance snaps. Plagued by guilt and relief, Verghese leaves Johnson City.
   
   "My Own Country" is an important, passionate book which cannot be recommended highly enough. Verghese's prose draws the reader directly into the complex beauty and brutality of the human heart. It's a cry for our times.



5. Abraham Verghese may know how to turn a good phrase; unfortunately they often seem to be little more than that. The book plods along the winding path of his experiences treating AIDS patients in rural Tennessee. His stories are occasionally interesting and enlightening, particularly when they focus on how the patients and their families deal with the disease.
   
   Unfortunately, the book suffers from self-centered myopia. Far too much time is spent by the author discussing himself. Despite all this meandering introspection, he never manages to effectively question his own convictions. He certainly never examines his own beliefs with the same scrutiny and condescension he applies to others'.
   
   In the end, I felt like the book had few redeeming qualities. The author's I-know-all tone and hollow, jaded affect detracted significantly from what could have been a powerful collection of stories.

5 comments about The Hand of God.

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



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



3. Other reviewers have done an excellent job of providing summaries of this extremely powerful book, so I'll make just a few observations:
   
   1. The book is very well-written. Nathanson is a doctor who is also an excellent writer.
   
   2. The man lays his mind and soul bare to the reader. He personally participated in about 75,000 abortions. That is mind-boggling to me, but even more so for the new Nathanson, who, no exaggeration, has gone through a transformative process that must have been unbearably painful and ultimately liberating. Another reviewer mentioned St. Augustine's "Confessions." That is exactly the book I thought of while reading Nathanson's devastating account of how he was saved from his atheism and nihilism.
   
   3. Nathanson minces no words about the horror of abortion and about his culpability in the growth of the abortion industry, which he critiques with lacerating skill and courage.
   
   4. The emotional resonance of Nathanson's retelling of the details of the abortion he performed on a woman carrying his own child is worth the price of the book in itself. The detached amorality of his actions, the lack of regret, and the smug sense of professionalism he felt as he skillfully "evacuated" the "pregnancy tissue" sent chills down my spine. He compares the sense he felt at the time of yet another surgical procedure performed flawlessly, with the sense of accomplishment Eichmann must have felt when the Holocaust death trains departed on time and arrived at the extermination camps on time. Nathanson speaks with a brutal honesty about himself that will resound in readers' memories for a long time.
   
   I am ultimately at a loss for words about how afffecting this book is, both as a critique of elective abortion and the abortion industry, and about one man's profound journey in finding himself. I only wish this book would be read by a much wider audience. Perhaps we all have the duty to provide copies to our families and friends.



4. I didn't know this would be auto-biographical. I thought he would focus more on his founding of NARAL and his attempts to make abortion legal, although he does talk about it a bit. Other than that, it was a good biography.



5. Did you know that Dr. Nathanson supports murderous attacks against abortion docs? I didn't know that either until I read his contribution to "Killing Abortionists: A Symposium" in the journal First Things:
   
   "If [Paul] Hill had caught Dr. Britton in the act of commencing an abortion (which is, after all a lethal assault on a human being-I am one of those who draws [sic] no moral distinction between the born and the unborn), then he would have been correct in interposing his body between Dr. Britton and the unborn, and if necessary defending the unborn with the use of lethal force if Britton was [sic] determined to proceed with his assault. But such was not the case.... "
   
   The whole article is online here:
   
   http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9412/articles/killing.html
   
   In other words, Paul Hill's murder was wrong because... he should have waited until his victim was actually at work rather than on his way to work.
   
   Here's a suggestion for improving the public image of the Catholic Church: withhold Communion from famous people who support terrorist attacks, even those who use euphemisms like "defending the unborn with the use of lethal force" and say they should only be committed at certain times. Since 9111 the viewers have caught on to the nudge-nudge-wink-wink pro-terrorism game.

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 The Test: Living in the Shadow of Huntington's Disease.

