The Seated View

Martin Pistorius was 12 years old when he got sick. Over the next year, he gradually lost function of his body, his speech, and his mind. The doctors did not know what was wrong with him, but treated him for a bit of everything with no effect. At the end, they told his parents that he had the cognitive ability of a three month old child, and likely had no more than two years to live. They also said his parents should take him home to die. A few years after that, Martin started waking up, becoming aware of his surroundings and regaining his mind. Unfortunately, he did not regain the use of his body, so no one knew that he was back to being himself again. This lasted more than 10 years. Once he was in his early 20s, one of his caregivers noticed that he was responding as she spoke to him. She persuaded his parents to get him tested again and this was the start of his journey with augmentative communication and regaining part of his physical ability. Ghost Boy: The M...

It's been forever since I posted a book review and I'm not quite sure why. It's not that I haven't read good books — I have and plenty of them — but every time I finished a book worthy of a review, several days would pass in a flurry of work stuff and the moment passed. It turns out that a review should be written pretty close to finishing whatever you're reviewing. A variety of circumstances have conspired to give me some extra free time right after reading a good book and not surprisingly, the book that prompted this review is by Stephen King. I seem to recall that I often review his latest book. Joyland is King's experiment with a fairly straightforward and old-fashioned thriller (cue the cover)  Of course, being Stephen King, there is a teensy bit of the supernatural element. The story is a trip down memory lane, "written" by a man in his 50s about a summer job in 1973 that turned into so much more. Devon Jones — one of the thin...

I never had an answer to the question that gets sent around in e-mail every now and again. You know the one - "if you could choose any person from history to talk to for an hour, who would it be?" Everybody wants to talk to Buddha, Jesus or JFK and I've no idea what I would ask any of those people. However, after reading Woody Holton's biography of Abigail Adams , I want to meet her. And not just for an hour, either. Abigail Adams: A Life by Woody Holton is a book that tells the story of Abigail, her family and friends and the beginnings of the United States. It does so in a remarkable way, telling the story through quotes from the letters written by Abigail, as well as the correspondence she received from others. These quotes are strung together by the connecting thread of Holton interspersing explanations about the era's social mores, politics, literature, religions, etc., and it all comes together in a meticulous and beautiful painting of a life...