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Dead Center: Behind the Scenes at the World's Largest Medical Examiner's Office
Par Shiya Ribowsky, Tom Shachtman. 2006
A city with eight million people has eight million ways to dieFor fifteen years, Shiya Ribowsky worked as a medicolegal…
investigator in New York City’s medical examiner’s office—the largest, most sophisticated organization of its kind in the world. Utilizing his background in medicine, he led the investigations of more than eight thousand individual deaths, becoming a key figure in some of New York’s most bizarre death cases and eventually taking charge of the largest forensic investigation ever attempted: identifying the dead in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedies. Now, in this mesmerizing book, Ribowsky pulls back the curtain on the New York City’s medical examiner’s office, giving an enthralling, never-before-seen glimpse into death and the city. Born and raised in New York City’s orthodox Jewish community, Ribowsky seems an unlikely candidate for this macabre profession. Nevertheless he has forsaken a promising career of medical work with the living, descending instead into the realm of the dead, enticed by the challenge of confronting death on a daily basis. Taking you through the vermin-infested Bowery flophouses and posh Upper East Side apartments of the city’s dead, Ribowsky explores in gruesome detail the skeletons that hang in the Big Apple’s closets. Combing through the autopsy room, he also exposes the grim secrets that only a scalpel and a dead body can tell and explains how forensic investigation does not merely solve crimes—it saves lives. But it is in the aftermath of September 11 that the ME’s office is handed its biggest challenge: to identify as many of the fallen as possible. With poignant descriptions, Ribowsky provides a dramatic account of the office’s diligent and unflappable work with the families of the victims, helping them emerge from the ashes of this tragedy while displaying the strength, grit, intelligence, and compassion that Americans expect from true New Yorkers. At once compelling and heartbreaking, Dead Center is a story of New York unlike any other, blending the haunting with the sublime, while painting a striking portrait of death (and life) in the city that never sleeps.In My Blood: Six Generations of Madness & Desire in an American Family
Par John Sedgwick. 2007
While working on his second novel, John Sedgwick spiraled into a depression so profound that it very nearly resulted in…
suicide. An author acclaimed for his intimate literary excursions into the rarified, moneyed enclave of Brahmin Boston, he decided to search for the roots of his malaise in the history of his own storied family—one of America's oldest and most notable. Following a bloodline that travels from Theodore Sedgwick, compatriot of George Washington and John Adams, to Edie Sedgwick, Andy Warhol's tragic muse, John Sedgwick's very personal journey of self-discovery became something far greater: a spellbinding study of the evolution of an extraordinary American family.Sick: A Memoir
Par Porochista Khakpour. 2018
A Best Book of the Year: Real Simple, Entropy, Mental Floss, Bitch Media, The Paris Review, and LitHub.Time Magazine's Best Memoirs of…
2018 • Boston Globe's 25 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018 • Buzzfeed's 33 Most Exciting New Books • GQ Best Non Fiction Book of 2018 • Bustle’s 28 Most Anticipated Nonfiction Books of 2018 list • Nylon’s 50 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2018 • Electric Literature’s 46 Books to Read By Women of Color in 2018 “Porochista Khakpour’s powerful memoir, Sick, reads like a mystery and a reckoning with a love song at its core. Humane, searching, and unapologetic, Sick is about the thin lines and vast distances between illness and wellness, healing and suffering, the body and the self. Khakpour takes us all the way in on her struggle toward health with an intelligence and intimacy that moved, informed, and astonished me.” — Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author of WildA powerful, beautifully rendered memoir of chronic illness, misdiagnosis, addiction, and the myth of full recovery.For as long as author Porochista Khakpour can remember, she has been sick. For most of that time, she didn't know why. Several drug addictions, some major hospitalizations, and over $100,000 later, she finally had a diagnosis: late-stage Lyme disease. Sick is Khakpour's grueling, emotional journey—as a woman, an Iranian-American, a writer, and a lifelong sufferer of undiagnosed health problems—in which she examines her subsequent struggles with mental illness and her addiction to doctor prescribed benzodiazepines, that both aided and eroded her ever-deteriorating physical health. Divided by settings, Khakpour guides the reader through her illness by way of the locations that changed her course—New York, LA, Santa Fe, and a college town in Germany—as she meditates on the physiological and psychological impacts of uncertainty, and the eventual challenge of accepting the diagnosis she had searched for over the course of her adult life. A story of survival, pain, and transformation, Sick candidly examines the colossal impact of illness on one woman's life by not just highlighting the failures of a broken medical system but by also boldly challenging our concept of illness narratives.Early: An Intimate History of Premature Birth and What It Teaches Us About Being Human
