by Pavlos Sakkas ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
Roaming, conversational musings on psychiatry principles and phenomena.
Debut author Sakkas, a medical doctor, uses the circumstances of his own patients to support his opinions on brain disorders and other issues.
The book begins with a section called “The Human Brain: an admirable computer,” which focuses on four main functions: the brain’s vast abilities in memory; its ability as a “search engine”; its nerve-cell plasticity and facility in creating new brain networks; and human habits or “programmes.” The author then outlines his knowledge and opinions on various diseases and disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, mania, anorexia nervosa, and dementia using his own memorable cases as support. In later chapters, he addresses such issues as narcotics abuse, divorce, and suicide, among others. The book’s overall structure lacks the organization that one might find in a more traditional textbook on the same topics. Instead, it has a conversational style, with passages often blooming from lingering thoughts put forward in previous chapters. Readers may find merit in how Sakkas is depicted as something like a village doctor, often showing warm regard for his patients. But although the book aims for a colloquial tone, its lack of references and endnotes calls into question its metaphorical contemplations. A section on schizophrenia, for example, compares the illness to a “tiny short-circuit,” an observation that could be construed as reductive. The same section may also be somewhat divisive, as the author espouses a lack of sympathy for society’s expressions of shock and mourning after major, violent massacres by schizophrenics, referring to such reactions as “crocodile tears shed to cover what is in essence the indifference of society toward the disabled.” This statement is well-meaning, as it asks readers to contemplate the idea that modern cultures often perpetuate stigmas about mental illness or ignore it altogether. However, its gruff tone regarding a sensitive issue may cause some readers to balk.
Roaming, conversational musings on psychiatry principles and phenomena.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Stergiou Limited
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
by Eirini Togia , Pavlos Sakkas and George Moustakas
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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