Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Susannah Cahalan was 24 years old and a reporter for the New York Post when she suddenly started developing strange behaviors.  She went from manic highs to extreme depression, paranoia, and eventually, seizures.  She consulted several doctors, including a psychologist, a neurologist, and even her gynecologist.  Each gave her a different diagnosis or were unable to find any answers.  One said that she was drinking and partying too much. None of them were able to stop the symptoms from getting worse.

Eventually the seizures were so severe she ended up in the emergency room.  Not knowing what was causing any of her symptoms, they decided to admit her to the epilepsy ward where they could at least monitor her seizures.  Cahalan eventually spent over a month in the hospital before a neurologist figured out she was suffering from an extremely rare, only recently discovered form of an immune disorder which caused swelling, or encephalitis, of the brain.   How this was discovered and treated is described in the second half of her book.

Cahalan decided that she would write her own story, Brain on Fire, after she returned to the newspaper.  Because she had little memory of what happened, she went over the medical reports and films of her time in the hospital and compared them with her diary.  She also interviewed her family, friends, and many of the doctors involved in her treatment.  What they said was so different from what she remembered it was shocking.

Cahalan was extremely fortunate because she was admitted to one of the premier hospitals in NYC, which led to her case being referred to the doctor who had recently discovered this new disorder.  Had she been treated anywhere else in the country, or at a different period of time, she may have been misdiagnosed with schizophrenia or some other severe mental disorder.  One wonders how many people admitted to psychiatric hospitals may have a rare or unknown physical rather than mental illness.  The author discusses this in the book, and states over and over how lucky she was to find not only a cause, but a successful treatment. Cahalan’s book was fascinating, although frightening.

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The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer

J.R. Moehringer grew up in Manhasset, New York in the 1970’s, raised by a single mother and her extended dysfunctional family living under one small roof in a pub-laden town on the north shore of Long Island. He knew his father only as The Voice, a Manhattan DJ who hosted popular radio programs; the image of J.R. with his ear to the clock radio scrolling the dial to find his alcoholic father (he changed stations and jobs frequently) is the heart-rending opening scene in this autobiography.  But this memoir is not sentimental pap; it is a riotous romp and a delightfully funny coming of age story crafted by a writer with a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist’s eye who also understands how to tell a story. Moehringer’s writing made me so homesick for the 1970’s and 1980’s I laughed and wept as J.R. made his way in the world.

When J.R. was in grade school, his mother wanted him to have male influence in his life, so she asked her brother to lend a hand. “Uncle Charlie’s” way of lending a hand was to bring J.R. to his place of employment – a bar called Dickens where Uncle Charlie tended bar and busted heads as necessary. Dickens was bit like a raunchier version of the TV sitcom “Cheers,” populated by a diverse cast of characters: Cager, Smelly, Colt, and Joey D , the bar regulars and Uncle Charlie’s friends who all lent a hand in guiding JR through his early years, and stepped in as the family he so desperately needed.

As Moehringer writes, “”Long before it legally served me, the bar saved me.”"
Even when J.R . moved with his mother to Arizona for his middle and high school years, each summer he came back to Dickens, the one true family that was a constant to him. While at Yale, and failing academically and socially, JR was drawn back to Dickens again and again. This cycle continues after college, through a hilarious stint selling housewares at Lord  & Taylor, and failed working stint at the New York Times. Dickens was the one constant in his life.

This memoir makes an excellent book discussion title, and is sure to spark conversational threads of “remember when….?”

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After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey

One morning, when Michael Hainey was six years old, he learned that his father, Robert Hainey, an assistant copy desk chief of the Chicago Sun-Times, sometime during the night had died from a heart attack. For some reason, Michael felt that the story about how his father had died did not add up, and during work on a high school term paper – when he had to visit the main library in downtown Chicago – he looked up his father’s obituaries.
And behold: they did not add up.

Chicago Today claimed that the newspaperman had died “as he walked” in the 3900 block of North Pine Grove after he had “just left the home of a friend.” But in the Chicago Daily News it was reported that Robert Hainey had died “while visiting friends.” Furthermore, Michael learned that his father had not died from a heart attack but from a stroke, and that he had been taken to a hospital on the city’s North Side, “Not exactly the closest hospital for two cops to take a man they find lying on the streets downtown.” The time of death was also curious: 5.07 a.m. Which meant that Michael’s uncle, a newspaperman also, was at the Hainey house less than two hours after his younger brother’s death. And why was it his uncle who broke the news anyway? So what was going on here?