Par Sarah DiGregorio. 2020
“Sarah DiGregorio delves deeply into the fraught world of premature birth. With bracing honesty, she recounts her own story and…
the stories of other women who draw on the power of love and meld it with cutting-edge science, as they struggle to save the lives of their newborns. This book opens our minds and hearts to a world that is rarely seen with such clarity.”—Jerome Groopman, MD, Recanati Professor at Harvard Medical School and author of The Anatomy of HopeInspired by the author’s harrowing experience giving birth to her premature daughter, a compelling and empathetic work that combines memoir with rigorous reporting to tell the story of neonatology—and to meditate on the questions raised by premature birth. The heart of many hospitals is the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It is a place where humanity, ethics, and science collide in dramatic and deeply personal ways as parents, doctors, and nurses grapple with sometimes unanswerable questions: When does life begin? When and how should life end? And what does it mean to be human?Nearly twenty years ago, Dr. John D. Lantos wrote The Lazarus Case, a seminal work on ethical dilemmas in neonatology. He described the NICU as “a strong, strange, powerful place.” The NICU is a place made of stories—the stories of mothers and babies who spend days, weeks, and even months waiting to go home, and the dedicated clinicians who care for these tiny, developing humans. The book explores the evolution of neonatology and its breakthroughs—how modern medicine can be successful at saving infants at five and a half months gestation who weigh less than a pound, when only a few decades ago, there were essentially no treatments for premature babies.For the first time, Sarah DiGregorio tells the complete story of this science—and the many people it has touched. Weaving her own story, those of other parents, and NICU clinicians with deeply researched reporting, Early delves deep into the history and future of neonatology, one of the most boundary pushing medical disciplines: how it came to be, how it is evolving, and the political, cultural, and ethical issues that continue to arise in the face of dramatic scientific developments. Eye-opening and vital, Early uses premature birth as a lens to view our own humanity, and the humanity of those around us.It's Okay to Laugh: (Crying Is Cool Too)
Par Nora McInerny Purmort. 2016
“Thank you for the perfect blend of nostalgia-drenched humor, wit, and heartbreak, Nora.” — Mandy Moorecomedy = tragedy + time/roséTwenty-seven-year-old Nora…
McInerny Purmort bounced from boyfriend to dopey “boyfriend” until she met Aaron—a charismatic art director and comic-book nerd who once made Nora laugh so hard she pulled a muscle. When Aaron was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer, they refused to let it limit their love. They got engaged on Aaron’s hospital bed and had a baby boy while he was on chemo. In the period that followed, Nora and Aaron packed fifty years of marriage into the three they got, spending their time on what really matters: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, each other, and Beyoncé. A few months later, Aaron died in Nora’s arms. The obituary they wrote during Aaron’s hospice care revealing his true identity as Spider-Man touched the nation. With It’s Okay to Laugh, Nora puts a young, fresh twist on the subjects of mortality and resilience. What does it actually mean to live your “one wild and precious life” to the fullest? How can a joyful marriage contain more sickness than health? How do you keep going when life kicks you in the junk? In this deeply felt and deeply funny memoir, Nora gives her readers a true gift—permission to struggle, permission to laugh, permission to tell the truth and know that everything will be okay. It’s Okay to Laugh is a love letter to life, in all its messy glory; it reads like a conversation with a close friend, and leaves a trail of glitter in its wake.This book is for people who have been through some shit.This is for people who aren’t sure if they’re saying or doing the right thing (you’re not, but nobody is). This is for people who had their life turned upside down and just learned to live that way. For people who have laughed at a funeral or cried in a grocery store. This is for everyone who wondered what exactly they’re supposed to be doing with their one wild and precious life. I don’t actually have the answer, but if you find out, will you text me?The Plague and I
Par Betty MacDonald. 2016
“Getting tuberculosis in the middle of your life is like starting downtown to do a lot of urgent errands and…