1. Couldn't wait to read this book, as my father is struggling with Huntington's Disease, which, of course, meant my own struggle with "to test or not to test." That said, I'm sorry to report that I was sorely disappointed. While I obviously empathize with the subject matter, the inaccuracies in this book drove me nuts and stained this author's credibility with me. Being the journalist that Mr. Barema is I would think an attention to details would be a top priority. Not so, as is evidenced by his bad habit of attributing songs to Woody Guthrie (the most notable public figure with Huntington's) that Woody didn't author. "Good Morning America, How Are Ya?" is one. First off, Barema mistitles the song. It's called "The City of New Orleans" and was written by Steve Goodman. It was sung by Arlo Guthrie, NOT Woody. "Starry, Starry Night" is another notch inexplicably placed on Woody's song belt. The song was written by Don Mclean. Listen, Mr. Barema, to an author who DID get her facts straight in a book on Bob Dylan, if you're going to make frequent references to a hero like Woody know your game. Also, while the back cover blurb "Huntington's causes death within five to ten years" is gripping and more than likely geared toward sucking in the bookstore browser, it's simply not true. According to every medical web site I've ever haunted since this insidious disease entered our lives (and believe me folks, I've dropped in on them all) death from HD comes within 10-20 years. This is nothing more than an unfortunate and unsettling marketing ploy in my opinion. Apart from facts that fly around like pollen in this memoir, I didn't care for the clipped writing style. Unlike "Publisher's Weekly" it didn't hit me as "moving" or "intense" so much as annoying. Anyway, a real letdown, this one. Save your money and purchase a Woody Guthrie biography instead.



2. 
   Aside from the inaccurate statistics in this book, it does serve another purpose.
   
   Barema focuses on the anxiety, emotional turmoil and obsessive behavior that can occur during the test decision making process, which includes mothers/fathers, sisters/brothers, wives/husbands, children, doctors, etc;
   
   Barema also writes about the issues of Huntington's Disease and the overwhelming struggle to live rationally while feeling irrational.
   
   It seems to be a good book for those considering testing for HD and a real effort to educate anyone who may think that taking "The Test" may be as simple as just getting a blood test.



3. The Test is a journalist's first-person account of what it means to live at risk for Huntington's Disease. The everyday experience of hundreds of thousands, it is difficult for most people to imagine, and Jean Berera has done well in humanizing what media usually sell as unimaginable. The difficulties that HD brings to relationships within a family are thoughtfully addressed. I didn't give this book a higher rating because I disapprove of the author's (or editor's) decision not to disclose his gene status until the end of the book, using it as a kind of nonfictional plot device. In my reading, the suspense that this decision inevitably promoted detracted from the author's thoughtful reflections.



4. My wife has Huntington's Disease and our two sons have this issue to face themselves (whether to take the test that will tell them if they have the rogue gene and will inherit Huntington's Disease, or whether to continue living with uncertainty; with the 50/50 risk of developing the symptoms in their late 30s or 40s). So, I bought The Test to see if there is any insightful thinking in it that could help them. There isn't.
   
   Journalists assume they can write books (the author is a journalist). I know this because I am a journalist and too many of my colleagues assume book-writing is the same skill. It clearly isn't. Also, as no translator is credited at the beginning of the book, I assume Mr. Barema either wrote it in English himself or wrote two versions - one in English and the other in French - on the assumption that his English writing was good enough for the publisher not to get a translator in to do the English version for him (he is French, but spends a lot of time in the USA and studied in the US). Unfortunately, the English is not good enough. It lacks subtlety and, often, clarity. And, as another reviewer has mentioned, below, the facts are too often simply wrong, which is far too casual and thoughtless when the subject matter is so vital for the readers, many of whom will be at risk themselves and will have bought the book for help in dealing with that.
   
   I don't think they will find it, as I don't think it was written to help anyone. It seems to be more of an attempt to turn a personal misfortune into a dramatic work. The material has to be researched and absolutely right so as not to mislead readers who are in the same situation as the author, for whom this is information literally about their own life or death. This book isn't well-researched. Nor is it well structured.
   
   I helped my wife put together her just-published book Learning To Live With Huntington's Disease, and we know how people at risk of this illness need information that has been checked and double-checked to avoid misleading them.
   
   Despite the author's obvious love for his sister and brother, and his horror that they have the disease, there is also a lack of empathy for people with Huntington's in this book that I found shallow. The other people around the author, who are supposed to be central characters to his story, are shadowy and insubstantial and you never get a proper sense of them. You get the feeling the author doesn't either. People with this illness do not have 'nothing in their heads', as Mr. Barema seems to assume sometimes. Nor are they all insane or monstrous, as he says on several occasions. He seems to be over-generalizing from the terrible stories and experiences he had as a child when his mother was dying with Huntington's Disease. Even in the last stages of the illness this is not necessarily always the case. It seems to me his own fear of the illness has led him to play up the cliches.
   
