E’s a mystery Picture yourself hanging ten in the famed surf of Hawaii, enjoying a day of better-than-average waves, just having a totally tubular time. Now, imagine that the reason for the high surf is an incoming tropical storm and you missed the forecast this morning.
E's a mystery Picture yourself hanging ten in the famed surf of Hawaii, enjoying a day of better-than-average waves, just having a totally tubular time. Now, imagine that the reason for the high surf is an incoming tropical storm and you missed the forecast this…
As we age, most of us will experience a debilitating or life-threatening illness at some point. Two nonfiction books take an unflinching look at this reality while painting a compassionate picture of how we and our health care providers could approach illness and death with more empathy, honesty and courage.
Healing
Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient is Theresa Brown’s searingly honest and deeply personal account of her experiences as a breast cancer patient. Brown, a registered nurse with a Ph.D. in English literature, has written and lectured extensively about the American health care system. As a former oncology and hospice nurse, Brown knew that patients often got a raw deal, but only after her own diagnosis did she realize how needlessly cruel that deal could be.
Brown has profound gratitude for her family, friends and medical team, who all supported her as she recovered, but she is also angry. She faced a host of necessary evils during her treatment, including invasive diagnostic procedures, painful surgeries and debilitating side effects from chemotherapy. But in a series of devastating vignettes, Brown also details the many unnecessary evils she endured in a system that favors profit over the needs of the patient: Diagnoses were delayed, questions left unanswered, test results undelivered. She was even forced to negotiate byzantine regulations on her own because her health care providers were stretched too thin to ensure that these basic duties were fulfilled effectively or graciously. Even though Brown was a seasoned health professional with extensive knowledge and professional contacts, she had to fight to be treated humanely. One can only imagine the obstacles less experienced patients must face every day.
Healing is both a moving memoir and a clarion call to action. When health care becomes a profit-making industry, dominated by hedge funds and corporate interests, we all lose. Instead, Brown argues, we must return to a system where meeting the patient’s needs—physical, emotional and social—is the priority.
★ The Day I Die
In The Day I Die: The Untold Story of Assisted Dying in America, anthropologist Anita Hannig takes a different but no less passionate approach to her examination of death and dying in America. After becoming interested in how Oregon’s assisted dying law worked, Hannig embedded herself in a volunteer group that helps terminally ill patients take advantage of the law. She soon realized that the law, with its many hoops and barriers, could be like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s girl with the curl on her forehead. When it works, the law is very good. Hannig’s case studies of patients who have enough luck and resources to meet the demands of the statute demonstrate that assisted death can be, paradoxically, life-affirming. Autonomy can be restored to patients who have long been at the mercy of their diseases, and knowing when one will die can be an opportunity for reconciliation, reunion and gratitude.
But when things go bad, the law can be horrid. It is reasonable to have strict conditions surrounding assisted dying to ensure that the decision to end one’s life is freely made. But those conditions can have devastating effects upon patients who desperately want to die but cannot meet the requirements. Patients with ALS, for example, might lose their ability to communicate their assent before the deadline. Advanced Alzheimer’s patients are categorically denied access to assisted dying because they have lost the ability to fully understand their decision. Hannig rigorously details these and other situations in which people’s physical or mental deterioration, lack of resources or sheer bad luck result in a painfully prolonged life and terrifying death.
In her introduction, Hannig acknowledges the anthropologist’s dilemma: The act of observation is an imperfect tool for research, since it can change both the observer and the observed. However, it can also change the reader, since it is impossible to read Hannig’s book without being moved. Regardless of your stance on assisted dying, The Day I Die will make you reconsider how dying could and should be.
The personal stories in these nonfiction books set a more humane benchmark for patients and providers.
