A Life Impossible

Gleason, Steve. A Life Impossible: Living With ALS: Finding Peace and Wisdom Within a Fragile Existence. New York: Knoff 2024. Print.

First Sentences:

I sat naked in the shower while a twenty-four-year-old man washed my armpits.  Across the bathroom, my three-year-old daughter, Gray, sat in the middle of the floor, cross-legged like the Buddha, with one difference. She was wailing hysterically and incessantly. Inconsolable. And I was incapable of helping her.


Description:

It is almost impossible to comprehend living day to day, hour to hour, a life where every voluntary muscle in your body is unable to function. You are robbed of the ability to walk, raise your arms, close your hands, speak, even breathe. Smiling and blinking are denied. 

Yet such is the ongoing existence of author Steve Gleason for the past thirteen years (and counting) since his diagnosis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, i.e., Lou Gehrig's Disease).

He thoughtfully, emotionally, and openly discusses his journey from his boyhood through years as a professional football player, to young married trying to understand his fatal ALS diagnosis, and on then his continuing struggles with his restricted life today in his memoir, A Life Impossible. 

To call him a survivor is too passive a label. He is a battler. Throughout his life he has deeply contemplated his life, his personal situation, his emotions, and his future. His brilliant writing in this book are transporting. Gleason allows readers into the deepest parts of his mind, from denial of the diagnosis as a 33-year-old man to a firm confidence he can beat the disease; from despair as his relationships crack under the strain of his needs for constant, intimate care, to occasional peace of mind as revelations occur to him that give him even temporary triumphs in communication or action.

I'd spent most of my life seeking the sacred and extraordinary, but [meditation] was showing me that the sacred is within us....I'm not sure how much it was improving my "real life," but for a guy who was living with ALS, to have an hour a day of peace and even bliss, it was a welcome change.

During Gleason's New Orleans Saints' football career, he played on special teams. In 2006, he blocked an opposing Atlanta Falcons' punt on their first series of downs which was quickly recovered for a Saints' touchdown. This was an incredibly gutsy play by Gleason which surprised everyone on the field, the stadium, and in the Monday Night Football audience, and led to a Saints victory. 

It was an historic play as this was the first game held in the New Orleans Superdome, a beloved landmark for the citizens, which had finally opened after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Gleason's block and eventual Saints' victory signaled the beginning of the city's recovery. There is now even a statue of Gleason blocking that punt residing in front of the stadium, so important was the symbolism of New Orleans' triumph.

But ALS soon robbed him of his dream to live off the grid with his new wife, Michel, in an isolated spot somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Slowly and unceasingly, he awoke each day to another loss of strength and function. "Most people awake each day from a nightmare. I awake to a nightmare," he stated. 

He also lost all his savings due to an investment with friends in an alternative real estate company which went bankrupt. He repeatedly tried for a different diagnosis, experimented with every type of possible cure from faith healers to diets to meditation. His eventual failures to walk even a few steps, swim, have sex, or swallow forced him to realize that ALS was progressing relentlessly.

But although he writes of his discouragement with his situation, he also created "Team Gleason" with friends and families to explore treatments, medical devices, and opportunities to expand horizons for other ALS patients. 

He wanted to prove to himself and others that life can still be lived, and began to travel, give speeches, fish for salmon in Alaska, and even reach the top of Machu Picchu in Peru sitting in an electronic wheelchair that had to be carried over foot-wide pathways.

Gleason proved to ALS sufferers and others that the world could still be expanded . While he still could speak, he recorded 1,500 English phrases for a company called CereProc which then created a customized voice similar to his own for oral expression of his typed words.

Team Gleason grew and donors contributed to ALS research. The highly popular ALS fund-raising Ice Bucket Challenge was started by a Team Gleason member. Other ALS patients formed discussion groups to share stories, coping techniques, and understanding hearts with each other and the world. Through Gleason, others learned they were not alone, had options, and could lead expanded lives.

Gleason received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest United State Civilian honor, in 2019. Then in 2024 he was presented with the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage given for "strength, courage and willingness to stand up for their beliefs in the face of adversity.” Upon receiving this award, Gleason delivered a brilliant speech (created before the ceremony using only his eye/laser letter-by-letter composition program) verbalized through his synthetic voice to the ESPY audience. A documentary film, Gleason, was recently finished (available on Amazon Prime). His social media site has over half a million followers today.

 

A wonderfully powerful book that spares readers no emotion, thought, or dream that enters author Gleason's mind and world throughout his journey. Highly recommended.

