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An Anthropologist on Mars Seven Paradoxical Tales
by Oliver Sacks
Mr. I is a painter, enjoying color contrasts. He was also synesthetic, and saw music. In a car accident, Mr. I. lost his color vision, and was thereafter able to see only in grays. This plunged him into depression; he could no longer enjoy his music or his art; what was left to him? But after time had passed, Mr. I. came to see his colorblindness as a sort of gift; his overall vision had improved, and he now saw textures much better. His night vision became superior to his daytime vision, and he became a night person. Three years after his accident, when a possible cure was suggested to him, Mr.I. no longer wished to be cured. At his fiancee's urging, Virgil had the cataracts removed from his eyes and had sight for the first time in 40some years. But this soon proved to be of little or no use; Virgil could not process what he saw, and preferred to let his arm "see" for him. He was happier when illness subsequently removed his sight. Franco sees nothing but the Pontito(a city) of his dreams. During the course of every day, he sees scenes from his childhood Pontito. He paints and dreams his childhood Pontito. It is his life.
Dr. Bennett is a surgeon. He has Tourette syndrome, which slows him down not at all(if anything it speeds him). Sacks accompanies him for a weekend of his life. Stephen is an autistic artist, and a prodigy. Sacks spends time with him as well. Temple Grandin is a brilliant autistic engineer, and Sacks spend a weekend trying to understand her world. He does this badly because he comes at it from the angle of a Martian. Not in sync with any of the other patients is Greg, in whom a tumor ate away part of his brain. He is blind and doesn't know it, and lives only in the present, with no past and no future. Well into the 80s, Greg is still in the 60s.
At the beginning of this book, Sacks says that he will not treat his patients merely as case studies, but intends to see them as human beings with real feelings. But Sacks fails utterly. His first flaw is in referring to his subjects again and again as "patients". His second is in approach; Sacks never once tries to place himself in the shoes of his subjects. He persists in seeing them as alien. Footnotes are used throughout the book; they add to the narrative with reminiscences and didactic notes. Annoyingly, two refer to other footnotes within the book.
What do these tales have in common? They are not, as the subtitle suggests, paradoxical. (Unless I'm totally missing the point of the book.) All seven stories picture people conventionally seen as disabled. These are shown to be dis/abled, where four openly opine that they would not wish to be cured. Of the others, two are unaware of their dis/abilites, and one does not have to decide as his blindness was returned to him. But although Sacks presents these four with their own opinions, his own tone holds a note of incredulity; he does not see how these people could prefer their disabilities. Do you?
Happy reading.
Owl Tycho thinks she's in love, which is a problem. The man she fancies is 26 years her senior, unaware of and unreceptive to her crush, and, worst of all, human. At night, Owl is a barn owl, hunting and flying. In the day, Owl is a human with a gray complexion and huge eyes; she is a wereowl. Owl's family is an eccentric sort where this is accepted, and Owl does not have or need the friendship of those outside her own family.
Mr. Lindstrom, Owl's science teacher and the man she is in love with, has a problem which Owl has noticed; there is a boy camping near Mr.Lindstrom's house, consumed with hatred for Mr.Lindstrom, and wasting away with hunger. There is also a crazy barn owl near Mr.Lindstrom's house, intruding on other owl's territory. This owl has no hold of owl manners or of hunting; Owl theorizes he was raised by great horned owls. Seeing Owl's concern for Mr.Lindstom, Dawn is friendly with Owl. Needing a science partner to donate blood for the lab(Owl's blood is black), Owl is friendly, too. Dawn seems intent on friendship, and now Owl has human manners to figure out.
I liked the premise of this book, I liked Owl, and I liked the plot. But the ending has tons of clues pointing towards it- and Owl misses all of them! This seems incredible, because Owl's got a crush, and with a crush, wouldn't she obsess over everything related to Mr. Lindstrom? Owl's thinking is very much aligned with owl's; she has owl manners and hates crows, etc.. This book therefore does not sympathise with animals other than owls.
Happy reading.
On the planet Mandala, the people of the city believe in a god who is experiencing time from the other direction- a god who matures from the time of the Big Crunch, rather than from the Big Bang. The people of the city are lead by a neurotic Prime Minister, who is hypervigilant in protecting his city from the Burnouts, and especially from the Earthies, whose imminent arrival is expected. The preacher in the city is married to a woman whose mutations render her deaf and dumb, and who uses electronic devices to communicate. Their son does the same. And in his prayers, their son, Drew, points his antenna at the moon and talks to the being he knows as God, a God altogether different from his father's. When the PM acts against the Earthies, "God" lets Drew know what is going on, and Drew upsets the entire political balance.
