Fay Bound Alberti, This Mortal Coil: the human body in history and culture, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016) Reviewed by Hazel Croft We all have stories to tell about our bodies. They are, as Fay Bound Alberti writes, ‘the inescapable material reality we live with and in.’ In today’s scientific and medical […]
Category: Book Reviews
Book Review: Aliceheimer’s
Aliceheimer’s. Alzheimer’s Through the Looking Glass By Dana Walrath. Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016. Reviewed by Dr Martina Zimmermann. Dana Walrath’s Aliceheimer’s. Alzheimer’s Through the Looking Glass is the second graphic memoir by an adult child about her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease, after Sarah Leavitt’s Tangle. A Story About Alzheimer’s, […]
Book Review: The Slumbering Masses
Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer, The Slumbering Masses: Sleep, Medicine, and Modern American Life (Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press, 2012) Reviewed by Steffan Blayney Need a quick recharge? Power up with a power nap. Geniuses like Dali and Einstein loved sneaking in some extra ZZZs. Opening up my Mozilla Firefox web browser, a […]
Book Review: Dad’s Not All There Anymore
This is the first of a series of comic book reviews on the theme of Dementia. Reviews of Sarah Leavitt’s Tangles and Dana Walrath’s Aliceheimer’s to follow. Dad’s Not All There Anymore by Alex Demetris Reviewed by Harriet Earle As an academic, I have a love-hate relationship with Wikipedia. I […]
Reclaiming Reflection: Creative Writing and the Medical Humanities (3)
Reminiscence Bumps: self-mythology and the landscapes of the mind by Eleanor Holmes When I think about the landscapes of the mind, I recall the undulations of the brain’s surface. The ridges and valleys of cortex, the gyri and sulci I had learnt about in my neuroanatomy classes aged nineteen. Those white plastic […]
Reclaiming Reflection: Creative Writing and the Medical Humanities (2)
Creative Non-Fiction: imagination and the nature of truth by Eleanor Holmes A copy of Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table lay on my bookshelf for years, a gift from my father, one of his favourite texts. The fact that I’d not actually read it until my creative writing tutor at Newcastle University, the author […]
Reclaiming Reflection: Creative Writing and the Medical Humanities (1)
Poetry and Reflection: a powerful tool for learning This post is part of a series over the next three days on the theme of Creative Writing and Medical Humanities by Dr Eleanor Holmes (pen name Eliot North). As a GP Tutor I’ve delivered seminars on the patient centred medicine (PCM) component of Newcastle […]
Book Review: Cancer Poetry
Ian Twiddy, Cancer Poetry. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015 Reviewed by Sue Spencer Cancer remains one of the most feared of diseases. It evokes dread in the general public and stimulates startling headlines about its insidious and destructive nature. Even as knowledge increases and cancer detection rates improve, this remains the case, despite the fact […]
Poetry Book Review: The Wound Dresser
Two poetry book reviews will be featured this week. The second review will appear on Friday. Jack Coulehan, The Wound Dresser (Albuquerque: JB Stillwater, 2016) Finalist for the 2016 Dorset Poetry Prize, selected by Robert Pinsky (Poet Laureate of the United States from 1997 to 2000). Reviewed by Barbara Salas The Wound Dresser […]
Book Review: In-Training: Stories from Tomorrow’s Physicians
in-Training: Stories from Tomorrow’s Physicians by Ajay Major and Aleena Paul. Pager Publications, Inc., 2016 http://bit.do/intrainingbook Reviewed by Rhys Davies In 2012 two medical students from Albany Medical College, New York, Ajay Major and Aleena Paul, founded in-Training, an online forum where medical students could record and discuss their thoughts as they learnt the […]