being hit by a bus. When you regain consciousness you remember nothing about the urgent errands. You can’t even remember where you were going.”Thus begins Betty MacDonald’s memoir of her year in a sanatorium just outside Seattle battling the “White Plague.” MacDonald uses her offbeat humor to make the most of her time in the TB sanatorium—making all of us laugh in the process.The Egg & I: The Enduring Classic
Par Betty MacDonald. 1945
“A work of real comic genius. . . . A wonderful, funny, warm, honest book, and, to use a much…
overused word, a classic.” –Michael Korda, author of Country MattersWhen Betty MacDonald married a marine and moved to a small chicken farm on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, she was largely unprepared for the rigors of life in the wild. With no running water, no electricity, a house in need of constant repair, and days that ran from four in the morning to nine at night, the MacDonalds had barely a moment to put their feet up and relax. And then came the children. Yet through every trial and pitfall—through chaos and catastrophe—this indomitable family somehow, mercifully, never lost its sense of humor.A beloved literary treasure for more than half a century, Betty MacDonald's The Egg and I is a heartwarming and uproarious account of adventure and survival on an American frontier.Little Matches: A Memoir of Finding Light in the Dark
Par Maryanne O'Hara. 2021
“Gripping and true in all ways. This fine, affecting memoir will stay with me for a very long time.”—Meg Wolitzer,…
author of The Female Persuasion“In this vividly written memoir novelist O’Hara shares a painful but ultimately beautiful account of her daughter Caitlin’s life with cystic fibrosis. . . . Her compelling story will resonate with anyone seeking a light in the darkest depths of grief.”—Library JournalIn the vein of The Year of Magical Thinking and Beautiful Boy, an emotionally raw and inspiring memoir that illuminates a mother’s grief over the loss of her adult child and considers the hope of soulful connections that transcend the boundary of life and death.When their only child was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF) at the age of two, Maryanne O’Hara and her husband were told that Caitlin could live a long life or be dead in a matter of months. Thirty-one years later, Caitlin lost her battle with this devastating disease following an excruciating two-year wait on the transplant list and a last-minute race to locate a pair of healthy lungs. The sudden spiral of events left Maryanne in an existential crisis, searching to find an answer to the eternal question: Why we are here? During her final years, Caitlin had become a source of wisdom and comfort for her mother—the partner with whom she shared a deep spiritual quest to understand what it meant to have a soul. After Caitlin’s passing, Maryanne began to notice signs—poignant, persistent synchronicities that seemed to lean toward proof of Caitlin’s enduring presence.Weaving together a series of interconnected meditations with illuminating glimpses of life rendered via text messages, e-mails, and journal entries, Little Matches is a profound reflection on life and death, motherhood, the pain of chronic uncertainty, and finding inspiration in the unexpected sparks that light our way through the darkness.Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City
Par Fang Fang. 2020
From one of China’s most acclaimed and decorated writers comes a powerful first-person account of life in Wuhan during the…
COVID-19 outbreak.On January 25, 2020, after the central government imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, acclaimed Chinese writer Fang Fang began publishing an online diary. In the days and weeks that followed, Fang Fang’s nightly postings gave voice to the fears, frustrations, anger, and hope of millions of her fellow citizens, reflecting on the psychological impact of forced isolation, the role of the internet as both community lifeline and source of misinformation, and most tragically, the lives of neighbors and friends taken by the deadly virus. A fascinating eyewitness account of events as they unfold, Wuhan Diary captures the challenges of daily life and the changing moods and emotions of being quarantined without reliable information. Fang Fang finds solace in small domestic comforts and is inspired by the courage of friends, health professionals and volunteers, as well as the resilience and perseverance of Wuhan’s nine million residents. But, by claiming the writer´s duty to record she also speaks out against social injustice, abuse of power, and other problems which impeded the response to the epidemic and gets herself embroiled in online controversies because of it.As Fang Fang documents the beginning of the global health crisis in real time, we are able to identify patterns and mistakes that many of the countries dealing with the novel coronavirus have later repeated. She reminds us that, in the face of the new virus, the plight of the citizens of Wuhan is also that of citizens everywhere. As Fang Fang writes: “The virus is the common enemy of humankind; that is a lesson for all humanity. The only way we can conquer this virus and free ourselves from its grip is for all members of humankind to work together.” Blending the intimate and the epic, the profound and the quotidian, Wuhan Diary is a remarkable record of an extraordinary time. Translated from the Chinese by Michael BerryBattle for the Bird: Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk and the $44 Billion Fight for Twitter's Soul