Wined and dined Oxford University Press has just released greatly revised second editions of their already classic encyclopedias on wine and food. The Oxford Companion to Wine ($65, 019866236X), edited by well-known international wine critic Jancis Robinson, addresses not only the expected topics such as the history of champagne, the faddish popularity of merlot, and tours of Provence and Burgundy it also offers fascinating entries (and charming illustrations) about such topics as the importance of wine imagery in the pre-Islamic Arab poets, differences in vineyards as far apart as Argentina and Australia, and the wine-related origin of the term symposium. Although encyclopedic and exhaustive, the book assumes no prior knowledge of wine, and therefore becomes a gift to both the connoisseur and the novice. The same unassuming breadth characterizes The Oxford Companion to Food, edited by English food writer Alan Davidson. This gorgeous book reminds us that the world is our gingerbread house, that over the centuries adventurous cooks have popped practically everything on earth into their mouths, tinkered until they found the best method of preparation, and passed along their judgments. Entries cover topics ranging from potatoes to aphrodisiacs, from escargot to bats. What is mold and what is its relationship to food? Why do we eat dogfish but not dogs? How do salt and sugar work? The answers to these and thousands of other questions are in this single volume.
Wined and dined Oxford University Press has just released greatly revised second editions of their already classic encyclopedias on wine and food. The Oxford Companion to Wine ($65, 019866236X), edited by well-known international wine critic Jancis Robinson, addresses not only the expected topics such as…
ÊI am, let it be said, an Eve Babitz devotee. Hooked ever since reading Slow Days, Fast Company many moons ago, I have read every article, book, and snippet I could find in the intervening years. Since the death of L.
A. Times columnist and author Jack Smith, Babitz has become the preeminent voice of Los Angeles, the person to whom transplanted Angelenos look for news of home.
In Two by Two, Babitz chronicles the dance crazes sweeping Los Angeles, and its practitioners and devotees. (Did you know, for instance, that Sandra Bullock is a salsa queen, or that Robert Duvall is a tango champion?) Each chapter is devoted to a small slice of the dance scene. In one chapter, Paul McClure, a soft-spoken cowboy who teaches the two-step to urbanites who grew up with disco, advises If you don’t know the step, just ignore those who do; you’re more creative anyway . . . Of the infighting among the L.
A. tango fanatics, Babitz observes, If someone starts any event in tango on a Tuesday, someone else will open a competing event just on that day, as though there were nine million tango maniacs in L.
A. rather than just forty-seven. And in yet another chapter, Babitz writes about the easy-going Cajun dances, . . . Being half Cajun myself, I am partial to these wild bands and the night and this particularly crazy music. It’s all just hot sauce to me, and I was raised on Tabasco and gumbo by my mother at a time in America when onions and garlic were considered a shock. Two by Two delineates the differences between East Coast Swing and West Coast Swing, rejoices in the freedom of the salsa and the Cajun dances, and marvels at the beauty of ballroom dancing from the perspective of a lifelong devotee, at home on the dance floor but clearly not in the first echelon of skill level.
Although Two by Two is more focused than Babitz’s typical L.
A. ramblings, it remains a loving, amusing look at the world of dancing, with the heavy overlay of L.
A.-ness that will keep the Angeleno expat longing for home. Bruce Tierney is a reviewer in Nashville, Tennessee.
ÊI am, let it be said, an Eve Babitz devotee. Hooked ever since reading Slow Days, Fast Company many moons ago, I have read every article, book, and snippet I could find in the intervening years. Since the death of L.
Give ’til it hurts You’ve made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the month of July. Sigh . . . Guess where you’ll be spending your summer vacation? You need a little pick-me-up gift for yourself, under the circumstances. What gift doesn’t require a security deposit, seven-day advance purchase, or a Saturday night stay? Why, books, of course! Photographer Jeffrey Kraft’s exquisite photographs of Parisian cubbyholes and artifacts are not intended to entice one to visit the city; rather, his Literary Paris (Watson-Guptill, $18.95, 0823028305) is meant for those who have already been. The images are meant to inspire a memory from a time that has passed; this is not a fancy collection of tourists’ snapshots. Kraft has arranged his remembrances alongside excerpts from literary works by authors who stayed in Paris for extended periods of time. Kraft has captured the glimpse, the detail, the moment, rather than structures and sites. He offers an idea of what remains in the mind and heart, even years after the visit itself has ended. A wonderful gift for the Francophile in your life.