Divine Intervention presents the difficulties of culture clashes, and his Burnout/City relations parody those of hippie/square relations, with sympathies on the hippie side. Wharton comments overtly, as the Commander and as Samuel (an Earthie) on human nature, and especially on the human tendency towards religion. Wharton suggests that religious tendencies are built in because there is a God. But he also shows the conflict within the human conscious when beliefs are disproven, in the preacher and in his son. Many perspectives are given in the telling of this story; the preacher's, his wife's, Drew's, the PM's, the Commander's(this from the distant past), and Samuels'. I would have liked to have Drew's perspective more often, and a Burnout perspective might have aided the story as well. My biggest obstacle in reading this book was my knowledge that the Big Crunch isn't coming; it has been disproven from two angles, and was disproven before the publication of this book in 2001.
Question: Why do humans tend towards religious beliefs?
Happy reading.
I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up,
I Want to Go To Boise Children Surviving Cancer
by Erma Bombeck
Humor propels people through a lot of things. It helps them to get over rejection, death, bad grades, poor salaries, and (drumroll, please) cancer! When kids have cancer, outsiders often inform kids of their hopeful wishes, their prognoses, their bravery. They don't joke. But they should. Cancer today leaves most of its victims alive, and hope is not an unrealistic weapon.
This is a telling of the often humorous experiences of children with cancer, as well as the experiences of their doctors and family members. This book contains 16 pages of pictures drawn by kids, many of which are humorous. One depicts a nurse holding a humongous needle, and a kid hiding under the sheets; another depicts Garfield hooked up to an IV. This book says that you should not read books about cancer that are more than five years old, does that mean you shouldn't read this one(printed 1989)? Well, the rescues, the prognoses, the odds are out of date. But cancer hasn't found a cure, so hope and humor related to cancer are not obsolete.
Happy reading.
The Kingdom of Lancre, home to Granny Weatherwax, has been invaded by vampires after the king is foolish enough to invite them to his daughter's naming. Since Granny's invitation was taken by birds, others have to step in to save the kingdom. The priest (who is Ommish), has two minds, as does Agnes, a young witch, and the two are not influenced by the vampires' mind control. It therefore falls to them to vanquish the vampires.
The vampires' attempt at modernity is relevant and funny to modern life. Pratchett's attack on Om and religion in general is more present and less funny in this book; I odn't advise reading this book while wondering about Om or any other god. The plot is connected and funny, but more suspenseful than other Pratchett books. Carpe Jugulum means seize the throat.
Happy reading.
419 citizens of the underground city, Ember, have fled aboveground. After a three day journey, they come to a village called Sparks, population 322. The Emberites ask the people of Sparks to help them. Somewhat reluctantly, the people of Sparks decide to take in the Emberites for six months. But tension soons turns to animosity as the people of Sparks realize how much hosting the Emberites will drain their resources, and the Emberites try to adapt to living without the conveniences that they are used to.
Lina and Doon, having led the Emberites out of Ember, think that they have an immutable bond. But Doon quickly falls under the influence of Tick, a charismatic man who advocates taking a "fair share" from the villagers through any means necessary, up to and including warfare. Lina is stuck on her own, staying in the house with the nastiest boy in all Sparks, looking for a solution to a situation which is deteriorating rapidly.
Question: This book's setting comes after a disaster of four wars and three plagues, during which the people lose their knowledge of almost all technology, although they have books and can read. What knowledge do you think would be lost after a nuclear disaster? Would people be able to figure out electricity and/or weaponry from books? What would they remember.
Thoughtful reading.
Uncle Tungsten Memories of a Chemical Boyhood
by Oliver Sacks
As a boy, Sacks' interest in chemistry was fueled by his many relatives who were chemists. His mother was the sixteenth of eighteen children, so Sacks had many uncles and aunts around. Two of his uncles ran a company called Tungstalite, which made light bulbs with tungsten wires. One of these uncles, Uncle Dave, was sometimes called Uncle Tungsten. He would show and tell Sacks all about the history of tungsten and lighting. Sacks had his own chemistry lab, in which he spent years copying the expiriments of past chemists and conducting his own projects.
