A feel-good book of hope and wonder that will appeal most to readers who believe in divine intervention.
A generous collection of nonfiction medical stories from distinguished doctors.
Illinois doctor and debut author Kolbaba draws on three years’ worth of interviews with more than 200 physicians to deliver this book of extraordinary anecdotes about patients that doctors “could not explain medically.” The stories are, by turns, emotional, inspirational, and incredible, and they highlight the medical community’s patience, care, and dedication to public health. The book opens with Kolbaba’s own modest, briskly written history, covering his early days as a student who received discouraging advice from the dean of a Chicago medical school, to his thriving, 35-year career as a practicing physician. In this introduction, he notes that “holding the hand of a distressed patient…telling a bad joke to lighten up the often somber mood…or saying a prayer with a spiritual family are the intangibles in medicine that help heal the human spirit.” He also shares a few resonant patient-care stories from his own practice. The first set of other physicians’ tales tell of apparent godly interventions when modern medicine wasn’t enough. These are followed by haunting stories of people who say that they had helpful visions of deceased relatives, near-death experiences, and moments of eerie coincidence. Elsewhere are recollections of seemingly miraculous recoveries and healings. One may read this book in a single sitting, or one may savior the individual stories one by one for quick dashes of inspiration. Many of the tales tap into the need for human empathy that nearly everyone feels when injured or ill. That said, the collection as a whole is often spiritually heavy-handed, which may alienate irreligious readers, and many entries are just a few scant pages long, which will leave some people wanting more details. Still, this uplifting volume does successfully capture “the true essence of the doctor’s experience,” as it promises.
A feel-good book of hope and wonder that will appeal most to readers who believe in divine intervention.Pub Date: July 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5308-4157-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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