After Visiting Friends is “a son’s story” about the shadow cast by the father’s last night and death. But the book is larger than that. It is an investigation of a family and of times gone by, and it is a report on journalism then and now.
Like so many trades, journalism has its own code of honor, and this code turns out to be a major obstacle when Michael Hainey tries to understand what happened that April night in 1970. Journalists, who claim to constantly strive to reveal the truth, conceal it with the words, I don’t know anything about that night.

But the information is still out there and others want to help, and one of them tells the writer: “you will defeat your enemy with the one weapon that you have inside you that he cannot touch and that he trembles before – truth.”
Does this sound mysterious? If so, it’s not surprising. For After Visiting Friends is – in addition to everything else it is – a real life mystery.”

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Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft, by Thor Heyerdahl

In April 1947, six men crossed the Pacific Ocean on a balsa log raft, covering 4,300 miles (the distance from Chicago to Moscow) in 101 days.  They battled storms, sharks, killer reefs, and other disasters as they were carried along by the trade wind and the Humboldt Current from Peru to Polynesia.

Why would anyone do such a thing?  As a graduate student in zoology and anthropology at the University of Oslo, Thor Heyerdahl lived for a time on the Polynesian island of Fatu Hiva, collecting animal specimens.  He became fascinated by the island’s gigantic stone statues, which are similar to ones found in Peru, and by the ancient stories told of Kon-Tiki, the ancestral chief of the Polynesians who came over the ocean “from a mountainous land in the east.”  The deeper he delved, the more convinced he became that Polynesia had indeed been settled from the east rather than from the Melanesian and Asian islands to the west, as most scholars contended.

When he wrote up his findings and his theory, no one would publish it.  The seemingly insurmountable obstacle was that the ancient Peruvians had no boats.  However, as Heyerdahl knew, they did have rafts made of giant balsa logs, because many drawings of such rafts had been made by early European explorers.

“Well, you can try a trip from Peru to the Pacific islands on a balsa-wood raft,” was the sarcastic response of one scholar to Heyerdahl’s manuscript, and this stubborn, modern-day Viking decided to take up the challenge.  He traveled into the jungles to fell the logs, floated them down river to the sea, lashed them together using only the technology available to the ancient people, and sailed forth from the coast with five dauntless fellow Scandinavians.

Heyerdahl’s understated style, which recalls that of the early Norse sagas, is perfect for this gripping tale, and the humor with which he describes the discomforts and dangers of the voyage illustrates how the six bore the journey psychologically as well as physically.  Their encounters with the incredible sea life in the unexplored waters around them is part of the adventure, as well as how they fared once they reached the islands.

The original raft is in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, and the recent film of the story has won numerous awards in the author’s native Norway.  The English version is now out in the theatres, and you can read about it here.  Don’t miss the book, but be prepared—you’ll be up late till you finish it, and through Heyerdahl’s amazing descriptions you might start to feel the mighty heave of the waves and taste the warm, salty breeze!

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My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

My Reading Life is Pat Conroy’s love song to the books that made him the writer he is today.  It is also a love song to the people who introduced him to these books—his mother, his high school English teacher, the irascible owner of his favorite book shop, along with countless friends with whom he has shared books and talked about books.

The vignettes are sometimes poignant, sometimes funny.  One of my favorites is the story of how he was ousted from an Adrienne Rich poetry reading at his first ever writers’ conference.  He had gone to get coffee for his group of friends, and when he returned, carefully balancing the coffee cups, he didn’t notice he was the only male in the audience until they started hissing at him.

He tells other stories about the experiences that made him a writer—for example, he feels a desperate need to portray the family abuse he was forced to hush up as a child—alternating with chapters on the books that formed him and are still among his favorites today, such as War and Peace, Gone with the Wind, and Look Homeward, Angel.

Never having read Conroy before, I was amazed at his passionate prose.  He has an endearing way of launching into a high-flown sentence, then adding a self-deprecating little shrug at the end.  For example, he writes poignantly about his lonely boyhood as the child of a military family and how books provided his only solace:  “Before I’d ever asked a girl out, I had fallen in love with Anna Karenina, taken Isabel Archer to high tea at the Grand Hotel in Rome, delivered passionate speeches to Juliet beneath her balcony, abandoned Dido in Carthage, made love to Lara in Zhivago’s Russia, walked beside Lady Brett Ashley in Paris, danced with Madame Bovary—I could form a sweet-smelling corps de ballet composed of the women I have loved in books.”  I must say he made me want to read the books he praised.  Several of his favorites are favorites of mine as well, and I found myself saying, “Yes, yes!” as he praised so eloquently books that have been formative in my own life, such as James Dickey’s Deliverance, which Conroy called “a palace of light for a white-water river of words.”