   You can live positively with this illness, even to the last, with enough determination and love. I suspect I am being too harsh. I know my own older son went through several years where he was living a life off the rails, where he was focussed on himself and not on those around him properly. Who can blame him when he had to absorb the information that there was a 50% chance he would not have a future. He pulled through that stage after several years and got himself back together, after we almost lost him.
   
   I feel someone at that stage of the grieving process (this is a process of grieving for your future) who has come through the 'why me?' self-obsessed phase should have written this book to encourage people at risk to realize that yes, it is common to fall apart as your world falls apart around you (which seems to be the stage Mr. Barema was at when writing this book), but that, with love from others AND yourself, you can come thru that stage and become strong again. As Hemingway wrote, the world breaks all of us. But some of us are strong at the broken places. Exactly the same applies to Huntington's Disease. I wish this had been a better book. As it is, I will not be recommending it to my sons as I think it would upset them more than help them.



5. I read this book in French, so I cannot comment on the translation, but I do disagree with the above comments regarding the content. Anyone who is considering the test for Huntington's Disease should read this book. I found it thought-provoking and worthwhile.

5 comments about Twin Voices: A Memoir of Polio, the Forgotten Killer.

1. What surprised me most while reading this book was that polio is still out there and poised to strike here if someone from a country where polio is still active travels here and contacts an un-immunized person. I had no idea that polio was still a threat anywhere.
   I loved the story of Janice and Frankie. There should never be any more kids with polio since it could be eliminated, as Ms. Nichols makes clear.



2. The book was recommended to me by a mutual friend of the author. Her information is extensive and enlightening to a polio survivor (my husband). I didn't care for the format, where she used the "voice" of her deceased twin to tell his story from heaven. It was too cute, especially because he wouldn't be that articulate at his young age.



3. Reviewed by April Sullivan for Reader Views (1/08)
   
   "Twin Voices" is a memoir by Janice Flood Nichols about a specific life-changing event. In the fall of 1953, at the age of six, she lost her twin brother to polio. Janice contracted polio as well. She survived and overcame temporary paralysis. She went on to become a rehabilitation counselor. While her experiences as a youth shaped her adult life, she never thought that fifty years later she would be writing about the experience.
   
   Most people alive today have some memory of, or have at least heard of polio. Yet, to the surprise of everyone who has not kept up with polio research, including Janice Flood Nichols, polio is still an epidemic in Third World Countries. Although vaccines are available and worldwide eradication is possible, funding and education are needed to make this a reality. Knowing first-hand the devastation of polio, Janice was compelled to tell her story in an effort to educate and do her part to eradicate this deadly disease.
   
   "Twin Voices" is structured in a unique way. Janice invited professionals, friends, and family members to lend their voices to the story. Each chapter is by one of many characters, including those who are no longer alive, such as her twin Frankie and her parents. Other characters include the doctor who signed Frankie's death certificate, childhood friends, aunts, and cousins. Not only do the voices tell the personal side of the story, they also tell the history and facts about polio. The combination forms a nicely balanced book.
   
   I applaud Janice for writing this book. It was obviously not easy. But she was able to bring a perspective to the subject that not many people can. Janice knows polio as both a victim and a survivor. When Frankie died, a part of Janice died. Yet, on the other hand, when Janice survived, a part of Frankie survived, and this book is tangible evidence of that. "Twin Voices" is about so much more than polio. It is about the unique quality of twindom that Janice writes about so eloquently. Being a twin myself, that is the part about this book that intrigued me. Being educated about polio was an added bonus.
   
   I recommend "Twin Voices" to anyone who wants to read a well-researched book and touching personal look at the polio epidemic.



4. For those of us born after the 1950s, we cannot imagine the terror that gripped families every summer as polio swept through their communities, killing and crippling hundreds and thousands of people, particularly children. For six-year-old Janice Flood, polio became an integral part of her family history. In 1953, her twin brother Frankie died of polio, and Jan was left temporarily crippled by the disease. Although she was fortunate to regain full movement after intensive therapy, she nearly lost her son during his birth due to her physical deformities brought on by polio, and Janice suffers today from many symptoms of post-polio syndrome. Worst of all, though, she will always mourn the loss of a twin brother who never reached his full potential. From the age of six, she would always be a "twinless twin."
   
