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BEDSIDE MANNERS

Name: BEDSIDE MANNERS
Author: David Watts
ISBN: 1-4000-8051-7

ONE DOCTOR’S REFLECTIONS ON THE ODDLY INTIMATE ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN PATIENT AND HEALER

by David Watts ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 8, 2005

Undeniably compelling, but chilling for those who are even somewhat expect the worst.

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Economical vignettes follow a doctor’s interior life as he goes about the business of diagnosing.

California-based Watts, a regular NPR commentator, has taken the world of gastroenterology, with its scopes and intestines and tests no one wants to take, and teased out the essential truths at its heart. He may have his medical degree, but he has also long been a poet, and here the doctor presents accounts of his work and his patients that summon up all the awe and wonder that still characterize the field of medicine. Most concerned with the interaction between patient and doctor, Watts considers the things that people say and don’t say, what they worry about and what concerns him, as their physician. He recalls the time he calmed a patient by reciting one of his own poems, and helped another simply by listening to her talk about her daughter. He gives a very short, stunningly effective account of a tracheotomy patient who, while fully conscious, is suffocated through a nurse’s carelessness. Recounting the first time he sutured a wound, Watts gives equal time to the mechanics of sewing and the fact that the patient won’t file charges against his assailant. Equally stirring are the doctor’s accounts of dealing with managed care; he distills his interactions with the pencil-pushers to their maddening essence, requiring just a few pages to leave the reader incensed at the pettiness and lunacy of today’s health insurance industry. While Watts can occasionally lean too heavily toward the sentimental, the work as a whole is balanced. But a caveat for hypochondriacs: Reading this may produce a whole new set of anxieties. Since life and death are waiting every time a doctor goes into the office, some of Watts’s accounts are about people who didn’t make it.

Undeniably compelling, but chilling for those who are even somewhat expect the worst.

Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2005

ISBN: 1-4000-8051-7

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Harmony

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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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

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.