Book Description
BIG CHERRY HOLLER, the extraordinary sequel to BIG STONE GAP, takes us back to the mountain life that enchanted us in Adriana Trigiani’s best selling debut novel. It’s been eight years since the town pharmacist and long time spinster Ave Maria Mulligan married coal miner Jack MacChesney. With her new found belief in love and its possibilities, Ave Maria makes a life for herself and her growing family, hoping that her fearless leap into commitment will make happiness stay. What she didn’t count on was that fate, life, and the ghosts of the past would come to haunt her and, eventually, test the love she has for her husband. The mountain walls that have protected her all of her life can not spare Ave Maria the life lessons she must learn.
BIG CHERRY HOLLER is the story of a marriage, revealing the deep secrets, the power struggle, the betrayal and the unmet expectations that exist between husband and wife. It is the story of a community that must reinvent itself as it comes to grips with the decline of the coal mining industry. It is the story of an extended family, the people of Big Stone Gap, who are there for one another especially when times are tough
—including bookmobile librarian and sexpert Iva Lou Wade Makin, savvy businesswoman Pearl Grimes, crusty cashier Fleeta Mullins, and Rescue Squad captain Spec Broadwater, who faces the complications of his double life. Ave Maria’s best friend Theodore Tipton, now band director at the University of Tennessee, continues to be her chief counselor and conscience as he reaches the pinnacle of marching band success.
When Ave Maria takes her daughter to Italy for the summer, she meets a handsome stranger who offers her a life beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ave Maria is forced to confront what is truly important: to her, to her marriage, and to her family. Brimming with humor, wisdom, honesty, and the drama and local color of mountain life from Virginia to Italy, BIG CHERRY HOLLER is a deeply felt, brilliantly evoked story of two lovers who have lost their way and their struggle to find one another again.
From the Hardcover edition.
Download Description
In a hilarious and heartwarming sequel to the bestselling Big Stone Gap, Ave Maria and Jack MacChesney find their marriage strained by a summer spent apart.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book! .......2007-10-01
I had never read any books by this author before this series. I'm hooked, she is a great writer & her books are fantastic!
Life goes on..........2007-01-04
Following on from Big Stone Gap, part 2 of Trigiani's trilogy picks up Ave Maria's life 8 years after her marriage to Jack.
Darker, sadder but more honest and insightful than Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler faces up to the fact that
a) life isn't always a bed of roses
b) people often screw up
... but it doesn't have to be the end of the world when it happens.
NB: I'd ordered this at the same time as Big Stone Gap, and enjoyed reading them back-to-back, while the characters and `history'of Big Stone Gap was still fresh in my mind.
The second of the "Big Stone Gap" quartet.......2006-09-09
In this sequel to "Big Stone Gap," it's eight years after Ave Maria and Jack began their lives together. They are struggling to give 10-year-old daughter Etta a normal childhood, while mourning the sudden death of four-year-old Joe several years earlier.
Largely due to their intense sorrow, Ave Maria and Jack begin drifting apart. Ave Maria begins to suspect her husband of intimacy with Karen Bell, a woman he met through work; and she herself is faced with a difficult decision after meeting a man on a trip to her relatives in Italy.
The humorous color of the side characters first introduced in the previous novel balances well with the seriousness of the MacChesney family's problems. It also gives hope that in the end, what's good will prevail.
This book is the second of the "Big Stone Gap" quartet; the fourth book is scheduled for release at the end of October 2006.
Another excellent book by Trigiani.......2006-05-24
I loved this book, just as I like the first one, Big Stone Gap. I can't get enough of Ave Maria, Jack and Etta. I look forward to Milk Glass Moon.
What a bummer.......2006-02-18
After the magic and suble romance of the first, this one was a real bummer. No love, no magic...at least not in the first chapter or two. I didn't make it any further because it was just too danged depressing with no sign of happiness on down the road.
Customer Reviews:
Loved it........2007-08-09
I've recommended this series of books to several friends who have enjoyed them too. Not much fodder for book club discussion, but good, summertime reading.