Ben Jonson said, He was not of an age, but for all time. He was, of course, speaking of his friend William Shakespeare. Children’s book author Aliki has written and illustrated William Shakespeare and the Globe (HarperCollins, $15.95, 006027820X), which describes not only Shakespeare’s life, work, and times, but even acknowledges visionary Sam Wannamaker, who spent years resurrecting the Globe. The book is designed much like a script, with acts and scenes and characters. An interesting add-on is the list of words and expressions, complete with illustrations, credited to Shakespeare; for example, sweets to the sweet and hush were apparently invented by the Bard himself. Seems we’ve been quoting Shakespeare without realizing it! Cities like Paris and London must make use of every tidbit of soil that can be found; as acreage diminishes in our growing world, green thumbs everywhere are striving to be more and more creative with their craft. Artisan has published Window Boxes: Indoors and Out with this in mind. Authors James Cramer and Dean Johnson offer fragrant, beautiful, and useful options for the, uh, land-challenged. Cramer and Johnson offer optional locations (who says a window-box is limited to being wooden, square, and outside?) and year-round planting options (a thriving garden in January?) With this book, the decision is no longer how to create a miniature garden, but rather how many miniature gardens you can create. Soil sold separately! Of course, if we’re talking land for land’s sake, Antarctica has land to spare. It’s been 85 years since Ernest Shackleton and the 27-member crew of the Endurance set out to cross the Antarctic on foot. Less than 100 miles from its destination, the Endurance was caught in an ice pack and was badly damaged. For over 20 months, the crew (along with 69 sled dogs) was marooned, but no lives were lost. Two books commemorate this remarkable true story of adventure and perseverance. First, there’s Knopf’s The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition ($29.95, 0375404031), a sophisticated account of the expedition. There’s also Ice Story: Shackleton’s Lost Expedition (Clarion, $18, 0395915244), which may be better-suited to younger explorers. Both books feature expedition photographer Frank Hurley’s photographs and offer a chronological summary of this death-defying journey. Hurley started the expedition with professional equipment, but his final shots were taken with a pocket camera. Endurance author Caroline Alexander, in association with the American Museum of Natural History, carefully researched this volume, complete with some of Hurley’s photographs that had not been published previously. Ice Story author Elizabeth Cody Kimmel presents the journey in storybook format, but the information is accurate and anecdotal. Both books would make great gifts for anyone who has a taste for adventure and hopeful endings.
Agnes and Curtis decide that the grown-ups need to take the children to the waterpark which happens to be 50 miles away for the day. Fifty miles can seem like 500 without Fun on the Run: Travel Games and Songs (Morrow Junior Books, $17, 0688146600). Brimming with silly stories, limericks, brain teasers, and songs, this book helps to fill travel time without batteries or messy cleanup. Familiar songs and games such as The Ants Go Marching and Hangman are included, but Fun on the Run contains nearly 125 pages of other games and songs that can be a part of any trip. If you still confuse Darth Vader with Darth Maul, fear not; Dorling Kindersley has published two books that will help you keep the prequel and the original trilogy straight: Star Wars Episode I: the Visual Dictionary ($19.95, 0789447010) and Star Wars Episode I: Incredible Cross Sections ($19.95, 078943962X). Like their predecessors (or would it be their descendants?), these books are designed to keep facts, characters, and plots straight. Archaeologist David West Reynolds, an obvious choice for the author, approaches this much like he did his previous Star Wars works. One feels as if he is on an archaeological dig or scientific study of another world. May the source be with you!
Give 'til it hurts You've made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the…
I was only six months late turning in The Puzzler to my publisher. I say “only” because, honestly, I’m shocked I finished writing this book at all.
This is for two reasons. First, like most writers, I hate writing. By which I mean, the actual act of writing: sitting in a room alone, hunched over the keyboard, struggling through sentence after sentence with no feedback for weeks or months. I much prefer, as Dorothy Parker quipped, having written.
Second, I love the subject matter of my book. This may not seem like a problem at first glance, but it turned out to be a huge challenge. The trouble was that I loved the topic too much.
I’ve been a puzzle nerd since childhood, when I’d spend my days poring over Games magazine and drawing huge pencil mazes that filled up my living room. When I decided to write a book on the history, joy and science of puzzles, it meant my research would consist of, in part, doing puzzles all day—crosswords, Sudoku, jigsaws, mazes, logic puzzles. I’d start my morning of “work” by doing a crossword puzzle. But after finishing one from the Wall Street Journal, I’d tell myself, “Well, I should probably do the crossword from New York Magazine too. It’s research, after all!” After I finished that, I’d say, “Maybe I should also do the crossword from The Week.” This went on for hours every day.