Here Sacks gives us a history of chemistry, up to around 1920. At least half of the book is spent on the history of chemistry, but a considerable amount of the book is spent on his own life. Footnotes accompany most pages; one footnote says that Sacks may have gotten his fondness for footnotes from Mendeleev. Sacks rarely gives the first names of the chemists he writes about. Towards the end of the book, Sacks gives a scene in which he annoys his father by telling him about chemistry in an uninteresting fashion. Fortunately for us, the rest of the book does not carry a fanatical tone. This book includes an index. A word of warning: you are going to need a dictionary if you want to understand the whole book. Sacks has an erudite tone, and he uses Brittish and American spellings and words.
Happy reading.
Around fifty years into the future, Satellite City is not a part of any welfare state. Children without sponsors are sent to institutions which have to pay their own ways. Clarrisa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challanged Boys uses its charges for product testing. The average life span of the boys is fifteen years. Cosmo Hill escapes when the satellite goes on the blink. As he lies in pain, a blue creature lands on his chest, and he feels the pain beginning to fade. A motley crew(somebody give me a better phrase) comes along and zaps the blue creature, and then heals Cosmo's wounds. The group calls itself the Supernaturalists, because they can see the blue things, which they call parasites, and most people can't. The parasites are seen only by a fraction of people who have near death experiences. The Supernaturalists are dedicated to killing all of the parasites, and Cosmo joins them. Then the Supernaturalists experience a paradigm shift as they find out that the parasites are not what they seem.
The Supernaturalist is easily the most mature of the Colfer books I've read (check the index to see which those are). The terror of this story still never seems quite real, and the comedy moves the story. The evil of corporations is presented; the book jacket's description of Cosmos's world as a futuristic Dickins is apt.
Happy reading.
Beyond the Wall Personal Experienceswith Autism
and Asperger Syndrome
Second Edition
by Stephen Shore
He was born in 1961, the youngest of three children. His older brother Martin was shown to be retarded when Shore was a few months old, and so his parents anxiously watched Shore's own development. The pediatrician said that Stephen wasn't retarded; maybe he was autistic. After attending a therapeutic preschool, Stephen attended a regulor school, though one year late. His school experience was mostly a positive one, as he befriended his teachers and counselors. Although he thought he had left his autism behind, "residual effects" continued to influence his life. Shore became interested in Autism after reading Grandin's Thinking in Pictures(she wrote the foreword to this book), and he is now on the Autism Society of America's board. His experiences with AS and autism are both from his work with autistic people and from his own past.
Shore borrows Daniel Rosenn's perspective on the autistic spectrum, placing PDD-NOS between Kanner's and Asperger's autism. This book contains contributions about autism and Shore from many people, including his wife. There are two appendices: an interview with Dr. Rosenn and a guide to getting ready for college. There are two pages of references.
Happy reading.
The Red Devil A Memoir About Beating the Odds
by Katherine Russell Rich
Three weeks after seperating from her husband, Rich found a hard lump in her left breast. Her doctor refuses to take her seriously, telling her that if she's really worried, he'd be glad to feel her. After two months, she presses ahead, and finds that she does have breast cancer. So she got a lumpectomy, and then chemotherapy. Cancer treatments invaded her life to a greater extent than cancer had. Cancer joins her life, and she finds out which of her friends were really her friends. At 32, her circle of friends is young enough to make her the first in their circle to have a potentially fatal illness. And since her cancer is found in the 80s, the treatments were different. Through the decade covered in this book, cancer treatments change. Rich goes through numerous doctors and support groups. Her epilogue says that Rich's cancer has returned again. But that doesn't change the book, because this book is not about defeating cancer; it's about living with cancer. It's about life, not death.
The title is explained here
The second drug, bright kool aid red, zapped my body with a violent buzz that warmed me horribly and made me squirm. "Adriamycin," he said. "It's called the red devil." Later, to myself, I called it Drano, or Agent Orange, for that's what it felt like rushing through my veins. My poor veins, I thought, when I found out that Adriamycin is so corosive, they have to be careful not to spill any on your skin, or you could get third-degree burns and need skin grafts.
