Book review: Brain on Fire, by Susannah Cahalan (Amazon / Book Depository) The mind is like a circuit of Christmas tree lights. When the brain works well, all of the lights twinkle brilliantly, and it’s adaptable enough that, often, even if one bulb goes out, the rest will still shine on. But depending on where the damage is, sometimes that one blown bulb can make … Continue reading The Inflamed Brain and The Unreliable Narrator
Book review: For Single Mothers Working as Train Conductors, by Laura Esther Wolfson (Amazon / Book Depository) Laura Esther Wolfson’s essay collection, the Iowa Prize in Literary Nonfiction winner, is composed of dreamy, reflectional, sometimes confessional pieces of memoir. An interpreter and translator by profession, the idea of translation and the role of language in life, love, questions of identity, relationships, and everyday interpersonal interactions … Continue reading Love, Loss and Languages We Spoke
Book review: In the Darkroom, by Susan Faludi (Amazon / Book Depository) Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, author, and feminist Susan Faludi received an email out of the blue in 2004, from her father whom she’s been estranged from for 27 years. He informed her that he’d undergone sex reassignment surgery, and was now known as Stefánie. Shocked and intrigued, Susan rekindled the relationship, traveling to Budapest, her … Continue reading Tracing Gender and Identity, in Budapest and Beyond
