I don't like to see children cry, but I couldn't feel much sympathy for the little guy.
I told his mom there was no need to apologize as he sniffled and wept and wiped his nose on his Pokemon T-shirt. The problem? Our library system's Expanded Card let a patron borrow a hundred items. But this boy's mother was playing the Evil Queen and would only let him take fifty.
Description:
Librarians come in all shapes, sizes, and intelligence. Their stories are as fascinating as the information resources they oversee. Witness the life of Josh Hanagarne, the 6'7" librarian at the Salt Lake City Public Library and his daily struggles with library users as well as his own Tourette's Syndrome as recounted in his wry, open, and humorous autobiography, The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family.
Hanagarne is an immediately likable person. Each chapter opens with him dealing with some situation or another in his real life library setting. From a transgender patron arguing to be addressed as a female, to overly amorous couples in the book stacks, to rambunctious children and uninvited dogs at story time, to the user who argued that "Religion" books should not be on the "Nonfiction" shelves, to city council meetings with members who have never visited the library, Josh sees them all and deals with them quietly and thoughtfully.
For me as a former librarian, these funny, sad, and exasperating looks into the world of libraries and their users already satisfy my criteria for a quality read.
But Hanagarne has other stories to tell, particularly dealing with his own early life and the diagnosis of his Tourette's Syndrome. Previously, he is regarded as an ordinary child with a few admitted quirks in his behavior. Even after the diagnosis, his family continues to give him abounding love and strive to help him deal with his tics while they all try to understand this syndrome.
Hanagarne recalls his school days in a small town of Elko, Nevada, his Mormon background, and subsequent "grand search for a partner" starting at age sixteen when he was first allowed to date (an activity he enters into with gusto). He provides an insider view of his training at the Missionary Training Center in preparation for his two-year Mormon mission, the details of which are fascinating, weird, and revealing about the young candidates and the Mormon religion. His Mormon mission experience proves challenging as he tries to preach in a foreign language while struggling with his vocal and physical tics. When he returns from his mission, he lives at home with his parents, enters college, and resumes looking for a partner and his life calling.
All his experiences are made more difficult if not impossible by his increasing Tourette's symptoms. Like a growing sneeze, he can feel the tics building and struggles to suppress them, but they usually overpower his efforts and return again and again. His efforts exhaust his body and mind, hamper his attendance at jobs and school, and discourage romances.
He tries many, many pathways to control these tics, including biting on a small rubber hose, chiropractic adjustments, vitamins, and even botulism toxin injections into his vocal cords to take away his voice for a few weeks so he can sit more quietly in his classrooms.
What eventually gives him peace is weightlifting. During workout periods, he is tic-free and happy. An eccentric, ex-military mentor helps Hanagarne focus himself in the discipline of extreme lifting, and his battle with Tourette's is seemingly conquered...or at least temporarily controlled.
Throughout it all, Hanagarne is a reader, a lover of books who devours everything, including Stephen King and other titles frowned on by his mother and the Mormon faithful. Books provide an escape, an education, and a world he often cannot realize in his actual life. And books eventually lead him to a volunteer and later a paid job in the local library where he also finds peace.
The World's Strongest Librarian is the story of an admirable man's struggle, embarrassment, pain, religion, and unrequited love. But it is also a tale of curiosity, questioning, perseverance, humor, and eventually love. He is an unusual hero in a world of ordinary people, facing and dealing with life as it comes to him, albeit with the wild card of Tourette's affecting everything he does.
Josh Hanagarne is a great storyteller, someone willing to reveal insider secrets to his readers about Mormonism, teen lust, self-discipline, illness, training, and family strength. One cannot help but feel his frustrations, yet constantly laugh at his anecdotes and root for his small and large efforts to triumph and achieve his goals.
A strong book, filled with humor, insight, and real life. Very highly recommended.
Hanagarne is an immediately likable person. Each chapter opens with him dealing with some situation or another in his real life library setting. From a transgender patron arguing to be addressed as a female, to overly amorous couples in the book stacks, to rambunctious children and uninvited dogs at story time, to the user who argued that "Religion" books should not be on the "Nonfiction" shelves, to city council meetings with members who have never visited the library, Josh sees them all and deals with them quietly and thoughtfully.
For me as a former librarian, these funny, sad, and exasperating looks into the world of libraries and their users already satisfy my criteria for a quality read.
But Hanagarne has other stories to tell, particularly dealing with his own early life and the diagnosis of his Tourette's Syndrome. Previously, he is regarded as an ordinary child with a few admitted quirks in his behavior. Even after the diagnosis, his family continues to give him abounding love and strive to help him deal with his tics while they all try to understand this syndrome.
Hanagarne recalls his school days in a small town of Elko, Nevada, his Mormon background, and subsequent "grand search for a partner" starting at age sixteen when he was first allowed to date (an activity he enters into with gusto). He provides an insider view of his training at the Missionary Training Center in preparation for his two-year Mormon mission, the details of which are fascinating, weird, and revealing about the young candidates and the Mormon religion. His Mormon mission experience proves challenging as he tries to preach in a foreign language while struggling with his vocal and physical tics. When he returns from his mission, he lives at home with his parents, enters college, and resumes looking for a partner and his life calling.
All his experiences are made more difficult if not impossible by his increasing Tourette's symptoms. Like a growing sneeze, he can feel the tics building and struggles to suppress them, but they usually overpower his efforts and return again and again. His efforts exhaust his body and mind, hamper his attendance at jobs and school, and discourage romances.
He tries many, many pathways to control these tics, including biting on a small rubber hose, chiropractic adjustments, vitamins, and even botulism toxin injections into his vocal cords to take away his voice for a few weeks so he can sit more quietly in his classrooms.
What eventually gives him peace is weightlifting. During workout periods, he is tic-free and happy. An eccentric, ex-military mentor helps Hanagarne focus himself in the discipline of extreme lifting, and his battle with Tourette's is seemingly conquered...or at least temporarily controlled.
Throughout it all, Hanagarne is a reader, a lover of books who devours everything, including Stephen King and other titles frowned on by his mother and the Mormon faithful. Books provide an escape, an education, and a world he often cannot realize in his actual life. And books eventually lead him to a volunteer and later a paid job in the local library where he also finds peace.
The World's Strongest Librarian is the story of an admirable man's struggle, embarrassment, pain, religion, and unrequited love. But it is also a tale of curiosity, questioning, perseverance, humor, and eventually love. He is an unusual hero in a world of ordinary people, facing and dealing with life as it comes to him, albeit with the wild card of Tourette's affecting everything he does.
Josh Hanagarne is a great storyteller, someone willing to reveal insider secrets to his readers about Mormonism, teen lust, self-discipline, illness, training, and family strength. One cannot help but feel his frustrations, yet constantly laugh at his anecdotes and root for his small and large efforts to triumph and achieve his goals.
A strong book, filled with humor, insight, and real life. Very highly recommended.
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Grandin, Temple. Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism
Recollections and insight into Temple Grandin about what exactly it feels like to have autism, what fears it brings, and techniques she used to deal with it to become an internationally respected animal scientist.
Lethem, Jonathan. Motherless Brooklyn
Unusual, sometimes bizarre twist on the classic detective novel as the main character who tries to solve a murder case is an outcast with Tourette's Syndrome.
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