Par Kurt Wagner. 2024
On October 28th, hours after completing a $44 billion takeover of Twitter, Elon Musk Tweeted to his millions of followers…
'The bird is freed.'Musk's takeover of Twitter was one of the most audacious and remarkable deals in tech history. The Battle for Twitter takes readers back to the very beginning and how we reached this point. It looks at the origins of the platform, the vision of its co-founder Jack Dorsey, and how it became a battleground for ideas, controversies, and viral moments that shaped the world we live in today.With meticulous research and unprecedented access, author Kurt Wagner paints a vivid portrait of power struggles, bitter rivalries, and ground-breaking decisions that have shaped the evolution of Twitter. From Musk's audacious tweets to Dorsey's enigmatic persona, The Battle for Twitter uncovers the depths of their involvement, revealing the forces that have propelled them to the forefront of global attention. In this gripping corporate saga, delve into the minds of these visionary figures as they engage in a high-stakes battle for dominance, reshaping the very fabric of social media.Battle for the Bird: Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk and the $44 Billion Fight for Twitter's Soul
Par Kurt Wagner. 2024
The gripping corporate saga of Twitter's titans and their journey towards power, innovation, and controversy.'Comprehensive . . . a definitive…
history' The Times'Battle For The Bird is an absolute triumph of reporting and storytelling.' Ashlee Vance, bestselling author of Elon Musk'If you want to understand how one of the most powerful social networks in history managed to be such a dramatic corporate disaster, you must read Kurt Wagner's deeply reported inside story.' Sarah Frier, author of Financial Times and McKinsey 2020 Business Book of the Year No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram__________On October 28th, hours after completing a $44 billion takeover of Twitter, Elon Musk Tweeted to his millions of followers 'The bird is freed.'Musk's takeover of Twitter was one of the most audacious and remarkable deals in tech history. The Battle for Twitter takes readers back to the very beginning and how we reached this point. It looks at the origins of the platform, the vision of its co-founder Jack Dorsey, and how it became a battleground for ideas, controversies, and viral moments that shaped the world we live in today.With meticulous research and unprecedented access, author Kurt Wagner paints a vivid portrait of power struggles, bitter rivalries, and ground-breaking decisions that have shaped the evolution of Twitter. From Musk's audacious tweets to Dorsey's enigmatic persona, Battle for The Bird uncovers the depths of their involvement, revealing the forces that have propelled them to the forefront of global attention. In this gripping corporate saga, delve into the minds of these visionary figures as they engage in a high-stakes battle for dominance, reshaping the very fabric of social media.__________George T. Malvaney's life epitomizes the old maxim that "You cannot make this stuff up." Combine a young Klansman from…
Mississippi, an armed coup attempt in the Caribbean, a stay in prison, and a life-changing epiphany, and you have but half of this swashbuckling tale. Throw in the worst man-made ecological disaster in the history of the United States, and you have unleashed Malvaney's full life story. The Klansman, the soldier of fortune, the wild-eyed prisoner transforms into a renowned leader of the Mississippi Gulf Coast cleanup effort in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.In his too-crazy-not-to-be-true memoir, Malvaney chronicles what easily should be several lifetimes of adventure--and misadventure. Growing up in a close-knit family in Jackson, Mississippi, the young Malvaney preferred woods and swamps to the drudgery of high school. He dropped out, enlisted in the Navy, and shortly afterwards joined the Ku Klux Klan. While onboard, he organized a branch of the Klan, corrupting and endangering his crewmen. After his discharge, he answered a mercenary call to take part in an invasion of Dominica, a Caribbean fiasco known as the "Bayou of Pigs." That madness landed him in a federal penitentiary. And there, somehow, he vowed to turn his life around.Cups Up, a title drawn from the wake-up call shouted at prisoners, is a story of perseverance, cleansing, and redemption. It chronicles the roller coaster life of a high school dropout, ex-Klansman, ex-mercenary, ex-felon, and ex-con, who went on to become a college graduate, a hardnosed environmental regulator, and a widely respected top executive in a company with more than a thousand employees.Deeper Currents: The Sacraments of Hunting and Fishing