Was this useful research that would yield insightful passages in my book? No. But I’m a puzzle addict, and I’m good at self-delusion. So I’d continue my “research.”
The thing is, I’ve always preferred researching my books to writing them. As a nonfiction writer whose mission is to immerse myself in my topics, I like nothing better than diving deep into a subject. I wrote about religion in a book called The Year of Living Biblically, which is exactly what it sounds like. I spent a year following all the rules of the Bible as literally as possible, from obeying the Ten Commandments to growing a huge Moses-like beard. The research was a joy; I relished learning about every obscure part of the Bible.
“Like most writers, I hate writing.”
But this book on puzzles was on another level. The research for this one was just too alluring, like brain candy. I embarked on this puzzle book after spending several months working on another book, about the post-truth era, and finding it slow going. So my agent, who knows I’m a puzzle-head, suggested I write about my passion, and my editor at Crown kindly let me switch topics.
Immediately, I was joyfully overwhelmed. I went down hundreds of rabbit holes. I even went down a rabbit hole about the phrase “rabbit holes,” which is from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a book that contains dozens of puzzles. For my chapter on secret codes, I spent three days trying to decipher the encoded teenage diary of legendary psychologist Abraham Maslow. That ended up resulting in about five words in the final book.
Then I started researching a chapter on Sudoku and other Japanese grid-based puzzles. The problem is, there are many, many variations on Sudoku—hundreds of them, with names like “Moon or Sun” or “Two Not Touch.” I convinced myself I should try them all out for the sake of comprehensiveness. That took days out of my schedule. It was as if I were a food writer doing an article about spaghetti and had convinced myself I had to try every form of pasta ever created, from tagliatelle to pappardelle.
But I couldn’t help myself. I love the feeling of doing puzzles. I love the aha! moment, that rush of dopamine, when you solve it. I love that feeling of certainty in this increasingly uncertain world: There is a right answer, and I’m going to find it!
“I’m a puzzle addict, and I’m good at self-delusion.”
I knew I had to eventually distill all this research into a written text, but I dreaded it. I find the writing part lonely, depressing even. As James Joyce said, “Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives.”
Partly, the pain is due to the lack of feedback. After having written, I love to give talks at bookstores, where I can see the audience’s faces. I can see if they’re laughing or if their eyes sparkle—or if they’re busy looking at their phones. I love the immediacy of it. During the initial writing phase, though, months often go by before I get any response.
So how’d I finally buckle down and write the darn thing? I give credit to puzzles.
A few months into writing The Puzzler, I had a conceptual breakthrough: What if I reframed the act of writing? Instead of seeing it as a chore to finish, what if I saw the act of writing itself as a puzzle? When I had to arrange the chapters, I decided to see them as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and this was empowering. It was, if not fun, at least not torture.
“I love that feeling of certainty in this increasingly uncertain world: There is a right answer, and I’m going to find it!”
As I solved each writing problem, I focused on the aha! moment and learned to relish it. Consider my chapter on secret codes, for example. Much of it is devoted to a sculpture on the grounds of the CIA’s headquarters, part of what is considered one of the hardest unsolved puzzles in the world. (The sculpture itself contains a secret code that not even the CIA has cracked.) “Well,” I thought, “what if I wrote this chapter as if it were a spy thriller?” Puzzle solved. I got my dopamine hit.
And it turns out, reframing problems as puzzles became one of the big themes of The Puzzler. I’m an advocate of what I call the Puzzle Mindset. Instead of seeing the world as a series of hard-to-win battles, I try to view it as a puzzle—to see the world through the eyes of an engineer, not a warrior. Even using the word puzzle can help. When I hear about the climate crisis, I want to curl up in a fetal position. But if I think about the climate puzzle, I feel motivated to find solutions.
Without the Puzzle Mindset, this book would still only be about 10% written—if that.
It was all fun and games until he had to actually sit down and write his latest book.
Sometimes the best way to understand reality is with just a hint of unreality. In these five books, fantastical elements reveal hidden or unexpected truths about our not-so-ordinary world.
Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.