Customer Reviews:
Big Stone Gap.......2005-10-22
I was very excited to read this book after reading all the great reviews, and after a friend's recommendation. I went ahead and bought all three books in the series. Well, I was disappointed. It is an ok book, but I was expecting much more humor. If you like Nicholas Sparks, this is probably your kind of book, but if you are a fan of Fannie Flagg, Jan Karon, and Janet Evanovich and like the out loud laughter, I would not recommend it.
Big Stone Gap.......2003-10-23
The best story ever! I loved the writing, it was fresh and very clear. The carerters were strong and you just could not wait to read more and more. The next two books were just as great. I feel Adriana Trigiani has changed my life in a special way with her honest look into a woman's feelings.I will always treasure her books and antisipate more great reading. I even visited Big Stone Gap this summer and it warmed my heart that it was a real place and the people are just as real!
Product Description
3 Titles By Trigianai (Trade Paperback) - The Queen of the Big Time - Milk Glass Moon - Big Cherry Holler
Product Description
4 Book Set By Adriana Trigiani; Big Stone Gap; Milk Glass Moon; the Queen of the Big Time;big Cherry Holler
Average customer rating:
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Big Cherry Holler
Manufacturer: Tandem Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 1417661046 |
Book Description
In this brand new mystery series by Dana Stabenow, the Edgar Award-winning author returns to the Alaskan setting she's famous for, but with a wonderful new character--state trooper Liam Campbell. Liam's just been transferred from Anchorage to the small fishing village of Newenham, Alaska--where a local pilot seems to have lost his head.
"Evocative."--Dallas Morning News
"Stunning."--Booklist*
"Liam Campbell is a delightful character, already fully formed in the skilled, inventive mind of Miss Stabenow, and meeting him is a pleasure." --Washington Times
"Evocative writing, intelligent plotting...intensely believable." --Dallas Morning News
"Lots of quirky people, adventures, and scenery." --Kirkus Reviews
"This much mayhem has rarely been in surer literary hands."--Publishers Weekly
* First in a new series
* Stabenow is a national bestseller and Edgar Award winner
* "Alaska's finest mystery writer." --Anchorage Daily News
Download Description
Alaska State Trooper Liam Campbell was a young go-getter with everything going his way--a rich wife, a loving son, and a career ready to take off. But then it all fell to pieces. A drunk driver took his family, a tragic miscalculation took his career, and the bottle was about to take everything else...until Liam found himself on a plane to his new posting--a small native town far from the big city comforts of Anchorage. And fate isn't finished with him yet. No sooner does he set foot off the plane than he is confronted with a suspiciously dead body, an office going to hell in a handbasket, and the accusing glare of the only woman he'd ever truly loved...and lost. Featuring richly drawn-out characters and a spellbindingly rugged location, Fire And Ice is Dana Stabenow's most thoroughly enjoyable work to date, and is the first installment of a terrific new mystery series!
Amazon.com
Dana Stabenow won an Edgar Award for her books about Kate Shugak, a resourceful Indian woman living in Alaska. The series is full of respect for the landscape and the hard work it takes to survive in the far north. Now she starts a new series starring Liam Campbell, an Alaskan State Trooper with a troubled past and an uncertain future; the environmental issues of the 1980s appear to have been back-burnered in favor of the personal needs and feelings of the 1990s.
You might think there are one too many colorful eccentrics or jaunty drunks in the town of Newenham, where former Sergeant Campbell has been demoted after his own bout with booze and self-doubt. But you'll definitely admire the way Stabenow jumpstarts her story: within a few minutes of his arrival from Anchorage, Campbell has to deal with one murder (a pilot almost decapitated by his propeller), one old girlfriend (the exotic and possibly dangerous Wy Chouinard), and a man held hostage in the town's only decent burger joint--held for shooting out a jukebox that was playing Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville.
