The Human Condition Curated
What's New
Martin Kohn on The Cardiologist's Daughter by Natasha Kochicheril Moni
"The Cardiologist's Daughter offers readers a mélange of memories, retelling through poetry how the poet's mixed heritage (East Indian and Dutch) fused into her unique identity-- as a naturopath daughter of an M.D. father and R.N. mother."
Shawn Thomas on From Fish to Philosopher; the story of our internal environment by Homer William Smith
"From Fish to Philosopher serves as another example of the extraordinary insights that are born from interdisciplinary studies. Dr. Smith was a revered medical school professor of physiology, but it is clear from his writing that he had a great deal of interest in other fields as well."
Albert Howard Carter on Communicative Biocapitalism: The Voice of the Patient in Digital Health and the Health Humanities by Olivia Banner
"This is an important contribution that analyzes, critiques, and aims to correct structural inequalities (racism, sexism, capitalism) that influence contemporary medicine…."
Guy Glass on Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum by Kathryn Hughes
"Victorians Undone is no ordinary history book. If you have ever felt dissatisfied by a sterile biography, wondering if its subject actually possessed bodily functions, look no further."
Marilyn McEntyre on The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother's Suicide by Gayle Brandeis
"Inventive, compelling, compassionate, and honest, this book offers a thoughtful exploration of how mental illness involves the whole family, and how an artful, creative and intelligent person who is also delusional can baffle her caregivers."
Russell Teagarden on It's All Right--He Only Died by Raymond Chandler
"Chandler gives us a view into what was going on in American health care during the latter half of the 1950s, or at least what was going on in hospitals. He shows us that even then money was a determinant in whether people could get health care services.”
Albert Howard Carter on Every Note Played by Lisa Genova
"This is a dramatic and moving story about a concert pianist who, at 45 years of age, suddenly and inexplicably, has ALS, and also equally about his ex-wife Karina, who takes on his care throughout his slow, inevitable, and lethal decline."
Marilyn McEntyre on The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble
"Laced with Drabble's dry wit and the main character's occasionally acerbic observations about aging and dying…the novel challenges readers to accept the uneasy terms on which we all get to be here…”
Russell Teagarden on Farinelli and The King by Claire van Kampen
"...the play shows how an illness experience can manifest not just in signs and symptoms, but also in desires, and these desires can lead to ways other than traditional biomedical interventions to help sick people.”
Sebastian Galbo on Consumptive Chic: A History of Beauty, Fashion, and Disease by Carolyn Day
“From the late 18th to mid-19th centuries a peculiar trend swept through European fashion. Through couture and cosmetics, this vogue emulated the physical ravages of a much-feared disease, tuberculosis, aestheticizing its symptoms as enviable qualities of physical beauty.”
Jacalyn Duffin on His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae by Graeme Burnet
"A remarkable novel that is well anchored in the feudalistic, social history of Highland Scotland and in the history of medicine and psychiatry."
Total Database Contents
- 175 Visual Art Annotations
- 2769 Literature Annotations
- 262 Performing Art Annotations
- 97 Artists
- 1764 Authors
- 151 Keywords