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Monthly Archives: August 2017

BRAIN ON FIRE by Susannah Cahalan discussion

31 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, Book Review, books, cat, Coffee, Discussion, injury, Life, Non Fiction, Quote, recommendation, review, Today, Writer

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Brain on Fire is brilliant; a book that I now consider a ‘must-read’. Although Brain on Fire is a memoir, it is so much more than that. This book is also a public service announcement that should become required reading across the US until the disease discussed in the book becomes more widely known. Although technically a memoir, this book could more accurately be considered a case study written in the first person, a case study about a little known disease that needs more public awareness.

Susannah Cahalan is a journalist for a New York publication. She is a young professional woman with a stable job and a promising future. Cahalan, however, for unknown reasons begins to experience symptoms – sensitivity to light, mood swings, slight hallucinations, speech impediments among others that she can’t explain. After seeing a doctor about this initially, she is told it is due to excessive partying; alcohol withdrawals. One of her doctors speculates that what Cahalan is experiencing are caused by her birth control, still another believes these symptoms are the result of too much stress.

brain on fireInitially, Cahalan is skeptical of all of these possible diagnoses and attempts to diagnose herself with having, what she believes, is bipolar disorder. This self diagnosis, Cahalan reasoned, provided an explanation for a majority  of the symptoms that she was experiencing. Initially she was content with this, however her condition worsened. Her mood swings began to get more and more extreme to the point that she was taken to a hospital to be examined. Numerous tests were run on her, and they all came back displaying that Cahalan’s health was normal, despite the severity of her symptoms.

Through a series of events, she is eventually hospitalized. Her initial doctor is so perplexed with her, that he eventually hand’s off her case to a different doctor. This new doctor, Dr. Souhel Najjar was able to discover what really was going on with Cahalan and provide her with a diagnosis, a rare auto-immune disease, then provide a treatment that ultimately saved her life and returned her to a version of normal of her previous self.

This book helped to demonstrate the continued weaknesses of modern medicine – that despite our best abilities, there are still illnesses out there that, despite being prevalent, we know little to nothing about. What appears to be one thing – a mental illness, could very well be something much different. Even Cahalan’s initial doctor was perplexed by her ailments, and since he was unaware of the existence of the disease that effected Cahalan, he had no frame of reference to use in order to diagnose her.

“In the spring of 2009, I was the 217th person ever to be diagnosed with anti-NMDA-receptor autoimmune encephalitis. Just a year later, that figure had doubled. Now the number is in the thousands. Yet Dr. Bailey, considered one of the best neurologists in the country, had never heard of it. When we live in a time when the rate of misdiagnoses has shown no improvement since the 1930s, the lesson here is that it’s important to always get a second opinion.

While he may be an excellent doctor in many respects, Dr. Bailey is also, in some ways, a perfect example of what is wrong with medicine. I was just a number to him (and if he saw thirty-five patients a day, as he told me, that means I was one of a very large number). He is a by-product of a defective system that forces neurologists to spend five minutes with X number of patients a day to maintain their bottom line. It’s a bad system. Dr. Bailey is not the exception to the rule. He is the rule.”

This is why I believe this book should be required reading, because until more are aware of this disease, it will continue to be misdiagnosed until awareness grows.

#Thursday #Quotables

31 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, blog, books, cat, Coffee, Quotables, Quote, Thursday Quotables, time, Today, Writer

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There are no principles, only events; there are no laws, only circumstances: a superior man espouses events and circumstances the better to influence them. If fixed principles and laws really existed, countries wouldn’t change them as often as we change shirts. One man can’t be expected to show more sense than an entire nation.