Stabenow can also grab your attention with the details of everyday life in an Alaskan fishing village, such as this description of the contents of a light plane: "There was a handful of candy wrappers, two maps of Bristol Bay, five small green glass balls which Liam recognized as Japanese fishing floats, a walrus tusk broken off near the root, a survival kit, two firestarter logs, two parkas, two pairs of boots, a litre-sized plastic Pepsi bottle half full of yellow liquid, a clam gun, a bucket, three mismatched gloves and three handheld radios, which to Liam seemed a bit redundant." The Kate Shugak books include A Cold Day for Murder, Breakup, A Cold-Blooded Business, Blood Will Tell, Dead in the Water, A Fatal Thaw, Killing Grounds, and Play with Fire. --Dick Adler
Customer Reviews:
Remote setting, intriguing characters and a fast pace.......2007-08-15
In Edgar Award-winner Stabenow's first Liam Campbell mystery the Alaska State Police Officer lands, literally, in his first murder case before he reports for duty at his new remote posting. Terrified of flying in a place where flying is the only way to get around, Liam stumbles off the plane in Newenham, along the shores of Bristol Bay, to discover a body nearly decapitated by the prop of a fish-spotter plane.
Bob DeCreft was a herring spotter who flew with Wyanet Chouinard, owner of the murder weapon plane and the only woman Liam has ever loved passionately. They separated three years previously because Liam was married, with a young son. But a drunk driver killed his son and put his wife in an irreversible coma. Then five people died in an accident on Liam's watch and his career was blighted, leading to demotion and the Newenham posting.
Still reeling from his reunion with Wyanet - and the murder - Liam is carried off by the mayor to deal with a shooting at the local bar and grill. Returning to the murder site, he has a steamy scene with Wyanet and then is knocked unconscious by an intruder who vandalizes her plane.
And so the breathless pace is set. Full of the sort of eccentrics who might well populate a frozen outpost in Alaska, the novel plunges into the social by-play and open secrets that keep small town life hopping. Add to this the cutthroat mayhem of the brief, high-stakes herring season - including Liam's stint as a spotter, easily the book's most harrowing, breathtaking scene - an edgy complex love affair, and the uncomfortable plight of native Alaskans, and you have a fast-paced, thoughtful story that will leave readers looking forward to Liam's next outing.
A Good Start-over in the Land of the Midnight Sun.......2002-01-08
"If it looks like a motive, if it acts like means, if it quacks like opportunity..." That ducky paraphrase is one of the good things about this mystery, Dana Stabenow's first in the "Liam Campbell" series. This time, it's as if Alice's Queen of Hearts ("Off with their heads!") is loosed upon an airport in Southwest Alaska. Beware the prop blades!
The Stabenow oeuvre (Campbell and Kate Shugak, who will subsequently team up in "Midnight Come Again" ) offers moving verbal snapshots of Alaska along with ice-cracklin' good "Whodunnits." At times, this one tilted too much toward Harlequin bodice-buster for my tastes. And "Doing the box thing" (Campbell's diagramming of people and interrelationships involved in a case) would be much more effective if, like Ed McBain's 87th Precinct books, the author and publisher actually visually (not just a verbal description) SHOW the reader the document to which they refer.
I have not read all the series, nor read them in order, but I'm going to give it a go. The inhabitants are an interesting, entertaining, quirky bunch with whom I look forward to getting better acquainted.
Murder entree with a romance side and herring dessert.......2001-06-06
Like many other reviewers and fans of Kate Shugak, I was a bit reluctant to read the Liam Campbell series. It couldn't be as good. Well, I was wrong. It may even be better.
I suspect that Stabenow was simply getting bored with Kate and wanted to write something a little different. Well, in Liam she's created a great format to tell us about that unusual species, the Alaskan Male. (Hey, they even have - or had - magazine about the phenomenon.) A healthy chunk of this book is about the war between the sexes, Alaskan style. Sure, the mystery takes a back seat but the humorous observations more than made up for it.
As for the mystery, Liam is literally landing at the airport when the first suspicious death occurs. By the time the mystery is resolved, the reader has met a cast of eccentric characters that somehow ring entirely true, learned A LOT about herring roe fishing, and gotten under the skin of a macho man dealing with his world seemingly falling apart. There's plenty of crime in Newenham, much of it falling into the boozed up small town variety (shooting the jukebox and the post office) but something deeper and uglier is going on. There's an amazing amount of money at stake in the herring season. Could that be the cause? Or is it just small town romance gone wrong?
