Describe your latest book/project/work. I've been studying the life and work of photographer W. Eugene Smith for 13 years. My first book (Dream...
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In _look me in the eye_, John Elder Robison gives a compelling, heartbreaking, humorous, and intensely honest account of what it was like for him growing up with Asperger's syndrome in a world hinged on "normalcy." Beautifully written, the story of Robison's struggle to fit in is an enlightening tour of a point of view that is becoming more and more common (statistics show a continuing increase in the incidence of Asperger's and other autism-spectrum disorders). You probably know an Aspergian. You probably don't understand him (or her). You should.
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An infant dies in a slum in London, and within hours every block, nearly every house, are filled with the sick and dying. The word goes out. _Cholera_.
In the London of the 1850s, cholera was a terrifying disease, spreading quickly and killing quickly. Popular theories blamed its spread on "miasma," the noxious essences of life, basically tracing illness to things that smelled bad. Poverty, with its close living conditions and accompanying smells, was equated with depravity, and even God was invoked as the power behind cholera's sweeping judgements.
In this atmosphere, in a crowded Victorian neighborhood in a city poised to make significant upgrades to its sewage and water-delivery systems, two men walked among the sick, independently offering what they could. One was a clergyman named Whitehead; the other a scientist named Snow. Their activities, though separate, would intertwine to slowly strangle the myth of miasma.
In _The Ghost Map_, Steven Johnson has written both a compelling page-turner of a story, and a fascinating historical study of a significant event at the threshhold of modern medical understanding.
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Janna Mauldin Heiner has commented on (2) products.
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison
Janna Mauldin Heiner, April 12, 2008
In _look me in the eye_, John Elder Robison gives a compelling, heartbreaking, humorous, and intensely honest account of what it was like for him growing up with Asperger's syndrome in a world hinged on "normalcy." Beautifully written, the story of Robison's struggle to fit in is an enlightening tour of a point of view that is becoming more and more common (statistics show a continuing increase in the incidence of Asperger's and other autism-spectrum disorders). You probably know an Aspergian. You probably don't understand him (or her). You should.(13 of 22 readers found this comment helpful)
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
Janna Mauldin Heiner, January 6, 2007
An infant dies in a slum in London, and within hours every block, nearly every house, are filled with the sick and dying. The word goes out. _Cholera_.In the London of the 1850s, cholera was a terrifying disease, spreading quickly and killing quickly. Popular theories blamed its spread on "miasma," the noxious essences of life, basically tracing illness to things that smelled bad. Poverty, with its close living conditions and accompanying smells, was equated with depravity, and even God was invoked as the power behind cholera's sweeping judgements.
In this atmosphere, in a crowded Victorian neighborhood in a city poised to make significant upgrades to its sewage and water-delivery systems, two men walked among the sick, independently offering what they could. One was a clergyman named Whitehead; the other a scientist named Snow. Their activities, though separate, would intertwine to slowly strangle the myth of miasma.
In _The Ghost Map_, Steven Johnson has written both a compelling page-turner of a story, and a fascinating historical study of a significant event at the threshhold of modern medical understanding.
(33 of 62 readers found this comment helpful)