Jewel dreams of getting rich, marrying into money. Maybe knows that you can't get from the streets to the upper class. Besides, who would want to join the robots, with their rules and their nine to five jobs? It's winter in New York, and we open on Country Club's dead body. When a group of do-gooders from the Youth Housing Project offers to take Maybe's group in, the lady says that 14 kids per day are found dead, frozen. Maggot laughs at the lady, asks her what anyone's got to live for. But Maybe's group continues to die, and Maybe knows that the streets will kill her. Maggot leaves the streets.
When each person dies, a description of that person's life is given. Usually that description includes various problems like ADHD, OCD. But the language is a bit off; the sentenc "Often irritable, emotionally labile, and co-morbid" displays a lack of understanding of the word co-morbid. Conditions are co-morbid; people aren't. Although this book reads as though it were a critique of something, it's hard to see what that something is. Certainly this book offers no solutions. Do you have any?
Solemn reading.
Supposedly, the military base at Wyvern has been shut down for years. But Chris Snow knows better; his mother's work at Wyvern had led to the work that would change the structure of all life, and the folks at Wyvern are working feverishly to cover up and correct the end of the world. Out one night biking, Snow comes upon his former girlfriend, calling for her son, Jimmy. She is very worried about Jimmy and believes that he has been abducted. Snow promises to find Jimmy, and heads into Wyvern, where he promptly stumbles on a another of Wyvern's secrets. This one confounds him, and he calls on all of his friends for help in finding Jimmy. All of the characters from Fear Nothing are back. While this book does go over some of the things covered in Fear Nothing, it does so in a way that would be convenient for a person who read Fear Nothing and hadn't retained all of its information. I doubt that the explanations would be enough for someone who hadn't read Fear Nothing.Question: This book brings up the paradoxes involved in time travel. Do you believe that time travel or time warp is possible? What do you think the implications are?Happily tense reading.
Babies are funny sorts of people. People around babies become cranky sorts of people, usually. Sometimes they become funny sorts of people. Reiser became both. This is his comedic journey through the conception of his son through around four months. This narrative often takes an aloof discription, as though Reiser was describing all babies or all mothers or all pregnancies or all people's friends. But he is really only describing his own community, which, although funny, may not be anything like yours.
Happy reading.
The NIH estimates that 100,000 people in the United States have full blown Tourette Syndrome, and many more have involuntary tics. Involuntary swearing is called coprolalia; less than 15% of people with Tourette Syndrome have this problem. This book seeks to de-mystify Tourette Syndrome, using simple language and examples of people, famous and otherwise, who have Tourette Syndrome. It does cover the positive side of Tourette Syndroem(quick reflexes).
Informative reading.
Angry with his dad for relocating to Massachusets from California, Cody flunks every single one of his classes in his first semester in high school. His dad decides that Cody needs to change schools, and Cody is accepted into Vlad Dracul High School. Cody is surprised by the difficulty of his classes and the ease at which he was let in: all he had to do was agree to play on the water polo team. After he saves a kid from getting beaten up, the kid, Justin, clues him in: all of the kids at Vlad Dracul who aren't on the water polo team are vamires. They call themselves jenti, and they have been living in the town for the past 200 years. Gadje, non-vampires, are sent to jenti schools to play water polo, since jenti dissolve in water, and the gadje friends of vampires are given a free ticket through life. Cody doesn't like the idea of a free ticket; he doesn't want to be thought of as stupid, and besides, he's got a crush on one of the jenti. So Cody sets about changing the order of things at Vlad Dracul High School and by doing so changes the relationship of gadge and jenti worldwide.
Cody has a sense of humor that propels the book along well. Evil is not absolute, and even bullies have a human side. The world in Vampire High is a little bit simplistic, with the main characters acting younger than they purportedly are.
Happy reading.
Lani Garver met open hostility when he enrolled at Coast Regional High School. Actually, Claire's not sure that Lani is a he. Macy went up and asked Lani if he was a girl, and he said no, but he never actually said he was a guy. Claire thinks of him as one, though, and so does the rest of Coast Regional. They take him for a gay guy, and nobody around Coast Regional is really friendly to gay guys. Especially not ones who dress like girls. But when Claire faints in a coffee shop, Lani is there for her. He listens to her problems, and Claire can't fall into the homophobic trap her peers are setting.
Lani helps Claire to face the problems in her life, which include leukemia (in remission), an alcoholic mother, and an eating disorder. At the free clinic Lani takes her to, the doctor tells her about angels. The doctor says that angels are androgynous, and Claire begins to wonder if Lani is an angel. Claire is with Lani through the gay bashing done by her friends, ending with the dissapearance, maybe murder, of Lani Garver.
