An optimistic, ruminative appreciation for the art, the power, and the cultivation of human healing.
In this memoir, a man with Crohn’s disease reflects on a lifetime spent attenuating symptoms using a combination of modern medicine and an intuitive, holistic healing approach.
When Cohen, a gender and sexuality studies professor at Rutgers University, was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at the age of 13, he feared it would compromise him medically (and psychologically) forever. The author recalls being somberly advised that a lifetime of immunosuppressive medication and “periods of remission” were the best scenarios modern medicine could offer. In his early 20s as a graduate student in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1982, Cohen witnessed the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Since he was a young, gay man, a life-threatening intestinal attack was initially (and wrongly) perceived as an HIV infection. From that grueling Crohn’s episode came a radical, “miraculous,” “out-of-body” epiphany and a newfound appreciation for learning the art of self-healing. With an appealing mixture of intellectual prose, spirited perspective, and refreshing honesty, Cohen shares how, over a four-decade timeline, he nurtured a desire and a respect for the healing process and how nature (specifically trees) aided him on his wellness journey. He argues that the “Western understandings of therapeutic action” have steered modern medicine toward a quick, biochemical, “fix it” modality, discouraging patients from fostering their own abilities to learn to heal. This discussion as well as a deep dive into daily life with Crohn’s disease will find wide appeal with readers who consider modern medical care frustrating. Denser, divergent, referential deliberations on the history of medicine and clinical practice as well as ambiguous philosophies on the nature of illness will appeal more to academics. In A Body Worth Defending (2009), Cohen explored biological immunity, biopolitics, and “the apotheosis of the modern body.” In this book, he shifts his gaze toward how people can tap into their own intrinsic capacities to heal in conjunction with skilled clinical care and curative technologies. He stresses that self-healing needs to be encouraged at every level of health care delivery and promoted as another weapon in the biological arsenal against chronic illness. Cohen persuasively champions the benefits of therapeutic, reparative healing and the vital roles it plays in overall wellness.
An optimistic, ruminative appreciation for the art, the power, and the cultivation of human healing.Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781478016670
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Duke Univ.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 13, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An engaging, revealing look at the wild world of the Wu-Tang Clan and beyond.
A memoir from one of hip-hop’s most inventive stylists.
As a member of the Wu-Tang Clan and throughout his solo career, Dennis Coles (b. 1970), aka Ghostface Killah, has been one of the most creative rappers in the game. In this deeply personal text, the author narrates his life story through 15 of his songs. It’s a testament to the richness of his rhymes to see him communicate the same thoughts and feelings in a handful of couplets as he does in a full chapter of prose. Sure, Ghostface offers more context and details in each chapter, whether he’s writing about the struggles of his youth that inspired “All That I Got Is You” or his time selling drugs in “Poisonous Darts,” but that is also a little too straightforward for such a creative artist. Ghostface occasionally uses graphic-novel techniques to make some points, and he turns over the narrative to friends and colleagues to make others. There is no sanitizing of his history here. Ghostface is frank about his drug use, his arrests and time in jail, and his health issues—especially how his diabetes can affect his performances and creativity. He also takes time to educate people about the problems in the music industry, what Islam means to his life and his art, and the impact of slavery and racism on hip-hop and America. “My ancestors used to get whipped, and the rest of the slaves had to sit out there and watch them get whipped until they died,” he writes. “When I watched George Floyd die, it felt like that.” His expansive thoughts on any number of topics are fascinating whether you follow hip-hop or not. The book is vividly designed, featuring pull quotes, sidebars, and color photos.
An engaging, revealing look at the wild world of the Wu-Tang Clan and beyond.Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 9781250274274
Page Count: 240
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.
Jackie Kennedy's secret service agent Hill and co-author McCubbin team up for a follow-up to Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) in this well-illustrated narrative of those five days 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Since Hill was part of the secret service detail assigned to protect the president and his wife, his firsthand account of those days is unique. The chronological approach, beginning before the presidential party even left the nation's capital on Nov. 21, shows Kennedy promoting his “New Frontier” policy and how he was received by Texans in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth before his arrival in Dallas. A crowd of more than 8,000 greeted him in Houston, and thousands more waited until 11 p.m. to greet the president at his stop in Fort Worth. Photographs highlight the enthusiasm of those who came to the airports and the routes the motorcades followed on that first day. At the Houston Coliseum, Kennedy addressed the leaders who were building NASA for the planned moon landing he had initiated. Hostile ads and flyers circulated in Dallas, but the president and his wife stopped their motorcade to respond to schoolchildren who held up a banner asking the president to stop and shake their hands. Hill recounts how, after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots, he jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine. He was present at Parkland Hospital, where the president was declared dead, and on the plane when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. Hill also reports the funeral procession and the ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. “[Kennedy] would have not wanted his legacy, fifty years later, to be a debate about the details of his death,” writes the author. “Rather, he would want people to focus on the values and ideals in which he so passionately believed.”
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3149-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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