DON'T EVER GIVE UP
2023-01-18 Book Review: Tracing the Relational Roots of Happiness By Joshua C. Kendall For generations, academics in psychiatry have focused primarily on understanding and treating mental illness. As Sigmund Freud put it in his influential formulation more than a hundred years ago, the goal of psychoanalysis was to transform “hysterical misery into common unhappiness.” Likewise, […]
The Cruelty of Children: Alden Nowlen’s Poem Child of Tabu Children can be so cruel. How often have we heard this sentiment expressed and there is the rare person who does not harbour some dark memory of personal experience with this kind of cruelty? Alden Nowlan’s poem “Child of Tabu” expresses this sentiment, […]
A Journey Through 1980s Music By Tanya Fillbrook Silly ’soppy poppy’ sounds running through your brain? No! I, a listener to the top ’40’ since the early 1980s, remember, and still listen to the best performing talent around. From the early synthesizer sound and disco vibes in between, to a plethora of amazing […]
Book Review: The Magic and Mystery of Human Cells by Sara Harrison In his latest book, the oncologist and acclaimed writer Siddhartha Mukherjee focuses his narrative microscope on the cell, the elementary building block from which complex systems and life itself emerge. It is the coordination of cells that allow hearts to beat, the specialization […]
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie By: Philip Spires It is not often that a novel comes to hand that has been prized, praised and pre-inflated. Half of a Yellow Sun was in that category when I opened it and began to read. And I was captivated immediately. I read the […]
2022-10-31 Book Review: How Motherhood Alters the Brain by Elizabeth Landau When health journalist Chelsea Conaboy told other mothers that she was writing a book about neuroscience and motherhood, they thought she would get to the bottom of the forgetfulness and disorganization they think of as “mommy brain.” In her words, “their own brain feels […]
2022-10-03 Book Review: The Unraveling of California’s Power Grid By Emily Cataneo In 1999, a crisis roiled Pacific Gas and Electric, one of California’s three major utility companies. An attempt to deregulate the company had backfired as predatory traders purposely manipulated the market for profit, causing prices to soar for consumers and the company to […]
2022-09-24 Book Review: How We Make Sense of Mental Illness By Elizabeth Svoboda At 6 years old, Rachel Aviv entered the hospital because she refused to eat. Six weeks later, her doctors discharged her, and she went on to have a mostly normal childhood. But decades on, her sojourn through the mental health treatment universe […]
2022-09-19 Book Review: Exploring the Root of What Ails Us by Rachel Nuwer When physician Gabor Maté published “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction” in 2009, most doctors, he wrote, still viewed addiction as a disease determined primarily through genetics, or as something that stems from lack of willpower. Maté argued […]
To Kill A Mocking Bird By Bran Wambugu When asked what fictional character I relate to, who has influenced and inspired me, I immediately turn to Atticus Finch from the book To Kill a Mockingbird. Finch was a prominent citizen and lawyer in the town of Maycomb, Alabama. In a time of racism, […]