Disquieting reading.
The Kid (What Happened After My Boyfriend And I Decided To Go Get Pregnant)
An Adoption Story
by Dan Savage
Before meeting his boyfriend, Dan had been looking into his options in having children. After being with Terry for a while, they decide to adopt. On the recommendation of their neighbors, they try an open adoption, which means that the child stays in touch with his/her birth parent(s). Dan and Terry go in, just knowing that no birth mother is going to pick them. They're wrong.
This is a story as much about being gay as it is about adoption. It is a running commentary on life, from a liberal perspective. The kid himself does not make his appearance until the end, since this is really the story of his adoption. I would like to know whether the picture on the cover is the kid.
Happy reading.
Biblio Files
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After a divorce made in heaven, Sweeney moves into her own apartment, contentedly settles in with her three cats, and life looks good. And then her brother Mike's ulcer turns out to be lymph cancer in stage four. There are only four stages, and Mike's doctor tells him, "If I were you, I'd start praying." Mike moves in with Julia, as do her parents, and Sweeney's peaceful life is turned upside down.
Chapters are 5 to 6 pages long, and each is a zappy sort of monologue.Photographs accompany every chapter. Numerous chapters are flashbacks or details on a topic not covered further. The tone is comedic and the subject is sad, and surprisingly, this works. With cancer as a focus, this story is not about cancer; it is the human condition, death and laughter hand in hand.
Happy reading.
In the Jaws of the Black Dogs A Memoir of Depression
by John Bentley Mays
He was born in 1941, the sixth John Mays. His father died when the author was in his seventh year, and Bentley and his mother went to live with his aunt and uncle. Bentley did his best to emulate the boy his dead father might have been, and yearned for his imagined "good old days" as a southern plantation owner. Liberalism did not suit him, and in college he was an oddity, a relic from the past. Unabe to enjoy life, angry at himself and at the world, Mays left graduate school, broke down, and went in for psychoanalysis at the age of 28. The psychiatric assistance he received at the time was of no use whatsoever, and Mays resumed his bleak life. Touring on his motorcycle, Mays was astonished when he met a woman willing to marry him. But depression still plagued him. After a suicide attempt landed him in the hospital, Mays met Dr. Rosen, his on and off therapist for the rest of his life(as of the book's writing).
Mays writes his autobigraphy through the lens of depression. He sees depression as black dogs, circling him. In his usual narrative through out the book, he is a likeable character, but the journal entries he uses to display his state of midn at various times in his life have an obnoxious, hateful sort of tone, with too much swearing. In discussing his depression, Mays covers his sexuality, which confuses him overtly, and Prozac, which he claims does not. Mays' view on Prozac left me confused; while he is clear on how Prozac affects him, his diatribe against the worshippers of Prozac is not lucid. This may or may not assist the depressed, but it is not depressing.
Read.
Infinity's Shore Book Two of the Uplift Trilogy
by David Brin
The Neo-Dolphin ship Streaker has come to Jijo with knowledge of the ancient progenitors, pursued by half of the galaxies sapients species. The first to land there are the Rothen with their human servants, who set about collecting genetic information before releasing viruses to plague the sooners(illegal colonists). Then come the powerful Jophur, pursuing an ancient blood feud, set on wiping out the last of the G'kek. Jijo's future looks grim.
Through this book, we follow numerous individuals, mostly the natives, but also those on the neo-dolphin ship. The plots are many, but most are distinct enough to follow. This is aided by the use of third, first, and second person narratives. Characters' stories are not in any order, although sooners' and Streaker stories are seperated. You can read this story without reading the first novel. Because of the length and detail of this book, reading the third to find the central plot's ending is not urgent.
Happy reading.
Joey's mother says that his dad is like him, only bigger, and when Joey meets his dad, Carter, he thinks his mom is right. But when Joey goes to stay with his dad for six weeks, Joey finds that his dad is not just like him; although they are both hyper, his dad is out of control. Carter coaches a baseball team, because the judge made him after he attacked some one in a barroom brawl. He finds that Joey is an awesome pitcher, and pressures Joey to be a "winner". Joey is doing OK with his dad, but then his dad gets drunk and flushes Joey's medicine patches down the toilet.
This story is narrated by Joey. Joey is a likable protagonist who always tries and thinks, although the world seems to have a lot against him. His perspective is accurate, but does make him out to be a saint.
