These meandering stories remain memorable and rewarding, collectively dovetailing with universal lessons about love, family,...
A retired physician reflects on his practice, personal history, and experience of medical intervention from a patient’s perspective.
After being an admired and respected doctor for well over three decades, debut author Short became sidelined in 2012 at age 61 by an enduring illness and found himself with an abundance of time yet little inclination to create anything beyond morning coffee. Several years later, initially motivated to write a book for his children and grandchildren, he began to organize anecdotes from his life and long-standing clinical practice, expanding the theme and scope of his opinions and experiences to encompass a more “general audience.” Short’s endearing stories flash back to his life growing up in rural southeastern Kansas on a dairy farm, falling in love with the countryside, embodying the “monster man” on his high school football squad, participating in random collegiate antics, and getting a devastating pre-leukemia diagnosis during his 20s with a poor prognosis. Even with the precarious nature of his health through the forthcoming decades, the author stoically persevered; courted and married his wife, Mary Jane; and continued thriving in his medical practice until his condition forced him into an early retirement. Employing a free-flowing conversational tone throughout, the author engages readers with wit, insight, and breezy opinions, most notably when discussing human biology and medical intervention, the benefits and pitfalls of risk-taking, and more superficial topics (much akin to Andy Rooney) like personal-computer proficiency, time, dishonesty, and his affinity for self-deprecating humor. More critical meditations on particularly serpentine malpractice lawsuits, however, develop into lengthy, elaborately detailed case studies. They unfortunately form the weakest parts of the memoir, particularly if the reader is not medically inclined. Applicable to most readers will be Short’s patient case histories, which oscillate from the joyful to the poignant and palliative. Even though the book can be rambling and haphazardly organized, the author’s winning moments of clarity more than make up for the narrative’s shortcomings.
These meandering stories remain memorable and rewarding, collectively dovetailing with universal lessons about love, family, compassion, the misfortune of random calamity, and living life to the fullest.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-78248-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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