   Thanks to the development of the Salk and Sabin vaccines, polio was nearly eradicated in most industrialized countries, but the disease continues to cripple and kill people in many third world countries where vaccines are scarce. Having experienced firsthand the devastation that can be inflicted by polio, Janice Flood Nichols knew she had to tell her story and push for further efforts to vaccinate all of the world's children.
   
   Written through several "voices," including that of Janice, family members and friends, the doctor who cared for Janice and Frankie when they had polio, and even Frankie himself, "Twin Voices" is a fascinating read about the polio epidemic that swept the country, the frantic efforts to put a halt to its devastation, and the tragedy that befell the Flood family. This book brings home the fact that Frankie was a real little boy filled with a passion for life and all the joys that children experience. His family was, at first, shell-shocked following his death, but his twin sister Janice ultimately grew to find purpose in his passing through her work as a rehabilitation counselor for the physically disabled and her continued efforts to make sure that polio does not tragically alter the lives of more families like hers. It is also a haunting look at the "twin bond" that continues to connect Janice and her brother many years after their separation.



5. I knew very little about the polio outbreak in the 1950s but as a child I do remember being quarantined and not allowed to be with other children. After reading Janet's book I am so much more aware, not only about what was happening at that time, but what is happening now. I had no idea polio still exists.
   
   Janet not only lived through polio devastating her immediate family, but she has researched it thoroughly. "Twin Voices" is a story of Janet's life and experience; it is also book that gives the reader valuable insights. Her writing style is enticing to keep reading, her story is poignant, and her research impeccable.
   
   This a book not to be missed reading.

5 comments about Playing Catch: A Midwife's Memoirs.

1. this book is full of inaccuracy, and portrays midwife-assisted birth (and doulas) unfairly. most of the novel is just that-- total fiction. if this were someone's ACTUAL memoir and the events in it happened the way they did, it might be useful. the overall quality of writing is pretty lousy, and the plot is sort of pathetically primetime. it really is like watching ER or Gray's Anatomy, with sensationalized medical scenes, helpless patients, and most of the real drama coming from the very troubled characters. Having read the awe-inspiring, life-changing memoirs of actual midwives, I was very dissapointed to discover that this is fiction (subtitle would seem less false if it said something like "a story of..." instead of "memoirs of...") It wasn't worth my time as a novel, and does a disservice to midwives and doulas by presenting itself, however vaguely, as a factual account or even based on fact. It's not as bad as an outright attack on midwifery, but it's subtly close. Don't waste book money on this trash. Note: if, somehow, this even resembles the life and practice of a nurse midwife, then it worries me even more. If you really want to read a midwife's memoir, try A Midwife's Story, Listen to me Good, or Vagina Politics. Or anything written by Elizabeth Davis or Ina May Gaskin; these women's practice philosophies shine through their writing.



2. I loved the book and it was hard to put down. It's nice to see a book that shows many sides of the profession, the inspiring, the scary, the dark and wonderful stories. I admired the fact that she went to another country and took the time to learn a new laguage. As a student I appreciate the honoring of the midwife mentor, it is important that we all have someone to look to. The humor was a breath of fresh air too, I enjoy reading midwifery/birth books (Baby Catcher and Spiritual Midwifery are great too) and this is a delightful addition to my collection. I look forward to the next book:)



3. I read a lot of books about birth and midwives. I was so looking forward to reading this book, but was extremely offended by the abundant foul language and crude descriptions of the author's sex life. The good, decent, informative parts of the book were so surrounded by the sewage that I could never recommend this book to anyone. My copy will go in the garbage.



4. This is probably the most hilarious book I have ever read! I laughed out loud numerous times while reading about Sarah and Moe's adventures in nursing school, as nurses, and finally, as midwives. As a L&D nurse (and future midwife!) I can relate to so many of these vignettes that Miss Urang has written. Very well-crafted, superb writing. Would love to see a sequel to this book!!



5. I think I'm not the only one who thought this book was a memoir/biography, especially since the word memoir is in the title of the book. Nope--it's a novel, and not a very well-written one. Characters aren't developed fully, story isn't developed fully but told in a general way. Not until I finished the book completely (thinking to myself, wow, this book wasn't very informative) did I finally notice that it was a work of fiction. And then I was even MORE disappointed, since I love a great read and this was a poor excuse for a novel. Extremely disappointed, wish I had my money back.