Happy reading.
Through the Glass Wall Journeys into the Closed-Off Worlds of the Autistic
by Howard Buten
In his preface, Buten tells us what this book is not- a how-to book, a survey, scientific dissertation, for or against autism, for parents or professionals, to help anyone, or a memoir. In fact, it's a little bit of each, but wouldn't be satisfyingly read as any of those. Case studies from his work with the institutionalized autistic are punctuated by didactic rumblings and personal musings. Buten comes off as essentially human in his musings and dealings with autism. He is honest about his chancy work, and his clinic is open to all philosphies. His style is a frustrated attempt at understanding something not even defined.
Happy reading.
Mom:Eat your spinach, Howie. It'll Put color in your cheeks.
Howie: But Mom, who wants green cheeks?
Want proof that you can't digest fiber? Swallow a kernel of corn. Corn is covered in fiber, so it'll come out intact in your feces(yuck).
The food your body(actually your hypothalamus) really wants in chyme, a watery green substance your body makes with the digestable part of the food you eat.
This book is aimed at kids under twelve, features jokes in the margins and in the text, and has lots of gross facts to interest... well, to interest anyone who likes gross facts. It packs information on how humans deal with food into an almost- slapstick routine.
Happy reading.
The Octopus and the Orangutan More True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity
by Eugene Linden
The octopus has none of the qualities that are looked for in the search for animal intelligence. They have short lives, brains the size of two walnuts, don't usually meet their mothers, and have been around for a long time. And yet, one octopus, upon receiving a squid he didn't like, made eye contact with his keeper while purposefully throwing the squid away. Chimps may be developing armed warfare. Orcas practice their tricks during their free time.
Various animals show intelligence in varying forms. Both anecdotally and scienifically, Linden cites animal exploits demenstrating intelligence. He speculates on the evolutionary value of intelligence from a Darwinian point of view, despite continually marvelling the intelligence one would not expect if nature expiriments only in a Darwinian fashion. Linden argues that humans have used their intelligence in ways that in long term will prove to be very stupid. Linden's anecdotes are amusing and fun to read.
Question: What is intelligence?
Happy reading.
You Are a Dog Life Through the Eyes of Man's Best Friend
by Terry Bain
You are a dog. You live with Those Who Might Bathe You, but you don't mind; Those Who Might Bathe You are also Those Who Would Put Their Plate on the Kitchen Floor After They Are Finished or Nearly Finished. You puzzle playfully over the meanings of many of the things your people do. You try to protect them from the vacuum cleaner and The Deliverer of Unknowable Packages. These names seem long, but in reality are not, because they are indicative of much shorter scent names. Your simplicity is charming and your cheerful ignorance humor.
For most of this book, "you" seems to be a definite character, but the first few essays throw doubt of this theory by suggesting many possibilities for who "you" is. This book does not attempt to replicate the way dogs actually think; it is the author's humorous reprisentation of what a very human-like dog might think; "you" is very personified. The library of congress classified this book non-fiction, but I'm not sure why. This book's essays are clumped by subject, but they might be more enjoyable read in a more random order. Some black and white(charcoal?) illustrations accompany the essays in this book.
Happy reading.
A Positive Approach to Autism by Stella Waterhouse
Forward by Donna Williams Drawings by Cris Redman,
based on the ideas of Drucilla Brutton
Blindisms- mannerisms blind people often have, and deafisms- mannerisms deaf people often have, are similiar to some autistic habits and stims. Terry Waite and Brian Keenan, who were victims of sensory deprivation as prisoners of war, described needing their days to form patterns and stimulating themselves. Many autistic people benefit from sensory treatments. Waterhouse opines that autism is caused by differences in sensory perception, caused by a host of different factors. She quotes extensively to do so. Some of what she quotes are valid sources, some are extremely out of date, and some are just plain false.
She ascribes various autistic traits and anxiety to the persistance of the Moro reflex. She claims that the Moro reflex would cause autism when it persists after birth. She claims(page 154) that in normal human development, the Moro reflex appears at 9-12 weeks gestation and goes away before birth, but the Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics Thirteenth Edition, Behrman and Vaughan(pages 7, 1279) says that the Moro reflexbegins to appear at 25 weeks gestation and that the reflex is usually no longer obtainable at 3 monthes; Waterhouse's claims build off of a faulty foundation. Another problem with Waterhouse's speculation is that she does not take into account the existance of Sensory Integration Disorder at all, let alone as seperate from autism. If autism is caused by malfunction in sensory processing, why is there a disorder for such people seperate from autism? In her list of comorbid disorders from which Waterhouse tries to reason, SID is conspicious in its absence.