Par Donald C. Jackson. 2016
In Deeper Currents, Donald C. Jackson guides us on a journey into the cathedrals of wild and lonely places, those…
sacred spaces where hunters and fishers connect with the rhythms of the earth and the spirit that resonates within us. Jackson explores hunting and fishing as frameworks—sacraments—for discovering, engaging, and finding meaning. He invites readers to consider connections with wilder realms of being. Hunting squirrels on an autumn morning, probing the woods, rifle in hand, Jackson reveals an attention to nature too often neglected. Following a bird dog into the damp and mysterious places where woodcock settle on their southbound migrations; chasing hounds on the trail of raccoons on a frosty winter night; stalking deer in a quiet corner of a small farm; fishing for carp in a creek, bass and bluegill in ponds, catfish in a murky river, and reef fish in the Gulf, Jackson reminds that we are stewards of not only resources but also a past that defines us as hunters and fishers. We must pass this legacy along to the generations that follow. In Deeper Currents, tractors and old barns find a place in the reader's heart. Boats and canoes navigate realms of danger and dreams. Jackson shares outdoor pilgrimages with good friends in cabins, tents, camps, and old trailers tucked beyond the reach of a rushing world. He rejoices in the whisper of stiff wings as ducks come to decoys, the call of geese and cranes over tidal flats, the hush before a storm, the muffled snap of a twig at twilight, a drop of dew falling on the surface of a pond, and the clicking of caribou hooves on an Alaskan gravel bar. Jackson finds these natural moments fill us with energy. They remind us that we are taking part in a sacred heritage and that creation is unfolding all around us.Fannye Cook: Mississippi's Pioneering Conservationist
Par Dorothy Shawhan. 2017
Mississippi Chapter of The Wildlife Society Outstanding BookConservationist Fannye Cook (1889-1964) was the most widely known scientist in Mississippi and…
was nationally known as the go-to person for biological information or wildlife specimens from the state. This biography celebrates the environmentalist instrumental in the creation of the Mississippi Game and Fish Commission (now called the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks) and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.To accomplish this feat, Cook led an extensive grassroots effort to implement game laws and protect the state's environment. In 1926 she began traveling the state at her own expense, speaking at county fairs, schools, and clubs, and to county boards of supervisors on the status of wildlife populations and the need for management. Eventually she collected a diverse group of supporters from across the state. Due to these efforts, the legislature created the Mississippi Game and Fish Commission in 1932. Thanks to the formation of the Works Progress Administration in 1935, Cook received a WPA grant to conduct a comprehensive plant and animal survey of Mississippi. Under this program, eighteen museums were established within the state, and another one in Jackson, which served as the hub for public education and scientific research.Fannye Cook served as director of the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science until her retirement in 1958. During her tenure, she published many bulletins, pamphlets, scientific papers, and the extensive book Freshwater Fishes of Mississippi.When You Lose It: Two voices. One true story. A mother and daughter on the edge. 'A very important subject' – ITV's This Morning
Par Roxy Longworth, Gay Longworth. 2022
'Read this book. Then talk to your sons. It is essential reading' Jamie Theakston 'An extraordinary and important book. Read…
it immediately' Claudia Winkleman 'Superbly written, this deeply moving book underlines how truly precious mother-daughter relationships are, and never more so than in those teenage years' Gloria Hunniford A gripping memoir of two battling narratives and a mother-daughter relationship stretched to its absolute limits.Roxy was 13 years old when she was coerced then blackmailed into sending explicit photos, which were spread around her school. The shame led to self-loathing. The blame led to a psychotic breakdown. Roxy started hearing voices. Then she started seeing things...What happens when your teenager starts to lose it, and then you lose each other? What happens when you can't tell your mother you desperately need help? And how can a family move past a devastating mental health crisis?When You Lose It is a brutally honest true story, written from two perspectives, of consent, coercion and shattering consequences.They Called Us River Rats: The Last Batture Settlement of New Orleans
Par Macon Fry. 2021
