Illness as Many Narratives: Arts, Medicine and Culture by Stella Bolaki. Published by Edinburgh University Press, 2016. Reviewed by Birgit Bunzel Linder Stella Bolaki’s Illness as Many Narratives introduces several instructive case studies that squarely fit into the critical mode of the second wave of the medical humanities. Drawing on diverse arts […]
Category: Book Reviews
Book Review: The Snake in the Clinic
Guy Dargert, The Snake in the Clinic: Psychotherapy’s Role in Medicine and Healing. London: Karnac, 2016 Reviewed by Dr Jane Slater The best review of a book is unlikely to be written by an enthusiast, so I need to confess upfront that this book blew me away. The first time I read […]
Book Review: True Tales of Organisational Life
True Tales of Organisational Life Barbara-Anne Wren Karnac Books Ltd, 2016 ISBN-13: 978-1-78220-189-2 Reviewed by Dr Andrew Schuman It’s stories, the psychologist Barbara-Anne Wren reminds us, “that will hold us when nothing else can”. They are humankind’s most effective way of making sense of the world – of organising and giving “a […]
Book Review: This Way Madness Lies.
This Way Madness Lies. Madness and Beyond. By Mike Jay. London: Thames and Hudson, 2016. Reviewed by Dr Allan Beveridge Published to accompany the recent Wellcome Collection Exhibition, ‘Bedlam: the asylum and beyond’, this book is packed with over 600 photographs and illustrations drawn from the archives of institutions in Europe and America, […]
Book Review: Thinking in Cases
Thinking in Cases by John Forrester. Published by Polity, 2016. Reviewed by Dr Neil Vickers John Forrester, who died in 2015, was the most original historian of the human sciences of his generation. His great love was the history of psychoanalysis – he was for 10 years the editor of the journal History […]
Book Review: The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities
The Edinburgh Companion to the Critical Medical Humanities edited by Anne Whitehead and Angela Woods (general editors) with Sarah Atkinson, Jane Macnaughton and Jennifer Richards (associate editors). Published by Edinburgh University Press, 2016. Reviewed by Josie Billington, University of Liverpool ‘Critical medical humanities’, say the editors of this volume, marks a ‘second wave’ […]
Book Review: Re-Thinking Autism
Re-Thinking Autism: Diagnosis, Identity and Equality. Runswick-Cole, Katherine, Mallett, Rebecca, and Sami Timimi (Eds.). London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 2016. Reviewed by Jennifer S. Singh Assistant Professor of Sociology at Georgia Tech and author of Multiple Autisms: Spectrums of Advocacy and Genomic Science Is any stable and enduring definition of autism possible? […]
Book Review: A Smell of Burning
A Smell of Burning By Colin Grant London: Jonathan Cape, 2016 Reviewed by Dr Maria Vaccarella, University of Bristol Colin Grant’s A Smell of Burning conveys a powerful message: being diagnosed with epilepsy means being associated with an intricate and captivating cultural history. Patients and families are connected to centuries of […]
Poetry Book Review: Owen Lewis’s Best Man
Best Man by Owen Lewis. Dos Madres press, 2015 Reviewed by Wendy French. Best Man has just been awarded first prize in the Jean Pedrick Chapbook prize from the New England Poetry Club. When you read the poems you can certainly understand why Lewis’s work has received this recognition. Edward Hirsch’s epigraph features at the […]
Science Fiction Book Review: Spaceship Medic
The theme for the next issue of Medical Humanities is Science Fiction. There are many online articles already available on the theme (see Related Reading below). A Spaceship in Trouble: Reflections on Harry Harrison’s Spaceship Medic. Puffin books, 1976 Kindle version currently available Reviewed by Matthew Castleden Lieutenant Donald Chase, a […]