Now I realize this: Life gets ugly at times, so when we have the chance to do something amazing in the midst of ugly, go for it.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Bauby, Jean-Dominique. The Diving Bell and the Butterflyh: A Memoir of Life in Death.   

One man's memoirs, painfully written using only the blinking of his one working eyelid, revealing how he experiences the "Locked-In Syndrome" where nothing on hiss body can be moved, no words can be spoken, yet his mind and awareness are still present in his seemingly lifeless body. Absolutely astonishing and powerful. (previously reviewed here)

 

The Lost Tomb

Preston, Douglas. The Lost Tomb and Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder. New York: Grand Central 2023. Print.

First Sentences:

Some writers drank when the words didn't come. Now we have the Internet. Whenever I get stuck writing, instead of sliding open the bottom drawer with the whiskey bottle, I load up the New York Times or Politico, check my email, or, when all else fails, start Googling old acquaintances.


Description:

Who doesn't love a good mystery? Some sort of puzzle filled with suspicious characters up against thoughtful people who try to unravel the tangle of facts to eventually arrive at the truth and a satisfying conclusion by the last page?

But true life mysteries, while equally compelling as fictitious ones, are often not so neatly explained. Conclusions can be muddled, even after scores of scientists, treasure hunters, and researchers have delved into the physical and historic data for years. 

If you are like me, a true life mystery-lover, you should pick up Douglas Preston's The Lost Tomb and Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder. The author is a man curious about the odd, unsolved oddities he has read about over the years, leading him to publish heavily-researched articles which detail these mysteries for magazines including Wired, Harper's, and The New Yorker. Thirteen of these articles are collected in The Lost Tomb, conveniently organized into sections of "Uncommon Murders," "Unexplained Deaths," "Unsolved Mysteries," Curious Crimes," and "Old Bones." 

And what unsolved mysteries are detailed? Here's a sample:

• The author's own boyhood treasure chest buried with a friend, but in later life he was unable to find. His search led him to unexpected information about this boyhood friend whom he had lost touch with;

• Hundreds of skeletal bones found in a remote lake high up in the Himalayas whose age, how they got there, and what caused their deaths remain unknown;

• The Oak Island Money Pit, over 190' deep (so far) which has been explored for over 100 years by fortune-hunters and scientists looking for a rumored buried treasure;

• The New Mexico skeleton and accompanying artifacts that might be 20,000 years old, (making this the oldest evidence of man in America), discovered by a quirky Indiana Jones-type anthropologist;

• A 3,500-year-old Egyptian tomb that has 150 rooms (only 10% of which have been uncovered) that might be the final resting place for Rameses II and his 50 sons;
  

• Rare points from arrows and spears created by the ancient Clovis people in America, that suddenly turned up together in a suspiciously rich cache;

• A site with fossils of feathers, glass raindrops, delicate fish, and plant materials so carefully and instantaneously preserved that they might document the exact date when the asteroid hit Earth and destroyed 90% of all life.

Preston gathers the origins of these mysteries, researches the often-conflicting data from various people and scientists who are experts in the mystery, then allows each reader to draw his own conclusions. The people involved in the mystery are as fascinating as the mysteries themselves, presenting diverse opinions and drawing solid, if unproven conclusions that continue to be debated today.

I find real-life mysteries like these to be fascinating, even if they often do not have a tidy conclusion. Buried treasure, ancient bones, lost cities, and unexplained anthropological artifacts stretch my brain to wonder at the complexities of human life and our attempts to understand nature and our own past history. Highly recommended.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Preston, Douglas. The Lost City of the Monkey God  

The author relates his electrifying, dangerous, scientific adventures in 2012 seeking the (rumored) fabulously wealthy, but cursed lost city of gold in Honduras as documented by Cortez and other explorers. A real page-turner for history and treasure buffs alike. (previously reviewed here)

West with Giraffes

Rutledge, Lynda. West with Giraffes. New York: Lake Union. 2021. Print.

First Sentences:
 

...I'm older than dirt. And when you're older than dirt, you can get lost in time, in memory, even in space. I'm inside my tiny four-wall room with the feeling that I've been...gone. I'm not even sure how long I've been sitting here.

Description:

 

Lynda Rutledge's West With Giraffes is delightful, compelling, romantic, and thrilling novel rooted in actual historic events. The novel depicts a cross-country journey from New York City to San Diego, California during the Great Depression, transporting two giraffes in a small truck. Rutledge brilliantly re-imagines that trip, backing up her narrative with historical news articles which documented the journey at that time and described the fate of the giraffes to the very interested public. 

