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THE MAN WITH THE ELECTRIFIED BRAIN

Name: THE MAN WITH THE ELECTRIFIED BRAIN
Author: Simon Winchester
ISBN: 978-1-61452-083-2

by Simon Winchester ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 6, 2013

All the more effective through its matter-of-fact understatement, as it illuminates mysteries it can’t resolve.

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A short, scary and ultimately redemptive recounting of the veteran journalist’s mental breakdown.

While researching his best-selling The Professor and the Madman (1998), the author came to fresh terms with the mystery of his own madness decades earlier, which began when he was a student at Oxford. Before embarking on an Arctic expedition, a rite of academic passage, he found himself engrossed in Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage. “When I woke five hours later, the whole world seemed to have changed, to have suddenly gone entirely and utterly mad,” he writes. Nothing made sense to him or looked familiar; if it looked vaguely familiar, it seemed threateningly strange. He uncharacteristically fell asleep for another eight hours and awoke to remember that he had an errand to run but had no idea where he was going, why, or even how to start his vehicle. “I swerved off down the road, for a destination unremembered, by way of a route unchartered,” he writes and then tells how he crashed his van 10 minutes later. Things eventually got better, so he didn’t tell anyone before leaving for the Arctic, where things then got life-threateningly worse. He survived, married (almost numbly catatonic at his wedding), launched his journalistic career, raised a family, and still suffered these spells with frightening regularity, a couple times a month, each lasting nine days. Almost by chance, he encountered a doctor who said, “I know what’s wrong with you; and I know how to fix it. Don’t worry anymore. You’ll soon by fine.” And so he was, though the electroshock treatments he received remain controversial and their effectiveness, inexplicable, and his research for his book, after initially providing him with a pat diagnosis, left him with more questions.

All the more effective through its matter-of-fact understatement, as it illuminates mysteries it can’t resolve.

Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-61452-083-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Byliner

Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW
by Simon Winchester

- BOOK REVIEW
LAND
by Simon Winchester

- BOOK REVIEW
THE PERFECTIONISTS
by Simon Winchester

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.