To anyone who loves books, I say, “Read this one.”  Even if his tastes are different from yours, Conroy’s passion for the written word will take you by storm and leave you remembering why you love to read.

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James Herriott’s Cat Stories

It is true, cats can be both fluffy and cute, but these creatures are also fierce, strong, lightning fast, and they have amazing survival skills and a toughness and tolerance for pain, starvation, and harsh weather conditions that few humans get anywhere near.

In other words, cats can be more like warrior-monks than decorative pillows for the bed. Also, they can be an author’s best friend.

A man who does cats justice is Alf Wight, the British veterinarian better known under his pen name, James Herriot.

Wight met his wife Joan in 1941, and “after years of listening to Alf relate the amusing tales of his days in the dales attending to animals, it was his wife that finally pushed him into putting pen to paper.” Wight bought a typewriter and each night, while watching television, he would type out a chapter. During one such session, he discovered his pen name: Birmingham City’s Jim Herriot – the footballer – caught the typing veterinarian’s attention, and from then on, he used the name James Herriot when his stories were published.

These tales can mainly be found in a series of books on veterinary life in the North Yorkshire farming community. In the U.S., his books were usually published in omnibus editions (All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Wise and Wonderful), but also as they were originally published in the U.K. (The Lord God Made Them All, and Every Living Thing). They are captivating books – filled with a wide range of emotions and events – and stories about cats can be found throughout Herriot’s veterinary writings. But readers who want to read about cats only can focus on the compilation James Herriot’s Cat Stories.

In Herriot’s days as a young veterinarian, these animal healers’ main focus was on the big farm animals that were the financial backbone of the farm. But Herriot was ahead of his time in a way, as he took a keen interest in smaller animals, such as cats and dogs, and this interest may have helped ensure his books a long shelf life. And it helps that Herriot is such a strong writer and storyteller. He is never overly sentimental but he is compassionate, and both the animals and humans are multifaceted and complex. And the cats, well, they may not always love him back – in fact, his suspicious behavior can be quite off-putting to them – but no matter: James Herriot loves them anyway, and his love for the creatures and the country is felt on every page.

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Best ‘New to Us’ Books in 2012: Lynn W.’s Picks

Today’s blog talks about five audio books I’ve enjoyed during 2012. I listen to fiction and memoirs, and if read by the author, all the better. Each year, I stumble onto a children’s book title and find juvenile fiction altogether as engaging as adult fiction, so one is included here. — Lynn W.

This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection by Carol Burnett
Carol presents a series of short vignettes from her private and performing life. Some feature her grandmother, Nanny, a real character, who loved show business and the contacts she made through Carol and capitalized on them. There are funny stories, like how her adoration of Jimmy Stewart panned out the first time they met on a set when she got her foot stuck in a pail of whitewash and walked out with it still attached, too tongue-tied to say a word. The author reads this collection, adding to the emotional depth and also the comic moments.

The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels – a Love Story by Ree Drummond
If ever there was a mismatch, it was Ree and Marlboro Man. Ree, a native Oklahoman, went to southern California for college and never looked back towards Tulsa except for holidays. Now in her mid-twenties, home is a pit stop on her way to the big time in Chicago. While there she hits a bar with friends and meets Marlboro Man, a tall, strong, real-life cowboy. Their story, read by the author in her authentic and charming Oklahoma voice, is a true love story. We never learn Marlboro Man’s name, but we sure feel the heat develop between them.

The Forgotten Affairs of Youth by Alexander McCall Smith
This eighth Isabel Dalhousie mystery set in Edinburgh, Scotland pleases the ear with soft Scottish accents and descriptions of the gray city and green countryside. Isabel Dalhousie, a philosopher, is approached by a visiting Australian philosopher seeking her biological father’s identity. This is the “mystery.” Isabel and her fiancé Jamie are planning their wedding, all the while watching their beautiful son grow from day to day. This series is a leisurely walk through Scotland’s capital, meeting along the way fascinating people and places and everyday concerns.

