wife or hat?

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is perhaps the best title for a non-fiction book about neurology, ever. But what do I know, I'm more of a fiction reader.

Oliver Sacks is the man behind the voice of neurological wisdom for the radio show and podcast RadioLab. Or he was until his untimely death a few years ago from cancer. I miss his voice, and his thoughtful approach to working with folks who deal daily with the challenges of a mind that doesn't operate within (what we'd call) standard parameters. Sacks was called upon to explain complex neurological issues, and how the mind works for the folks at RadioLab, because of his ability to explain complex things in easy to understand terms. He demystifies the sciences of the mind with a subtle wit and a believe in humanity that is foremost in his thinking. His patients are first and always, just people who need help.

Sacks lays out his theses with well written, often charming characterizations of a series of patients, their challenges, and their triumphs; rare though they may be. Its clear in his writing that Sachs is much more interested in how his patients think about and deal with their own problems, than simply identifying what those problems are and applying the most popular treatment. He seems to be more interested in the person, and how they are dealing with the particular set of circumstances they deal with, and working with them to figure out the best way forward. Sometimes, what people need, is to just get back to some of their routine. The part of life that made them feel better, or whole, or normal.

Seems like good medicine.

Oliver Sacks would have been 85 this year.

origin

Dan Brown is at it again. I read Origin mainly because I was in Italy, out of books, and the shop in Sulmona that sold books in English is no longer.

Side note: The Great Recession, or World Economic Downturn, or whatever you want to call it, has not lifted in Italy as much as it has here. Where it started. thank you greedy, coke snorting, trust-fund, ivy-league, frat boys who blew up the world to make a few bucks on all of our backs*

I've read a couple of Brown's books, and like most people, I read The Da Vinci Code first, which was pretty good and then I went back and read Angels and Demons, which was better. I think I've said this before, Brown's character Robert Langdon is a pretty good character; he has the skill set as a professor of symbols or whatever to help solve the mysteries he stumbles upon, but the story arc in each of his stories is just too similar. Langdon doesn't begin a mystery solving venture until he stops of at the adventure store and picks up two things: a mysterious and shady quasi religious organization bent on murdering him before he solves this mystery (complete with some crazy, holy water guzzling psychopath with C-clamps on his junk) and a foxy lady to run around with and mansplain his brilliance to, for our benefit.

If you're a Dan Brown fan, I think you'll enjoy this. If not, then I'd say you could probably skip this one and never know the difference.



* Please note, I have no idea if the people who tranched up a bunch of bad loans, sold them as AAA and then broke the banks, Wall Street, and then the world, actually snorted cocaine, were funded by trusts, went to Ivy League schools, or were in fraternities. I'm pretty confident about the greedy part. And I actually feel pretty good about the rest of it too.

prague golem

The Prague Golem: Jewish Stories of the Ghetto is a small collection of stories about the Jewish Ghetto in Prague, edited by Harald Salfellner, and illustrated by Hugo Steiner. *

My oldest brought this back for me after traveling there for five days while we were in Italy. Both of my kids went and they loved it. The architecture, the food, the people, and the parks. They had a great time. I’ve heard that Prague is one of the few larger European cities that escaped significant damage during the wars. Based on their photos it seems legit.

This group of short stories tell the history of the Jewish community in Prague which goes back centuries. The story of the community is told though the history of its people, their sometimes rocky relationship with the sovereign, and tales of a few nearly superheroic figures. These stories especially we fun to read. They read like folk tales of Paul Bunyan or John Henry with a little Greek myth thrown in.

The writing is simple and accessible, like some committee had the idea to put these stories together and they hired someone’s nephew to bang them out. OR, this book was originally written in some other language and translated; Czech or something. Yeah, that sounds better, let me check... well, based on the Vitalis (publisher) website, this book is available in many languages and most indicate that it was translated from German, however the English version doesn't include a translator in the credits. Maybe Harald Salfellner is multi-lingual. sounds like he has more than one tongue. nope, not even going to look it up

The golem itself appears in a couple of the stories, and it apparently pretty well known as a taker of care when it comes to business. Seemed a little creepy to me, and maybe not a very wholesome solution to the rabbi's problems, but there you go.


* you can find this book on Amazon, and a bunch of other places, with the author listed as "U Zelezne Lavky" which is the name of a street in Prague as far as I can tell. 

wizard of oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum came free with a copy of The Man in the Iron Mask I bought at the bookstore to bring with me to Italy. Come to find out The Man in the Iron Mask is the last in a series of sequels Dumas wrote to follow up The Three Musketeers. It’s actually the third part of a long third book so I have a few thousand pages to read before I get to the Iron Mask.

Oz on the other hand was a pleasant surprise—it’s a completely different story than the cinematic superstar of the same name. The introduction (written by J. T. Barbarese along with end notes) were informative and included some helpful analysis which helped me to understand the differences between the book and the movie, as well the stage production which Baum helped to write. Apparently the stage production included some of the changes from the book which appear in the movie. The consensus being that production of some of Baum’s fanciful ideas may have been either too expensive or simply not possible at the time.

It was fun to read the story that so closely matches the movie we’ve all seen so many times but is different in both subtle and dramatic ways. Oz has been compared to both Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. Both have young heroines and both stories can be summarized as the fanciful dream of the main character. This is exactly the storyline of the movie version of Oz, but that is not how Baum envisioned the adventure of his heroine.

The writing is simple and geared toward his target audience. Baum also consciously avoided the terrors common to children’s literature to that point. Baum was also the first to break the mold of many standard children’s story characters, most importantly was the creation of good witches; a concept which didn’t exist in children's literature befor e Baum.

Read this book. Read it to your children and after a few weeks maybe watch the movie together.