Bottom-line: A genuinely enjoyable read even if Stabenow digresses from the mystery plot at times. Liam Campbell is a nice mix of too good to be true and 1990's angst inside. I'll be reading the next book in the series soon.
Fire and Ice.......2001-01-14
The book hit the ground running with action. It gave an excellent insight to the Alaskan geography, inhabitants and infrastructure. I found the main character, Trooper Liam Campbell to remind me of Dudley Dooright on more than one occasion. I look forward to reading the sequel, So Sure Of Death. I would like to get to know the main characters better.
Also, I found the writer's style a little difficult to get used to and found myself rereading sentences to glean the meaning. All in all a good book.
Give me a break.......2000-04-04
When I buy a mystery book, that's what I want. I don't mind a hint of romance but the best mystery writers only give you a hint. You can't get very far in this book before you realize that everyone is more concerned about their libido than anything else, and the author is very graphic. Either write a mystery novel or a romance novel; those of us who truly enjoy mystery novels would greatly appreciate it.
Average customer rating:
- pretty bad
- Super Reader
- Worst Heinlein work ever
- The Cat That Walks Through Walls
- Kittens and the Art of the Impossible
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The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
Robert A. Heinlein
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To Sail beyond the Sunset
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Revolt in 2100 & Methuselah's Children
ASIN: 0441094996 |
Customer Reviews:
pretty bad.......2007-09-04
I read some of the reviews - wasn't sure about buying this book. I like Heinlein, have read his books over and over for years, but haven't read this one up to now. What tipped the scale was the hint that the book would continue the story of Adam Selene/Mike from the Moon is a Harsh Mistress which is one of the best Heinleins.
However, this book doesn't actually have a story. It's one long chase scene with lots of boring derring-do. Also pages and pages and pages of Nick and Nora Charles style conversations with no content, just quip quip quip. And they talk about sex and have sex constantly, but still it's boring. The guy can't write about love and sex with any conviction. Makes you wonder if he ever actually had sex himself.
And the final disappointment - almost no explanation of Mike the computer except to mention his name as the reason for all the derring-do.
Super Reader.......2007-08-26
An odd book, in that it is a bit of a discussion, and so tends to be dull.
It also has an odd cat, and that is usually not too good, unless you are named Seuss, or the cat is really, really big, Beastmaster.
However, a bunch of his characters from other books appear here, which does make it a bit more interesting.
Worst Heinlein work ever.......2007-07-10
I've read a lot of Heinlein and I consider him to be hit and miss but generally readable. This book is atrocious.
The beginning 3rd of the book is very good despite some back and forth dialog that gets a bit too snarky too often. Then comes a scene of intense peril which is ruined entirely. Heinlein is so hellbent on proving his scientific knowledge to the reader that the scene is barely readable much less enjoyable. All sense of atmosphere disappears in a cloud of thick explanations about physics and ballistics. I only bring up this scene because it seems to be the turning point where a good whodunnit turns into a tiresome misdirected mess.
From here on out you suffer through ~250 pages of overly verbose dialog that's supposed to be clever. All people, especially women, are sex fixated and everyone is vowing to marry and sleep with everyone else in group marriages. Even more unfortunate is that it all just comes through as being awkward. I don't mean awkward because it assets cultural norms that defy my upbringing. I mean awkward because like most sci-fi authors, Heinlein has no inkling of how to write effective sex or romance. It's the kind of awkward reminiscent of when early adolescents fool around - all the while blushing, giggling, and not being able to unhook a bra. All hormones and no grace. Just plain awkward.
Next flaw: Heinlein has fallen so in love with his worlds that he forgets there's supposed to be forward momentum. In one scene about 3/4ths of the way through the book, an event of tremendous importance occurs. In the middle of it, he muddles everything up by introducing new minor/meaningless characters and taking time to describe their ancestry and last names. Hello! Can we get back to the plot point? (Especially since it's the first plot point we've seen in over 50 pages!) We aren't even learning anything interesting about the characters themselves. Only how they fit into the world he spent so much effort detailing.