The Night Train by Clyde Edgerton
Two teenage boys in 1960s small town North Carolina form a friendship over their love of jazz, a relationship not exactly accepted in this segregated community. Dwayne absolutely loves James Brown’s Live at the Apollo album, while Larry Lime is a pianist wanting to learn Thelonious Monk’s style from a jazz musician called the Bleeder. Their story and shenanigans will entertain while showing music is truly one of the ways humans unite and move beyond their differences. This audio is well-read, giving voice to accents and origins with accuracy.

Everything on a Waffle by Polly Horvath
If your parents disappeared one stormy night and your fishing village neighbors were forced to take you in, how would you feel? Especially if almost everyone is sure your parents were drowned at sea and you are absolutely certain they are merely delayed returning? Primrose Squarp tells her own story; her twelve-year-old point of view of friends (does she have any left?) and neighbors (including Miss Perfidy, who is paid by the town to care for Primrose) is fresh and rings true. Over the months, Primrose rediscovers her uncle, goes into foster care, and begins work on a cookbook while she awaits her parents’ return. This is a delightful mood lifter.

Best ‘New to Us’ Books of 2012: Sharon S.’s Picks

I love to read nonfiction as well as fiction, so in presenting my best “new to me” books for 2012, I decided to use the categories of my favorite nonfiction, my favorite “how to” book, my favorite biography, my favorite novel, and my favorite collection of short stories. (You can see the full list of books I have blogged, too.) — Sharon S.

A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman
I found this book to be deeply reassuring! It’s OK to have cluttered desks and crammed closets, say the authors, and in some cases it may even be beneficial (up to a point, of course). Abrahamson and Freedman present many examples of successful scientists, business owners, politicians, homemakers, and people from many other walks of life who spend that time they could have spent organizing being creative and productive instead. Also, staying loose and not locked in to one system allows us the freedom to adapt quickly to changing events.

Barefoot Running Step by Step by Roy Wallack and Ken Bob Saxton
You’ve got to be kidding, I thought when I first picked up this book, but I ended up being a convert. I’m no runner, so I tried barefoot walking instead (which Ken Bob says is just like running except you always have at least one foot on the ground). There’s no doubt in my mind—heel striking is a bad thing for your joints. When you learn how to bend your knees like Ken Bob suggests, your calves act as shock absorbers that preserve your joints. Of course, you can do this even with shoes on, but when your foot is not cushioned with a running shoe, you have a constant reminder not to bang that heel down! Also, it adds a new dimension to the experience to learn to place your feet lightly and actually feel the ground under them.

Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian by Avi Steinberg
Steinberg was tired of being a free-lance writer and wanted a job that had health insurance, so he answered an advertisement for a librarian position at a prison on the outskirts of Boston. He ended up with more than he bargained for. What is or should be the purpose of a library in such a place? In trying to help the prisoners learn and prepare for lives outside of prison, he often runs afoul of the rule-bound guards. On the other hand, in getting too emotionally involved with those he is helping, he finds himself in some difficult moral dilemmas. There is no easy answer to the question of why people end up in prison, nor is there an easy way to help them get out and stay out.

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
This slim novel set on the Nebraska prairie at the beginning of the twentieth century contains some of the most moving scenes I have yet encountered in literature. It is a story about love, friendship, betrayal, and the price of self-knowledge that readers will not easily forget. I am amazed at Cather’s ability to create characters that seem so real to me that I feel like I have actually met them. See my full review.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri also creates memorable, realistic characters in these stories, each one a view into the hearts and lives of people of different ages and cultures. A young married couple suffers a devastating loss that rocks their faith in each other. A school-age girl slowly learns to appreciate the fact that everyone does not live the privileged life she does. A young man and an old woman come to know and respect each other through mundane events that turn out to have been not so mundane after all. Each story shows us something unique about human nature, how and why we move toward or away from one another, how we mature and come to understand the meaning of life. See my full review.

Best ‘New to Us’ Books in 2012: Amy W.’s Picks

Look, I have the world’s longest “to read” list and lately it has become very unwieldy. Every time I finally get around to reading one of these older titles I kick myself — what took me so long?! There is something for everyone read by me this year! There is history, inspiration and excitement all at your finger tips. These books don’t really have any of my favorite literary elements but they did knock my socks off! Here are my 5 favorite “new to me” books for 2012. — Amy W.