I do not know what is meant to be positive about Waterhouse's approach. Perhaps the word is comparative, or perhaps her belief in a cure is supposed to be positive. Waterhouse does quote many books written by autists who see autism as positive, and I was intrigued enough by her references that I intend to read those books. The approach part of the title may simply mean her mind set; Waterhouse does not sponsor any approach, although she does list a variety. The graphs were mostly badly done speculation, but the drawings were nice concrete and idiomatic depictions.
Cautious reading.
Was it Something You Ate? by John Emsley and Peter Fell
The media sends us confusing messages. Chocolate is good for you, chocolate is bad for you. Coffee is bad for you, coffe is good for you. There are also those maddeningly ambiguous labels on our food. Emsley and Fell explain the ups and downs of various foods, nutrients, and drugs. They spend a lot of time explaining the more controversial topics, but cover lesser known food dangers as well.
The information covered in this book is interesting, but it is not presented well. The language is pedantic, the grammar poor. An index is in the back, but it is not nearly inclusive enough. The graphs with examples of various foods are unclear and skimpy. While you can probably find information you want from the book, it will by no means stand out for you.
Informative reading.
Dream Time Edited by Toss Gascoigne, Jo Goodman and Margot Tyrell
This is a collection of sixteen stories by well-known Australian authors. Dreamtime is a reference to an aboriginal belief, something I did not realize until the end of the book. Some of these stories are about aborigines, and some are about dreaming and nighttime. The stories seem to belong to different genres, and many are abstract. I liked some of the stories but could not grasp others.
Happy reading
Helping a Child with Nonverbal Learning Disorder
or Asperger's Syndrome A Parent's Guide
by Kathryn Stewart
My favorite statistic from this book: 12.8% of schoolchildren in the U.S. are in special ed. Keeping in mind that special ed kids are often in school longer due to early intervention and late graduation, that's still a large fraction of schoolkids. NLD and AS kids are often a part of that 12.8%. This book focuses on the weaknesses of NLD and AS people, and mentions their strenghths as well. It does this with short descriptions of people whom the reader should assume have NLD or AS, diagnostic lists(which were difficult to follow on account of asking the reader to compare his child with the norm, and do you know what the norm is?), and explanations of what symptoms are. It also covers the possibly related disorders ADHD, OCD, and mentions SID. The distinction that the author makes between AS and HFA is that people with HFA talk to have their needs met, and the AS person talks to communicate. Since I know people with HFA who talk to communicate, I don't like that distinction. The author does draw from her experience at the Orion Academy, a college prep high school for teens with AS and NLD.
Educational reading.
I Am a Pencil A Teacher, His Kids, and Their World of Stories
by Sam Swope
Mr. Swope went to do a workshop with third graders in Queens. By the end of the workshop, he had decided to stay and work with the class for the following three years. His intent was to teach the children how to write creative stories, and to write them well. This book is his account of those three years. He focuses on the methods he came up with in trying to teach, the students who intrigued him, and the environment he tried to teach in. The student he focuses on the most, Miguel, comes from a Pentecostal family. The dynamics of Miguel's religion and family intrigue Mr. Swope.
Mr. Swope's tone is at times critical, at times awed. His tone is depressed, and he does not depict himself favorably, with the end result that he was my least favorite character. The story does not seem to have a point- we don't know whether Mr.Swope made a difference, or if anything changed. The characters are interrested, and the writing itself is impeccable.
Happy reading.
Gestalt for Beginners by Sergio Sinay, il. by Pablo Blasberg
Gestalt is a psychotheraputic technique, a philosophy, a lifestyle. Fritz Perls came up with the theories that are currently thought of as gestalt. The history of gestalt, Fritz Perls, and psychology in general are depicted, as are the therapuetic methods of gestalt. The pictures usually agree with the pictures, but the top dog/ underdog one doesn't. I don't know how true to gestalt this book is because I don't know much about gestalt. This is general information.
Informative reading.