— Honore de Balzac, Father Goriot

Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/b/balzac_honore_de_ii.html#ef3Am87lDhH8ydop.99

THE FOLDED CLOCK: A DIARY by Heidi Julavits discussion

30 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, Book Review, books, Discussion, Life, Non Fiction, review, Today, Writer

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I’m not sure how to categorize The Folded Clock by Heidi Julavits since it essentially exists somewhere in the realm between memoir, diary and experimental non-fiction (if that’s a thing). This is one of those plot-less books that is enjoyable in the moment, but leaves you with nothing in the end. There is no real way to say what this book is about since Julavits weaves multiple narratives from her life together arbitrarily that have little to do with each other.

folded clockThere was really only one thing that I took from this book and that was, a simple way to begin a journal entry is to use the word “today…” followed by the days events. That was the only commonality that ran through the entries that made up The Folded Clock, and it got horribly repetitive. In fact, if there was a way to accurately describe this book, the words “horribly repetitive” would be it. In retrospect, I wish I had recorded how often Julavits mentions that she shares a birthday with Adolf Hitler.

In short, The Folded Clock, if taken in bits and pieces, is enjoyable however if you go into this book expecting to get any insights on ANYTHING you’ll be gravely disappointed. If you are into hearing someone ramble on and on about events in their life that are, ultimately utterly pointless – this is the book for you. If that isn’t your thing, I suggest skipping this one altogether.

H IS FOR HAWK by Helen Macdonald discussion

30 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in anger, Author, Book Review, books, cat, Coffee, Life, Non Fiction, recommendation, review, time, Writer

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When Helen Macdonalds father dies unexpectedly on a London street, she is overcome with grief. This is to be expected, however Macdonalds form of coping with this grief is anything by traditional.

hisforhawkMacdonald is a falconer – a person who trains or hunts with birds of prey. As the title of the book suggests, the bird of prey that Macdonald goes out to train is a goshawk. Macdonalds particular goshawk is named Mabel. As Macdonald trains Mabel, she also explores the work of another falconer; T. H. White, a writer most well known for his novels that, published together are called The Once and Future King.

In short, H is for Hawk is quite the complex memoir, despite its numerous topics that center around training a goshawk the overarching theme that runs through this book is how a person dealing with a lot of grief due to loss attempts to deal with it. Mabel becomes Macdonalds tool for handling – or at least distracting her from – the loss of her father.

At times when reading this book I felt that Macdonald had taken on too much between the T. H. White analysis, the falconry and the death of her father. I spent much of the time reading this wondering how Macdonald was going to tie up all of these topics – and after finishing up the book I do wonder if she had.

This is one of those books that becomes easier to like IF you can relate to the type of grief that Macdonald is experiencing. The dark, bleak atmosphere that is set in this memoir can be off=putting if you as a reader don’t have a relateable experience. This is a book that isn’t for everyone, the writing and the story is superb, but liking or disliking the book may largely depend on whether you have the ability to relate to the emotions that Macdonald writes about.

M TRAIN by Patti Smith discussion

27 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, Book Review, books, Coffee, Discussion, Life, Non Fiction, poem, recommendation, time, Writer

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Unlike Just Kids where Smith presents a rather linear story about her life and relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, M Train is much more stream of consciousness – a compilation of recollections of Smith’s life and travels as she recalls them from her favorite seat in her favorite coffee shop. The title of the book could almost be thought of as “Memory Train” as each section Smith takes you with her on a trip into her past.

mtrainHer memories in this memoir revolve around person’s, places and things. This is an aspect of this memoir that I found particularly fascinating. Many memoirs tend to focus on interactions with people, pets or places the author has been, however Smith recognizes that objects often hold with them the memories that we associate with them. In M Train one of those objects is a novel by Haruki Murakami that captures Smith’s imagination to the point that it influences her travels.

Admittedly I enjoyed the linear style of Just Kids more than the stream of conscious style found in M Train – the truth is, it feels like I got to know Smith much better in M Train despite this preference. M Train was far more introspective than Just Kids. Smith allows you into her life in M Train, allowing far more emotion than what was provided in her other memoir.

Perhaps the most important thing to know about M Train is the difference in style – especially if you are going into it with the expectation of reading something similar to Just Kids.  The stories in M Train are connected, so you will not be entirely deprived, however, of a linear story.

M Train, just like Just Kids are two books that I plan on revisiting in the future. They were both too captivating for just a single read.