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
I have always been interested in the Great Depression including the Dust Bowl. Egan, winner the National Book award for this book in 2006, and Pulitzer Prize  winning journalist for the New York Times, elegantly crafts a narrative of the Dust Bowl using the words of those who lived through it. Hard economic times, plowing up the sod and a nation-wide drought created a perfect storm of dust as perseverance gave way to despair.

My Life in France by Julia Child
I listened to this as an audio book and it was delightful! I cannot think of many people who are as beloved – or as full of passion and life – as Julia Child. It was wonderful to hear in her own words about her life as a bored housewife, who moved with her husband to a foreign country where she didn’t know the language,  seized by the art of French cooking to find her true calling.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
John Irving is an excellent storyteller. His characters are colorful without being garish. His tangents are whimsical and insightful. The title character, Owen, an unusual boy to begin with, hits a baseball during little league that strikes his best friend’s mother dead. This one event greatly impacts the lives of both boys, and incredibly brings them closer together. A Prayer for Owen Meany is destined to be a heartwarming modern classic.

Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth
This is the memoir that spawned the BBC series of the same name (shown on PBS earlier in the year). More than a memoir, Call the Midwife, documents the poverty and challenges of 1950’s East End London and the changes in women’s health through the years. Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, this book is an unforgettable story of compassion.

Fun and Games by Duane Swierczynski
This book takes place in La La Land, the land of perpetual summer: Los Angeles. If you like Tarantino, unstoppable assassins or seedy underground networks, this book is for you. It is excitement ripped from the pages of your favorite tabloid or comic book as told by this talented author.

Best New Books of 2012: Janet L.’s Picks

What do a clerk in a 24-hour bookstore, a snake-handling faith healer, a man walking 500 miles to visit a sick friend, a hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail and Richard Burton have in common? (And it doesn’t involve marrying Elizabeth Taylor.) Rather, they all figure somehow in my five favorite books of 2012. My reading tastes are eclectic, but I read more literary fiction and mysteries than anything else. Language, atmosphere, setting, and believable characters are all important to me.  – Janet L.

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
Marshall, North Carolina, has a new church, the River Road Church of Christ in Signs Following. It’s led by a charismatic preacher, Carson Chambliss, a man with a talent for snake handling. Stump Hall, a young autistic boy, witnesses something at the church that leads to tragedy. Sheriff Clem Barefield is determined to find out what happened, no matter what the consequences. This is Cash’s debut novel and it’s a beauty; gorgeous writing, believable characters and gothic overtones. Recommended for readers of Ron Rash, John Hart and Tom Franklin.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Harold Fry is surprised to receive a letter from Queenie Hennessey, who is seriously ill and has written to say goodbye. They were friends once, but parted in strained circumstances. Mild mannered Harold is so shocked by this news he behaves spontaneously and begins a 500 mile journey by foot to say goodbye to Queenie, convinced she will not die as long as he is walking. Recommended for readers of Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Berg and Anna Quindlen.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
I adored this book. It has a likeable narrator, Clay Jannon, who clerks in a mysterious bookshop run by the fascinating Mr. Penumbra. The theme of Old Knowledge (books) vs. Internet knowledge allows the author to slip in scenes at Google, a museum dedicated to knitting overrun by children, arcane information about fonts, and a computer whiz who made a fortune creating realistic 3-D versions of breasts. This book is fun. It’s the kind of book that made a reader of me, the kind of book that keeps me reading, the kind of book I can’t wait to tell people about. Recommended for readers of Jasper Fforde and Terry Pratchett.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Hunched under a too heavy backpack quickly nicknamed Monster, Cheryl Strayed begins a real life journey along the Pacific Crest Trail that is spiritual as well as physical. Her plans for her hike are soon revealed as inadequate (who knew water weighed so much?) and she must improvise as she goes along—much as we all have to adjust in life when our best laid plans go awry. I found Strayed’s account of her hike riveting, profound, hilarious and suspenseful. Recommended for readers of Jeannette Walls, Jon Krakauer and Dave Eggers.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
It’s 1962 and Pasquale Tursi, owner of the Hotel Adequate View in Porto Vergogna, Italy, is immediately smitten by Dee Moray, an American starlet who arrives at his hotel fresh from the set of the movie Cleopatra. Their story (with a supporting appearance from Richard Burton) connects to present day Hollywood and the career of Claire, assistant to legendary producer Michael Deane. Walter creates a truly romantic story that underscores his theme of how life and art intersect.