Just Checking Scenes from the Life of an Obsessive-Compulsive
by Emily Colas
When people talk, she traces stars in her head, one line for each word. Conversations have to end when the stars do, on multiples of five. When she meets her husband, she uses his judgement to reassure herself of life's safety. He is recruited to taste test all food to make sure it isn't laced with anything, he learns to take off his shoes without using his hands so as not to track in any blood, and to check anything of potential danger to a worrier who sees the danger in every aspect of her life.
The subtitle of this book is an accurate description. The scenes are depicted in vignettes of one paragraph to three pages, and in a few poems. The vignettes all have titles which pun cleverly on their contents. Many of the vignettes are humorous; sometimes they laugh at their author, sometimes at the world, and sometimes they just laugh. Some are frustrated comments on life, and some just are. The book covers the span of the author's life, but focuses on the time she was with her husband(we are told that they divorce early on in the book). The order is roughly chronological; sometimes vignettes jump back or forwards before returning to the timeline. As the author interview at the back of my edition shows, this isn't meant to be advice, insight or wisdom. Instead it captures the one life the author is a qualified expert on- her own.
Happy reading.
Wasted Talent:Musings of an Autistic
by Krishna Narayanan
Unable to speak or write and filled with a tension that manifested itself as autism, he was seen as retarded. In 1994, at the age of 23, he substituted a word for its synonym in an article he was copying. His parents were thrilled, and he began to communicate. The dialogue between himself and his parents as reproduced in this book is a long shot from his writing ability here in this book. This is about how his autism has affected, and how he has gotten relief from the anxiety that plagues him. As he says, he is probably that only autist(he uses autistic to mean autist, but I don't) to have experienced ten years of Ayurvedic therapy along with taking westtern medication. He is therefore able to write about a therapy not well known to most. Of this eleven-chapter book, two or three chapters are musings, mostly on how Autism has hindered Krishna, three are spent on his travels and world history, three are autobiographical bits not easily generalized, and four are about Krishna's experiences with therapies and his hopes for autists. Photographs and illustrations are on every page, and I'm not sure who did the illustrations, as the author's co-ordination is not good enough for the detailed drawings. Krishna calls for a cure for autism, which he sees as his prison and a hell on earth. This book closes on his four dreams: that he will learn more math, that the US will allocate more money for research on autism treatments from the east and west, that the world will not abandon him when his parents die, and that an angel would come to marry him.
Krishna generalizes too much. What he attributes to all autistics are not traits all autistic shares; the views he claims for all autists are not shared by all autists. Changing "the autistic" to "me" everywhere in this book would make it a more compelling narrative. Reading this narrative as that of a person will make it a better read than reading for the narrative of an autist. If you are trying to read up on autism, I suggest only reading chapter six: Ayurvedic Treatment, and chapter twelve Future From the Past.
Solemn/Philosophic reading.
This Boook:
Kristen Clarke is dead
last seen with
that black city kid
what's his name?
Kwame Richards,
we townspeople are
good people but
you were last one
seen with her.
Fess up
weight off your chest.
Admit it.
This poem is not to be taken as a comment on the talent of this book; Glenn's poetry is better than that. His poems compliment each other with parallelism, one poem taking the thoughts of one person, running a parallel to it with a very different other person's feelings. We open knowing that Kristen is dead and also that the town has something fishy going on. The townspeople mean well, at least some of them do, but prejudices surface when they invite kids from the projects for the weekend.
Rhythmic reading.
Mike Zammit runs the International Environmental Response Team or INERT, and is therefore one of the first alerted when it is found that the Ataturk dam on the Euphrates river is releasing something that is killing the people who drink its water. This is a major disaster, with political consequences that are elevated further when it is found that the poison in the water is produced by an ancient cyanobacteria that has recently mutated, probably purposefuly. If that cyanobacteria is not stopped, then war will ravage the world, and then the chemical composition of the earth will change such that humans will become extinct. But someone with an antidote does exist- the evil mastermind who planted the cyanobacteria in the first place. Zammit and INERT must go through a dizzing series of foreign agencies to solve the puzzle and save the world.
The cyanobacteria is planted in an alternate world's 2003, with the politics changed subtly. In Zammit's world, Sadam Hussein has been assassinated and suceeded by his son Anwar, who is just as vicious as his father. The characters are confusingly many, but they do become clearer after the first chapters. There is no deep character development. The plot twists are clever and the science is sound.
Question: One of the ideas discussed through this book is what evil is. The characters conclude that evil is knowing right from wrong and choosing wrong. Do you agree?
Tense reading.