They Called Us River Rats: The Last Batture Settlement of New Orleans is the previously untold story of perhaps the…
oldest outsider settlement in America, an invisible community on the annually flooded shores of the Mississippi River. This community exists in the place between the normal high and low water line of the Mississippi River, a zone known in Louisiana as the batture. For the better part of two centuries, batture dwellers such as Macon Fry have raised shantyboats on stilts, built water-adapted homes, foraged, fished, and survived using the skills a river teaches. Until now the stories of this way of life have existed only in the memories of those who have lived here. Beginning in 2000, Fry set about recording the stories of all the old batture dwellers he could find: maritime workers, willow furniture makers, fishermen, artists, and river shrimpers. Along the way, Fry uncovered fascinating tales of fortune tellers, faith healers, and wild bird trappers who defiantly lived on the river. They Called Us River Rats also explores the troubled relationship between people inside the levees, the often-reviled batture folks, and the river itself. It traces the struggle between batture folks and city authorities, the commercial interests that claimed the river, and Louisiana’s most powerful politicians. These conflicts have ended in legal battles, displacement, incarceration, and even lynching. Today Fry is among the senior generation of “River Rats” living in a vestigial colony of twelve “camps” on New Orleans’s river batture, a fragment of a settlement that once stretched nearly six miles and numbered hundreds of homes. It is the last riparian settlement on the Lower Mississippi and a contrarian, independent life outside urban zoning, planning, and flood protection. This book is for everyone who ever felt the pull of the Mississippi River or saw its towering levees and wondered who could live on the other side.When You Lose It: Two voices. One true story. A mother and daughter on the edge. 'A very important subject' – ITV's This Morning
Par Roxy Longworth, Gay Longworth. 2022
'Read this book. Then talk to your sons. It is essential reading' Jamie Theakston 'An extraordinary and important book. Read…
it immediately' Claudia Winkleman 'Superbly written, this deeply moving book underlines how truly precious mother-daughter relationships are, and never more so than in those teenage years' Gloria Hunniford A gripping memoir of two battling narratives and a mother-daughter relationship stretched to its absolute limits.Roxy was 13 years old when she was coerced then blackmailed into sending explicit photos, which were spread around her school. The shame led to self-loathing. The blame led to a psychotic breakdown. Roxy started hearing voices. Then she started seeing things...What happens when your teenager starts to lose it, and then you lose each other? What happens when you can't tell your mother you desperately need help? And how can a family move past a devastating mental health crisis?When You Lose It is a brutally honest true story, written from two perspectives, of consent, coercion and shattering consequences.Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine
Par Uché Blackstock. 2024
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER&“This book is more than a memoir—it also serves as a call to action to create…
a more equitable healthcare system for patients of color, particularly Black women.&” —Essence One of NPR&’s 11 Books to Look Forward to in 2024 One of Good Morning America&’s 15 New Books to Read for the New Year &“Legacy is both a compelling memoir and an edifying analysis of the inequities in the way we deliver healthcare in America. Uché Blackstock is a force of nature.&” —Abraham Verghese, MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Covenant of Water &“[An] extraordinary family story.&” —Dr. Damon Tweedy, The New York Times Book Review &“This book should be required reading for all medical students.&” —Gayle King, CBS Mornings The rousing, captivating story of a Black physician, her career in medicine, and the deep inequities that still exist in the U.S. healthcare systemGrowing up in Brooklyn, New York, it never occurred to Uché Blackstock and her twin sister, Oni, that they would be anything but physicians. In the 1980s, their mother headed an organization of Black women physicians, and for years the girls watched these fiercely intelligent women in white coats tend to their patients and neighbors, host community health fairs, cure ills, and save lives.What Dr. Uché Blackstock did not understand as a child—or learn about at Harvard Medical School, where she and her sister had followed in their mother&’s footsteps, making them the first Black mother-daughter legacies from the school—were the profound and long-standing systemic inequities that mean just 2 percent of all U.S. physicians today are Black women; the racist practices and policies that ensure Black Americans have far worse health outcomes than any other group in the country; and the flawed system that endangers the well-being of communities like theirs. As an ER physician, and later as a professor in academic medicine, Dr. Blackstock became profoundly aware of the systemic barriers that Black patients and physicians continue to face.Legacy is a journey through the critical intersection of racism and healthcare. At once a searing indictment of our healthcare system, a generational family memoir, and a call to action, Legacy is Dr. Blackstock&’s odyssey from child to medical student to practicing physician—to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement.Ugly: The Australian bestseller
