by Arnold Arem ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2002
Thorough, informative, and warmly human.
A surgeon portrays the versatility and intricate anatomy of the human hand, as well as the terrible things that can go wrong with it.
A hand is “the Rosetta stone of the soul,” according to Arem (Surgery/Univ. of New Mexico; Clinical Associate/Univ. of Arizona College of Medicine). More than 20 years as a hand surgeon have not dimmed his fascination with and awe of this unique appendage, and he shares his enthusiasm here. First, he tells the stories of 11 patients who have come to him for repair of injuries or deformities. In each, the personality of the patient and accompanying family members or friends are as much a part of the story as the hand and its treatment. Rather than the aloof surgeon of stereotype, Arem listens closely to people’s concerns. He is at heart a teacher, making sure his patients understand what has happened to them, what he will try to do for them, and what they must do for themselves. Similarly, as he describes each surgical procedure, he explains to the reader what he hopes to accomplish, what the problems are, and how he will handle them. Cases include creating an opposable thumb for a child born without one, salvaging hands nearly destroyed by gangrene or ravaged by rheumatic disease, and dealing with rattlesnake-bitten or machinery-mangled fingers. Less dramatic but no less interesting are cases involving carpal-tunnel syndrome and psychosomatic illness. In Part Two, “An Informal History of the Hand,” Arem briefly touches on the language of gestures, the physiology of touch, left-handedness, palmistry, phantom limb pain, skin grafting, prostheses, the special significance of the thumb, and the nature of carpal-tunnel and rheumatoid disease.
Thorough, informative, and warmly human.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2002
ISBN: 0-8050-7179-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2002
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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