JUST KIDS by Patti Smith discussion

26 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, Book Review, books, cat, Coffee, Discussion, Life, Non Fiction, recommendation, Writer

≈ 1 Comment

Although I had heard plenty about this book by Patti Smith – especially about how great it was, and that it was a ‘must read’ – I was not sure what exactly Smith’s memoir was going to be about. I had made the incorrect assumption that Just Kids would be about Smiths experiences in the early punk scene of New York City, I was wrong.

just kidsJust Kids is a memoir – an excellent memoir – about Patti Smiths relationship with fellow artist Robert Mapplethorpe who she met when she first got to New York – but it is also so much more. Just Kids is a story about life, about ambition, about beauty and about dreams.

I wish this book existed when I first got into college almost 15 years ago – so much of it would have been helpful to hear. I was under the terrible impression that people like Patti Smith had it easy when they were starting out in their life. I had this envy of the early punk scene believing that everyone who got involved in it easily found success.

This was not the case.

Patti and Robert struggled a lot when they were first starting out in New York – nothing came easy for them. It appeared that most of their initial success was the result of happenstance; i.e. Pattie the poet turned rock star. She just let life happen – accepted change for the sake of change, meanwhile sticking to principles that ultimately helped her along the way. The fact that Smith didn’t do drugs in such a drug saturated environment was inspiring. She knew what would harm her and kept her distance.

Just Kids needs to become required reading, especially for the kids who are questioning their place in the world. This book deserves all the praise and hype that it’s received. My only disappointment is that I put off reading it for so long.

THE ART OF MEMOIR by Mary Karr discussion

26 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, Book Review, books, Coffee, Discussion, Life, Non Fiction, Writer

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Although Mary Karr is a well known memoirist, I hadn’t read any of her books yet I was strongly drawn to her most recent work; The Art of Memoir.

When I first heard of this book, I was under the initial belief that it was essentially a primer on how to write and compose a memoir. A better way to describe this book however is that The Art of Memoir is a memoir about memoirs – that offers some tips on the process along the way.

Art of MemoirI did find this book informative in various ways, when I finished, I realized I had little interest in reading Karr’s other memoirs – The Liars Club, Cherry and Lit. When reading Karr’s writing I felt an artificial distance she was maintaining that I couldn’t breach. I thought perhaps this was only due to the subject matter of this particular book, but when I went to the bookstore to look at her other books, I got the same feeling as I sampled different parts of The Liars Club and Lit.

What The Art of Memoir did do for me was to inspire me to devote the entire month of August to reading just memoirs. In the back of The Art of Memoir, Karr lists a lot of memoirs that – after reading through, I discovered that I owned several of. Using the list as a reference, I dug up 15 memoirs that I own and have not read.

Although I wasn’t exactly drawn to Karr’s writing style, I would recommend The Art of Memoir as a reference book. In the least, this book does offer some worth while writing guidelines and suggestions – and if those don’t work for you, she offers many reading suggestions that will let you “see” the art of memoir in action.

I believe what really bothered me most about this book – in retrospect – was Karr’s subtle attempt to create a formula for how to compose a memoir. On a few occasions in the book she provides examples out of well known, well written memoirs that even she finds exceptional then tells her readers to not write that way. Clearly since Karr teaches about memoir, she has elevated herself to being some authority on how to write them. I wasn’t able to agree with this level of arrogance on her part. Some artist’s paint like Michelangelo, others like Pollack and still others like Picasso, and yet all of their methods are “correct” in regards to art – the same goes for writing, with memoirs especially.

#Thursday #Quotables

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, books, Coffee, Life, Quotables, Quote, Thursday Quotables, Trump, Writer

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“However stupid a fool’s words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man.”

― Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

#Thursday #Quotables

17 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, books, Quotables, Quote, rain, Thursday Quotables, Writer

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“The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.”

― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

Quick Update

11 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in friend

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My posts will resume when my internet is restored. 

I have 5 reviews coming soon…

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