Next: the computers. Yes, I'm a computer geek. (Big shocker: a computer geek reading Heinlein...) but this is not a rant about how he messed up a computer detail or how the computers of the future ought to contain X or Y feature. This is much more fundamental: sassy self-aware computers. All the self-aware computers are just as sassy, opinionated, prone to verbally-sparing, and sex-obsessed as the humans are. Worse: the personalities aren't original. These computers, as well as all of the females in the book, except for the main 1 or 2, are carbon-copies of the personalities of the girls in "Stranger in a Strange Land."
Next: Everyone's favorite character: Robert A. Heinlein. This is one of the few gripes I have about ALL Heinlein books: there's always 1 or 2 characters (or 3 or 4 in Starship Troopers) who are always right, who's opinions are beyond reproach, and who deliver exhaustive monologues about unconventional theories which are clearly nothing more than Heinlein expressing his own views. These are your "Heinlein" characters. They are him and they are never anything less than victorious. In this book there are some particularly silly and over the top instances of these speeches, opinions, and characters.
Plot: yes, there was a plot - albeit neglected for most of the book in favor of aforementioned snappy dialog (mostly about sex) and in favor of discovering the world he invented. The main plot is something that happens in the first chapter and is resolved in the last chapter. Sadly, it has little to do with anything in the rest of the chapters. The mystery would be entirely obvious with about 80 pages remaining until climax except that since the rest of the book has nothing to do with the beginning/ending plot, you forget about it altogether. In fact, you're kinda surprised when it gets resolved at all.
If you are a fan of good sci-fi, I highly recommend Heinlein - except for The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. I've only once EVER read a book where I'd gotten more than half way through and stopped. This was going to be #2 except that the next book I wanted to read hadn't yet reached me by mail.
The Cat That Walks Through Walls.......2007-01-18
Before you read this book you need the following things: a weekend off work, a comfy chair, more Heinlein books ( read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress at the bare minimum ), and a love of sci-fi. Also, if you like your authors to point out every single conclusion without leaving you to come to some on your own...go watch TV, reading isn't for you.
If you are a Heinlein fan, this book is for you. It's an important piece in is Future History and World as Myth books. If you have no background in Heinlein, put this one on the shelf for now and read his earlier works first.
My only complain with the book: It was about 1000 pages too short ;-)
Kittens and the Art of the Impossible.......2006-12-22
At the very end of his career, Heinlein wrote a series of books, now known as the `World as Myth' set, that effectively managed to tie together just about all of his works through the idea that time has three dimensional axes, one of which is the set of universes produced by strong fabulists (writers), so that in some sense all possible realities are nothing more than the figments of some writer's imagination. This book is the second of this set, following The Number of the Beast.
The opening of this book is set in the universe that we first saw in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, about a hundred years after the Lunar revolution. And a dandy opening it is, with the hero, Colonel Colin Campbell, having an uninvited dinner guest murdered in front of eyes within five minutes of sitting down at his table, and marrying his other dinner guest, all in the first ten pages. The action continues rapidly, traversing various sections of the moon, with our heroes being attacked and chased by several sundry unknown bad guys, while Campbell's new wife continues to display unusual talents and apparently has something of a `past' (readers familiar with most of Heinlein's other work will figure out what that `past' is fairly quickly - and I do recommend that you read at least The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Methuselah's Children, Time Enough For Love, The Rolling Stones, and The Number of the Beast before tackling this book).
So for the first half of so of this book, what we have is a strong action/adventure/mystery story, with rather less of Heinlein's typical pontificating than many other late-period books. But at midpoint the book takes a sharp curve towards the `Myth' concept, and other characters from other works make their appearance, most notably Lazarus Long, the Burroughs family, `Slipstick' Libby, and Jubal Harshaw. Lazarus is here seen from an external viewpoint, and he doesn't come off as either very nice or all that smart about how to convince Campbell to join his Time Corps. While it was nice to meet all these characters again, the action quota of this portion of the book drops drastically, and the original mystery scenario seems to get lost in the shuffle, not making a reappearance till the last couple chapters of the book.
