A feel-good book of hope and wonder that will appeal most to readers who believe in divine intervention.
A generous collection of nonfiction medical stories from distinguished doctors.
Illinois doctor and debut author Kolbaba draws on three years’ worth of interviews with more than 200 physicians to deliver this book of extraordinary anecdotes about patients that doctors “could not explain medically.” The stories are, by turns, emotional, inspirational, and incredible, and they highlight the medical community’s patience, care, and dedication to public health. The book opens with Kolbaba’s own modest, briskly written history, covering his early days as a student who received discouraging advice from the dean of a Chicago medical school, to his thriving, 35-year career as a practicing physician. In this introduction, he notes that “holding the hand of a distressed patient…telling a bad joke to lighten up the often somber mood…or saying a prayer with a spiritual family are the intangibles in medicine that help heal the human spirit.” He also shares a few resonant patient-care stories from his own practice. The first set of other physicians’ tales tell of apparent godly interventions when modern medicine wasn’t enough. These are followed by haunting stories of people who say that they had helpful visions of deceased relatives, near-death experiences, and moments of eerie coincidence. Elsewhere are recollections of seemingly miraculous recoveries and healings. One may read this book in a single sitting, or one may savior the individual stories one by one for quick dashes of inspiration. Many of the tales tap into the need for human empathy that nearly everyone feels when injured or ill. That said, the collection as a whole is often spiritually heavy-handed, which may alienate irreligious readers, and many entries are just a few scant pages long, which will leave some people wanting more details. Still, this uplifting volume does successfully capture “the true essence of the doctor’s experience,” as it promises.
A feel-good book of hope and wonder that will appeal most to readers who believe in divine intervention.Pub Date: July 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5308-4157-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A book stemming from a passionate cause that misses its mark.
An amateur homesteader from Vermont fights the federal government in a grassroots effort to defeat a program designed to track the whereabouts and movements of farm animals.
Maddie Gillman did not always live on 12 acres of land. She did not always have a horse, chickens, pigs and dogs to feed every morning, summer or winter. When God told her to accept His gift of land, she gave up her metropolitan lifestyle and switched to rural living. Now she believes her way of life is threatened by a government program called National Animal Identification System (NAIS), which calls for animal owners to register their properties and animals for inclusion in a database, to track animals in case of disease outbreak. The program would also require owners to report whenever animals cross property lines. Maddie and her activist colleagues insist that the program will drive small farmers into bankruptcy–also at stake are the civil liberties of owners who do not sell any animal products and the religious freedom of owners who fear the tags are the mark of the beast. Zecchinelli calls her book a novel, but no elements of a novel are evident. There is no attempt at character development, no subplots and few setting descriptions. While the book begins with a promising account of the protagonist’s morning routine, the text soon devolves into a blow-by-blow account of the political process surrounding NAIS and Maddie’s attempts to derail it. Almost every line of dialogue exists to impart information and never escapes that stiff framework–there’s insufficient beauty in the language. Fellow protesters will enjoy reading about their efforts, but the layperson may not understand why Maddie is fighting so hard. The author tends to assume readers are aware of the program and the voices against it, but it may take an Internet search for readers to find real clarity.
A book stemming from a passionate cause that misses its mark.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-4404-5443-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A bewildering, sometimes brilliant work of alternative history, cosmology and religion.
Alternative theology that laments the rise of science and materialism in contemporary culture.
Written as a kind of philosophical soliloquy, Bahchevanov (The Parallel World, 2007) wastes no time introducing his paranormal world. For a three-year stretch, his neighbor was Mrs. G.P. Not your grandmother’s medium, Mrs. G.P. had achieved contact with no mere splash of ectoplasm, but extraterrestrial creature Mo. The veracity of Mrs. G.P. was never in question as Mo had an uncanny fluency with the personal details of its contactees–the entity even divulged certain information about a Football World Cup. Mo isn’t necessarily the wellspring of all of Bahchevanov’s ideas, but Mo and Poo (the name for an assortment of transcendental beings) are certainly big players in his cosmic scheme. It’s admittedly intriguing, but the book has an uncomfortable relationship with traditional science and argumentation that, at times, works against the author’s hypothesis. It’s apparent in several passages that Bahchevanov is not a native writer of English or perhaps just a creative one lacking an editor. His voice is powerful and obviously intelligent, so the book isn’t ruined by some unique lexical decisions. The problem is the rhetoric. When he dismisses the traditional historical interpretations of the Easter Island moai, it results in a denigration and co-option of the aesthetic and engineering achievements only the Rapanui artists and engineers rightfully claim. Burgling megalithic monuments from various civilizations only to buttress an encyclopedic pastiche of new-age spiritualism and fringe archaeology is both too banal to be interesting and too insulting to take seriously. The author consistently reminds us that the book is dedicated to “the Creator,” but the creators of the magisterial pre-Colombian civilizations are conveniently reduced to their myths–only scant glances are cast at their authentic archaeological and linguistic mysteries. Everything, of course, was built by aliens or gods. However, these problems of slipshod arguments don’t obscure the well-intentioned vision of a more peaceful, thoughtful existence for all humankind. It’s just the details aren’t that convincing.
A bewildering, sometimes brilliant work of alternative history, cosmology and religion.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2008
ISBN: 978-1439209899
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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