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I enjoy reading and sharing what I read with my blog followers, so joining Net Galley helps me accomplish both.
Net Galley helps “readers of influence” discover and recommend new books to their audiences. If you are a librarian, bookseller, educator, reviewer, blogger, or in the media, you can join for free.
I enjoy reading and sharing what I read with my blog followers, so joining Net Galley helps me accomplish both. I try to find books with a health/medical theme although occasionally I will pick something just for fun. But I find that almost any story portrays some health-related issue since it’s a universal concern.
Here are two stories, both memoirs, but vastly different. One is a private personal story, the other a public personal story.
Ms. Maynard’s story opened with a failed marriage/bad divorce saga with adult children torn between the two parents, persistent anger and bitterness, and attempts to ease the pain with a series of bad choices in lovers. Equally sad was her telling of a complicated and ultimately failed adoption attempt.
Finally, she and we can breathe a sigh of relief when she meets a man and seems to have found true love at last. But that comes to an abrupt halt when he is diagnosed with cancer.
From then on she poignantly describes a life turned upside down as she enters new territory as a caregiver. As she relates how their lives changed, we the readers are changed also, learning to recognize what is truly important in life. As Ms. Maynard writes,
“success, money, beauty, passion, adventure, possessions- have become immaterial. Breathing would be enough.”
Read this book if you want your assumptions about life and death to be challenged and changed. You may read an excerpt at this link
Dr. Pietro Bartolo practices medicine on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, in the Mediterranean Sea. Lampedusa, known for its friendly people, sunny skies, pristine beaches, and turquoise waters famous for fishing, seems an idyllic place to live, work, and visit.
But for the past 20 years, Dr.Bartolo has cared for not just residents and tourists, but for hundreds of refugees- people who risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean from northern Africa, fleeing poverty and political unrest. The lucky ones land on shore injured and sick. The unlucky ones wash ashore dead, having died en route or drowning after falling from a capsized or wrecked boat, sometimes only a few feet from shore.
In this memoir, Dr. Bartolo shares the stories of many of these people, giving them the names and faces that we don’t see watching news stories about the refugee crisis. He also shares his own life story of growing up on the island, leaving for medical school, and returning to raise a family and to practice medicine.
Dr. Bartolo’s story was also told in the documentary film FIRE AT SEA
He never expected to become the front-line help for hundreds of desperate people. With no specific training on how to manage an avalanche of desperate, sick, and injured refugees, and with little resources, he manages to put together a system for triaging, evaluating, and treating these people, then sending them on for more advanced medical care or to immigration centers in Europe.
For the less fortunate, he serves as medical examiner, to determine the cause of death for those who do not make it to Lampedusa alive; sometimes taking body parts to extract DNA to identify them, so families can be notified. He states he has never grown comfortable with this aspect of his job.
As a physician myself, I marvel at Dr. Bartolo’s caring and commitment to people who will never be able to repay him for his sacrifice. He approaches his work as a mission of mercy and treats every person with the utmost respect, no matter their circumstance. Some of the people he treats become almost like family; he has even tried to adopt a couple of orphaned children but cannot due to legalities.
Dr. Bartolo’s story reads like a conversation. I think you will like him, and admire him for his dedication and selfless service. His life should encourage all of us to consider what we can each do to lessen someone else’s suffering.
Another book review from Net Galley is at this link-
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exploring the HEART of health
I’d love for you to follow this blog. I share information and inspiration to help you turn health challenges into health opportunities.
Add your name to the subscribe box to be notified of new posts by email. Click the link to read the post and browse other content. It’s that simple. No spam.
I enjoy seeing who is new to Watercress Words. When you subscribe, I will visit your blog or website. Thanks and see you next time.
I’d love for you to follow this blog. I share information and inspiration to help you turn health challenges into health opportunities.
Add your name to the subscribe box to be notified of new posts by email. Click the link to read the post and browse other content. It’s that simple. No spam.
I enjoy seeing who is new to Watercress Words. When you subscribe, I will visit your blog or website. Thanks and see you next time.
Dr. Aletha
Use these links to share the heart of health wherever you connect.
Written especially for Baby Boomers-those of us born between 1946 and 1964- Courage for the Unknown Season offers sound advice and encouragement to anyone who wants to be prepared for aging. For those younger, it will help you understand and deal with the challenges your parents and grandparents are encountering now;
Even though Jan Silvious titled her book, Courage for the Unknown Season, we know what that season is-the season of aging and its inevitable, relentless progression toward death.
We’ve seen it, some of us are already in it, and it can be a scary place, with many unknowns other than the end. Jan refuses to let aging intimidate her, and wrote this book to help others take on our fear of aging, loss, illness, disability, and death with confidence and hope.
She starts the book with a chapter titled “Resilience”, followed soon by “Fight Fear”. She advises us “Don’t Forget to Laugh”, and to “Clean Up after Yourself”- that is, deal with our personal possessions so our family doesn’t have to when we are gone.
I ‘m glad she offers practical tips on staying healthy that she learned from a physician friend. In the chapter “Head Toward Ninety” she lists several steps to maintain wellness-
exercise
adequate sleep
health promoting food
pursue a healthy mind and spirit
“READ, STAY CURIOUS, FORGIVE, DROP THE BITTERNESS, AND PURSUE PEACE.”
She points us to Psalm 92 from the Bible, and suggests meditating on it to gain a “wealth of spiritual health.”
“It is good to give thanks to the Lord And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning And Your faithfulness by night,
For You, O Lord, have made me glad by what You have done, I will sing for joy at the works of Your hands.”
Later, she takes us by the hand, without mincing words about the pain we will experience with loss, and walks us through steps to navigate “Grief and Hope”.
Jan uses examples from her life, her family, friends, and colleagues of using our later years to cherish old memories while continuing to make new ones. She doesn’t try to convince us that aging isn’t painful, but encourages us to find new ways to find joy and fulfillment when the old ways are no longer possible.
Why you should read this book
Written especially for Baby Boomers-those of us born between 1946 and 1964- Courage for the Unknown Seasonoffers sound advice and encouragement to anyone who wants to be prepared for aging. For those younger, it will help you understand and deal with the challenges your parents and grandparents are encountering now; but stow away a copy for 10, 20, 30 or more years when you will appreciate its wisdom for your own life.
I enjoyed reading it since I have or am experiencing much of what she discusses, and her perspective validates my own. For those things I have yet to encounter, I appreciate her suggestions and warnings.
“NO MATTER WHAT SEASON YOU ARE IN, THERE ARE TRUTHS THAT CAN HELP YOU APPROACH THE UNKNOWN WITH CONFIDENCE AND HOPE.
TRUST THAT GOD IS THE GOD OF OUR SEASON, NO MATTER WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE, NO MATTER HOW UNKNOWN.”
Jan Silvious is a long-time speaker, professional life coach, wife, mother, and grandmother. She is author of eleven books, including Big Girls Don’t Whine and Fool-Proofing Your Life. Jan and her husband, Charlie, live in Tennessee, and have three grown sons, two daughters-in-love, five charming grandchildren and a very bright rescued pit-bull, Rocky-Buddy.
Jan Silvious, author
Disclosure: I read an advance review copy of this book which I received complimentary from Tyndale via NetGalley in return for writing a review.
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sharing the HEART of health with faith, hope, and love
Faith ,Hope ,and Love
(1 Corinthians 13:13)
Dr. Aletha
Use these links to share the heart of health wherever you connect.
watercress words by Dr Aletha 