Par Robert Hoge. 2013
The unique and inspiring story of a boy born with the odds against him and the family whose love and…
support helped him overcome incredible hardships.Robert Hoge was born with a giant tumour on his forehead, severely distorted facial features and legs that were twisted and useless. His mother refused to look at her son, let alone bring him home. But home he went, to a life that, against the odds, was filled with joy, optimism and boyhood naughtiness.Home for the Hoges was a bayside suburb of Brisbane. Robert's parents, Mary and Vince, knew that his life would be difficult, but they were determined to give him a typical Australian childhood. So along with the regular, gruelling and often dangerous operations that made medical history and gradually improved Robert's life, there were bad haircuts, visits to the local pool, school camps and dreams of summer sports.Ugly is Robert's account of that life, from the time of his birth to the arrival of his own daughter. It is a story of how the love and support of his family helped him to overcome incredible hardships. It is also the story of an extraordinary person living an ordinary life, which is perhaps his greatest achievement of all.'There is much to be learned from this ugly man whose spirit is truly beautiful' - Saturday Age'This is an incredible life story that will no doubt attract much publicity and discussion about beauty, ugliness and how we value ourselves' - Australian Bookseller + Publisher'If Robert Hoge reckons he belongs to the Ugly Club, then "ugly" must mean humour and courage, love and decency' - William McInnes'[A] frank, wry and funny memoir...' - Sunday Age'This fabulous easy-to-read tale is a treasure for anyone who has ever given their looks a second thought. Ugly offers a bracing perspective on life, love and the real definition of beauty. - Good ReadingAuthor BiographyRobert Hoge has worked as a journalist, a speechwriter, a science communicator for the CSIRO and a political advisor to the former Queensland Premier and Deputy Premier. He has had numerous short stories, articles, interviews and other works published in Australia and overseas. He also enjoys photography, and is interested in disability advocacy and social engagement. While he never went far with his professional lawn bowls career, Robert did carry the Olympic torch in 2000. He is married and lives in Brisbane. He has an eleven-year-old daughter who thinks his Olympic torch would make a really great cricket bat.How to Be Human: An Autistic Man's Guide to Life
Par Jory Fleming. 2021
A &“beautiful and astonishing&” (Walter Isaacson, # 1 New York Times bestselling author of The Code Breaker) narrative that examines…
the many ways to be fully human, told by the first young adult with autism to attend Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. As a child, Jory Fleming was wracked by uncontrollable tantrums, had no tolerance for people, and couldn&’t manage the outside world. Slightly more than a decade later, he was bound for England, selected to attend one of the world&’s premier universities. How to Be Human is a &“profound, thought-provoking&” (Barry M. Pizant, PhD, author of Uniquely Human) exploration of life amid a world constructed for neurotypical brains when yours is not. But the miracle of this book is that instead of dwelling on Jory&’s limitations, those who inhabit the neurotypical world will begin to better understand their own: they will contemplate what language cannot say, how linear thinking leads to dead ends, and how nefarious emotions can be, particularly when, in Jory&’s words, they are &“weaponized.&” Through a series of deep, personal conversations with writer Lyric Winik, Jory makes a compelling case for logical empathy based on rational thought, asks why we tolerate friends who see us as a means to an end, and explains why he believes personality is a choice. Most movingly, he discusses how, after many hardships, he maintains a deep, abiding faith: &“With people, I don&’t understand what goes in and what comes out, and how to relate,&” he says. &“But I can always reconnect with my relationship with my Creator.&” Join Jory and Lyric as they examine what it means to be human and ultimately how each of us might become a better one. Jory asks us to consider: Who has value? What is a disability? And how do we correct the imbalances we see in the world? How to Be Human shows us the ways a beautifully different mind can express the very best of our shared humanity.