Those last couple of chapters do some extreme compression of some very significant events, and do manage to bring to a close the initial scenario. But you must read this section very carefully, else you'll miss some very significant points - and one of the points will probably make your head spin when you try to untangle the `time line'. I know I missed some of this the first time I read it, and ended up feeling very disappointed with the book that first time through. With subsequent readings, my comprehension has improved, and my feeling about this book has gotten considerably better. Even the cat of the title, Pixel by name, and probably modeled after the real cat personage who at one point was part owner of the Heinlein residence, makes a significant addition to this, being a cat who can literally walk through walls just because it does not know that doing something like this is not supposed to be possible, a philosophical point of major significance to this book. Some may object that there is no closure to one major part of this final scenario - but you just have to read his last book, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, if you really have to know what happened after the end of this book.
This book may not be his best (by quite a margin), but neither is it anywhere near his worst, and Heinlein, even at his worst, was at least readable.
--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
Manufacturer: Recorded Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette
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ASIN: 0788729403 |
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From the package: This, spicy, satirical sci-fi adventure is sure gratify Heinlein fans and convert newcomer. In the novels space-age future, human foibles have multiplied as quickly as technological wonders. From the Golden Rule habitat to the lunar badlands, Heinlein gives us brave new worlds full of humor, politics, and non-stop action.
Amazon.com
Medicine has always contained elements of mythology and mysticism. Various ancient civilizations believed that the spleen and uterus moved around in the body when so motivated, that the heart was the center of thought and the liver the source of mood, and that internal organs were independent creatures with their own agendas. Dr. Sherwin Nuland, who has been performing surgery on these organs for four decades, here presents the amazing story of how superstition trumped science for most of medical history. For example, an early 17th-century Christian monk named Jean Baptiste van Helmont believed that the stomach was the center of human anatomy--the locus of the soul, in fact. His proof? That a punch to the stomach can knock a man out. "Had he been more pugilistically oriented, would he have placed it in the jaw?" Nuland asks.
Van Helmont's theories demonstrate the faulty logic that crippled medicine for most of human history. Human knowledge of anatomy began with observations of twitching organs on mortally wounded soldiers as they died on the battlefield, and for thousands of years couldn't move much past that. And even when a real scientific breakthrough occurred--as in the mid-18th century, when René Réaumur figured out that stomach acids, rather than compressive forces, were responsible for digestion--it had to be imbued with some sort of spiritual, supernatural component that overrode the science.
The problem, Nuland writes, is that the human mind seems to have an impulse to "turn instinctively toward mysticism when reason has no ready explanation for the mysteries still remaining in our biology." Elegantly and humorously, Nuland shows us how we came to understand the organs from which we've derived the strongest and strangest mythology--stomach, liver, heart, spleen, and uterus. After reading this book, you'll be able to smile appreciatively when someone expresses a "gut feeling" or relates how he "vented his spleen." --Lou Schuler
Book Description
Dr. Sherwin Nuland, author of the National Book Award-winning How We Die, once again combines knowledge, compassion, and elegance of expression to shed light on the workings of our bodies from the perspective of a surgeon. Dr. Nuland recounts age-old legends about the functions and "personalities" of the body's organs and, in riveting vignettes of the surgery he has performed, he describes the connections between myth and reality. A brilliant blend of science and folklore, The Mysteries Within reveals the enigmas not only of the body but also of the human imagination.
Customer Reviews:
A History of Medical Thought and Lore.......2001-08-15
"The Mysteries Within" is a book about the myths that have developed in medicine over the last several millenia. In it Dr. Nuland discusses the evolution of thought concerning various organs. He also goes into detail describing where some modern words and expressions have come from. Interspersed with these histories are an occasional jewel from his career as a surgeon. Overall it is a good book, although it seems slightly slow at times.
Thriller Mystery And Medical History.......2001-01-26
This is a remarkable book written by a gifted surgeon, who wields a pen perhaps a touch less brilliantly than a scalpel. The only reason I say less, is that after reading one specific part of the book, I was overwhelmed with what can happen in an operating room. This is why I used the word thriller for the book, but other sections are as mysterious as Holmes versus Moriarty, and the historical perspective is brilliantly shared and summarized without losing the cadence of the book.
