Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure by Eli Clare, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2017, 240 pages, £70. Reviewed by Dr. Sue Smith Brilliant Imperfection is an elegant addition to the current topical debate concerning disability and cure written by disabled, transgender activist, Eli Clare. Combining personal memoir and acute observation with critical disability […]
Category: Book Reviews
Book Review: The Cognitive Humanities
Garratt, Peter., editor. The Cognitive Humanities: Embodied Mind in Literature and Culture edited by Peter Garratt, London: Palgrave, 2016. xvii + 259 pages, £66.99. Reviewed by David Rodriguez, Stony Brook University It is a difficult task to collect work in a coherent introductory volume for a field as diverse, divisive, and multi-disciplinary as […]
Book Review: Caring Architecture
Caring Architecture: Institutions and Relational Practices by Catharina Nord and Ebba Högström, Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishers, 2017, 220 pages, £61.99. Reviewed by Cristin Sarg (University of Glasgow) Caring Architecture: Institutions and Relational Practices is an edited collection by Catharina Nord and Ebba Högström that had its genesis in a session of the […]
Book Review: The New Mountaineer
The New Mountaineer in Late Victorian Britain by Alan McNee. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, 2016, £66.99. Reviewed by Dr Douglas Small, University of Glasgow The figure of the late-Victorian mountaineer – stalwart, resolute, determinedly pursuing his ascent with ice-axe and Manila hemp rope – might at first seem an unlikely individual to be of […]
Book Review: To Be a Machine
To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death by Mark O’Connell, London: Granta, 2017, 244 pages, £12.99. Reviewed by Anna McFarlane, University of Glasgow Mark O’Connell’s To Be a Machine documents the writer’s encounters with a series of self-proclaimed ‘transhumanists’; those who subscribe to […]
Book Review: Meanings of Pain
Meanings of Pain edited by Simon van Rysewyk. Springer International Publishing, 2016, 401 pages, £126.50. Reviewed by Josie Billington (University of Liverpool), Andrew Jones, and James Ledson (The Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust) In The Illness Narratives (1988), a seminal text for the Medical Humanities, Arthur Kleinman tells the story […]
Book Review: Wellbeing Machine
Wellbeing Machine: How Health Emerges from the Assemblages of Everyday Life by Kim McLeod, Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2017, 234 pages, $39.00. Violeta Ruiz, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Kim McLeod’s Wellbeing Machine will probably be a difficult book to follow for any reader who is not familiar with Deleuzian and posthumanist ideas. I […]
Book Review: What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear
What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear by Danielle Ofri, Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2017, 288 pages, £21.99. Reviewed by Ben Bravery It is the oldest tool in any doctor’s bag, and it is as important today as it was 200 years ago. It is not a device, gadget or pill. The side-effects are […]
Book Review: Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice
Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice: New Conversations Across the Disciplines by M Buchbinder, M Rivkin-Fish and RL Walker (eds). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2016, 320 pages, £37.50. Reviewed by Professor John Harrington, Cardiff University Inequality has returned to the political agenda in Europe and North America in the aftermath of the […]
Book Review: No Apparent Distress
No Apparent Distress: A Doctor’s Coming-of-Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine by Rachel Pearson, New York: W.W. Norton, 2017, 272 pages, £21.99. Reviewed by John Coulehan, Stony Brook University, NY Was there a time before memoirs of medical training became a popular genre of nonfiction? It’s difficult now to imagine a time before aspiring young […]