A difficult but rewarding look at a major scientific dispute.
A historical account of the debate over the cause of Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s is both debilitating and near ubiquitous; if one lives long enough, Broxmeyer (Autism, 2014, etc.) observes, the odds are high that one will suffer some iteration of it. He also notes that Alois Alzheimer, the scientist after whom the disease is named, likely contributed as much as anyone to the general confusion regarding its precise nature. In 1901, Broxmeyer says, Alzheimer examined Auguste Deter—a woman suffering from diminished memory and behavioral abnormality—and seemed determined to avoid implicating tuberculosis even though the potential link between the two was clear. At the start of the 20th century, TB was troublingly common, but Alzheimer insisted that whatever infectious disease caused the newly discovered malady was itself altogether new. However, the author points out, German neuropathologist Oskar Fischer observed in autopsies that brains addled with Alzheimer’s disease also exhibited a germ associated with TB. Later, it would be discovered that tubercular microbes could generate amyloid fibrils very similar to those found in the Alzheimer’s-related plaques and seemed to affect the brain’s immune cells in the same way. The author is an internist and a medical researcher, and his double mastery of both the scientific minutiae and historical nuances of his subject matter is breathtaking. This is more than an account of a scientific debate—it’s also an examination of the sometimes-unempirical way that such debate proceeds, as it’s conducted by human beings with agendas of their own. The science in this book can be formidably complex, and although Broxmeyer seems to make a concerted effort toward clarity, his work isn’t for the casual layperson. As a result, although it’s a relatively short book—less than 200 pages of text—it is by no means a quick read. Nevertheless, readers with strong science backgrounds will be impressed by the author’s undeniable competence, as well as his journalistic approach to chartering the evolution of thought regarding one of our era’s most challenging diseases.
A difficult but rewarding look at a major scientific dispute.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4912-8735-4
Page Count: 190
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An exhaustive and exhausting marriage of Austen's Pride and a modern reader’s analysis of it.
A mammoth edition, including the novel, illustrations, maps, a chronology, and bibliography, but mostly thousands of annotations that run the gamut from revealing to ridiculous.
New editions of revered works usually exist either to dumb down or to illuminate the original. Since its appearance in 1813, Austen's most famous work has spawned numerous illustrated and abridged versions geared toward younger readers, as well as critical editions for the scholarly crowd. One would think that this three-pounder would fall squarely in the latter camp based on heft alone. But for various other reasons, Shapard's edition is not so easily boxed. Where Austen's work aimed at a wide spectrum of the 19th-century reading audience, Shapard's seems geared solely toward young lit students. No doubt conceived with the notion of highlighting Austen's brilliance, the 2,000-odd annotations–printed throughout on pages facing the novel's text–often end up dwarfing it. This sort of arrangement, which would work extremely well as hypertext, is disconcerting on the printed page. The notes range from helpful glosses of obscure terms to sprawling expositions on the perils awaiting the character at hand. At times, his comments are so frequent and encyclopedic that one might be tempted to dispense with Austen altogether; in fact, the author's prefatory note under "plot disclosures" kindly suggests that first-time readers might "prefer to read the text of the novel first, and then to read the annotations and introduction." Those with a term paper due in the morning might skip ahead to the eight-page chronology–not of Austen's life, but of the novel's plot–at the back. In the end, Shapard's herculean labor of love comes off as more scholastic than scholarly.
An exhaustive and exhausting marriage of Austen's Pride and a modern reader’s analysis of it.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-9745053-0-7
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.
Frey’s lacerating, intimate debut chronicles his recovery from multiple addictions with adrenal rage and sprawling prose.
After ten years of alcoholism and three years of crack addiction, the 23-year-old author awakens from a blackout aboard a Chicago-bound airplane, “covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood.” While intoxicated, he learns, he had fallen from a fire escape and damaged his teeth and face. His family persuades him to enter a Minnesota clinic, described as “the oldest Residential Drug and Alcohol Facility in the World.” Frey’s enormous alcohol habit, combined with his use of “Cocaine . . . Pills, acid, mushrooms, meth, PCP and glue,” make this a very rough ride, with the DTs quickly setting in: “The bugs crawl onto my skin and they start biting me and I try to kill them.” Frey captures with often discomforting acuity the daily grind and painful reacquaintance with human sensation that occur in long-term detox; for example, he must undergo reconstructive dental surgery without anesthetic, an ordeal rendered in excruciating detail. Very gradually, he confronts the “demons” that compelled him towards epic chemical abuse, although it takes him longer to recognize his own culpability in self-destructive acts. He effectively portrays the volatile yet loyal relationships of people in recovery as he forms bonds with a damaged young woman, an addicted mobster, and an alcoholic judge. Although he rejects the familiar 12-step program of AA, he finds strength in the principles of Taoism and (somewhat to his surprise) in the unflinching support of family, friends, and therapists, who help him avoid a relapse. Our acerbic narrator conveys urgency and youthful spirit with an angry, clinical tone and some initially off-putting prose tics—irregular paragraph breaks, unpunctuated dialogue, scattered capitalization, few commas—that ultimately create striking accruals of verisimilitude and plausible human portraits.
Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.Pub Date: April 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50775-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
BOOK TO SCREEN
4 Book Adaptations to Check Out In December
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