Dr. Nuland with his third work, "The Mysteries Within", brings a view of medicine unlike any I have read before. He takes you through a procedure that he claims brought dumb luck to the operating table for both he and his patient, luck that saved a life that was almost a guaranteed loss. He shares the inspiration that Residents and Interns bring with their youth, and calculated daring. Do you know what a bezoars is? I didn't until I read this book. And if the detective work that solved this enigma does not leave you marveling at just how wide and varied a surgeon's skills must be, I don't know what will. The example for you is perhaps in another section of the book.
He and the men and women he speaks of are remarkable, yet he always puts what is known and observable into relation with less tangible ideas. Whether it is religious faith, or faith in the Doctor or a pill, or hope in the unproven, he is never dismissive. The only intolerance he shows is for those who lack the openness of mind that welcomes all possibility, or deals in absolutes. His statements on religion and science and how they legitimately coexist, are not incongruous, and perhaps essential to each other, is stated as eloquently as I have ever heard the issue summarized.
It is rare person who can reach inside the ill, the broken bodies, and the lives that should end but do not. The pressure they operate under is explained, but I believe true understanding is left only for those who are the participants. Hopefully most will never need the skills and the "luck" that you will experience in this book. However in the event you or someone you care for does, hope that it will be a surgeon like this man, the men and women he learned from, or perhaps those he has taught.
Unconditionally recommended!
Brilliant concept, but poorly executed..........2001-01-03
I love Nuland's writing, and could spend hours meandering through his explanations of medical phenomena. But this particular book was either poorly conceived or shoddily edited, because I found it much more difficult to get through than his usual lively mix of clinical experience and academic background.
There's just no balance here. That usually-delightful mix is completely absent, traded in for clumps of one or the other. He'll give a couple of tantalizingly tabloid case histories, some personal information about his own medical training, then chapters and chapters of academic detail. It just doesn't work for me.
Still fascinating as a glimpse of where medical thought is coming from, and as usual, Nuland is brilliant at pointing out the vestiges of old ideas and anachronisms even within modern medicine. But as the title suggests, this really is a surgeon "reflecting," with seemingly no particular direction, intention, or goal.
Too bad, though, because there's a lot of fascinating potential here.
A great read, and a great addition to Nuland's work.......2000-08-20
Dr. Nuland's way with the English language is as eloquent as the topic of discussion in his newest work.
This book is not so much an exploration of "The Body," as it is an exploration of the actual ways Medicine has sought to explore its own discipline.
It is a fantastic, but all too short trip into the great minds of Medical thinkers, including Nuland himself, and the ways in which they have accelerated its progress; indeed, it also makes light of the ways, doctors, have stifled it.
It is, very much, vintage Nuland -with its prose, and offerings of philosophical insight. But it is not like his other books -he doesn't deal with life and the body as in his other achievements. But, if you like Medical history; if you like knowing about the ways some of our most sacred accomplishments in the field came about, then buy this book.
A Nuland Winner--For Those Interested in Medical History.......2000-06-07
This book may be disappointing to previous readers of Nuland, who might be expecting disclosures of exciting medical procedures and interesting anecdotes of the workings of the human body; but those who are interested in the evolution of medicine will feel he has produced another winner.
Nuland undertakes this historical medical journey by exploring the evolution of knowledge of the stomach, liver, spleen, heart and uterus.
During antiquity matter was considered to be composed of fire, air, earth and water. Galen taught that the body contained four associated humors blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm-and to maintain good health a proper balance was to be maintained by them. The source of each of these humors was the heart; liver; spleen and stomach; and brain.
Through the course of history as medical instruments became available an iconoclast, with keen observation, was able to shatter previous myths and new insights were uncovered.
With the advent of the modern scientific method the details of the individual body processes are uncovered. Gaps in knowledge are acknowledged. No answer is considered final.
The medical practitioner during most of history was considered a "magician". He knew all about the workings of the body and how to treat illness. His treatments-in most instances of no value and sometimes even harmful-were frequently successful because the body naturally fights to restore itself to health; and it is aided in that fight by the placebo effect. Many of today's questionable treatments still benefit from the resistance of the body and the placebo effect.
Medical knowledge has been a reflection of the contemporary culture. From antiquity, myths (medical knowledge) were created by unrestrained speculation. Such myths however were based on observed experience consistent with the prevailing philosophical and religious beliefs.
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