 

On September 21, 1938, a hurricane hit New York City. Besides the usual destruction, the storm damaged nearby cargo ships, one of which, the SS Robin Goodfellow, was transporting two giraffes, Miraculously, these animals survived, although they had been abandoned as dead during the storm by the freighter's crew when the crates housing them were crushed.

Woodrow Wilson Nickel, now 105 years old, remembers that day and storm as the start of his adventure with the animals, and thus serves as the novel's narrator. As a 17-year-old orphan, Nickel had fled with Dust Bowl dryness of Texas where his family had died. He landed in New York City only a few weeks before the hurricane hit.

 

The giraffes, judged to be healthy after the storm, still need to be transported to the San Diego Zoo in California. Head Zoo Keeper, Riley Jones, gently talks and strokes the crated animals onto the make-shift truck that young Nickel stows away on. He is familiar with animals and, once he is discovered, is given the job of driving the truck and caring for the animals during the long trip.

Along the way, they pick up a young red-haired woman photographer interested in documenting this unusual journey. The giraffes had caught the nation's attention as hurricane survivors, so any accounts of their health and travels, she felt, would be major news.

Of course, the journey is full of surprises. Traveling across America in an old truck with two gangling giraffes was a sight to see for the people of every small town they pass through. And these gentle giants bring a sense of peace and quiet to Riley, Nickel, and Red, the photographer, as they meander over the back roads.

 

But they are pursued by men with more evil intentions. Percival T Bowles, a cruel circus ringmaster, and Cooter, owner of a decrepit roadside animal zoo, both want the giraffes for their own profit. It's up to Riley, Nickel, and Red to thwart these baddies.

 

West With Giraffes is a wonderful read, full of unexpected events, gentle (and not so gentle) characters, descriptions of life during The Depression, and the calming power of  two gigantic beasts on the people and world they encounter. Need a great, quiet, adventurous, can't-be-put-down read? Here's your answer. Highly recommended.

 

Happy reading. 

Fred

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Helfer, Ralph. Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived

True story of seven decades in the life of a remarkable elephant and the boy who bonded with him, from the giant's early life as a circus attraction, to his survival and  rescue of the boy during the sinking of a boat, to his work in teak forests and eventual stardom in an American circus. Simply a great read.

I Was Right on Time

O'Neil, Buck. I Was Right on Time. New York: Simon & Schuster 1996. Print.

First Sentences:

Call me Buck.


Description:

Since it is nearing the end of summer and therefore the baseball season, I thought fans might enjoy this highly entertaining, first-hand account of the Negro Leagues as written by a player from that era. Buck O'Neil's I Was Right on Time offers an insider's look at and stories about the players, teams, stadiums, and fans, along with the quirks of each one as remembered by O'Neil, an actual Negro League player, featured storyteller on the Ken Burns Baseball documentary, and member of the Baseball Hall of Fame Veterans Committee.

 

O'Neil, using his conversationally casual writing style, takes us on his personal journey from his boyhood days playing pick-up baseball games to his eventual signing to play with the mighty Kansas City Monarchs, considered to be one of the best Negro teams ever, with lineups that included Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, Bullet Joe Rogan, and Rube Foster. The Monarchs were the first team to play under the lights, mounted on telephone poles which gave them a home field advantage for any ball hit into the darkness above those low-level lights. Hde later became a scout and coach in the (White) major league.

And the stories are absolutely the best, particularly those featuring O'Neil's teammate, Satchel Paige. O'Neil laughs at the events that caused Paige to always refer to O'Neil as "Nancy." O'Neil also recounts when, in the Negro League World Series with the Homestead Grays and their feared home-run hitter, Josh Gibson, Paige intentionally walked the bases loaded just to face Gibson in a critical situation to see who was the best. Or the time Paige told all his fielders to leave their positions and come to the mound while he went about striking out the side.

O'Neil writes about players with colorful nicknames: Sea Boy, Gunboat, Steel Arm Davis, Ankleball Moss, Copperknee, Mosquito, Popeye, and Suitcase. Of course, there are anecdotes about the more famous Negro League players such as Jackie Robinson, Ernie Banks, Roy Campanella, Frank Robinson (the first major league Black manager), Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, and Bob Gibson as well as some tremendously talented, if lesser known stars like Larry Doby,  Luke Easter, Smokey Joe Williams, Josh Gibson,and Cool Papa Bell ("So fast he could get into bed after switching off the light switch before the room got dark." Spoiler: Bell had noticed a slight in his hotel room's on/off switch, causing a slight delay before the lights went black. Bell won some money from a gullible Paige for that neat trick).

 

And O'Neil clears up many misconceptions, such as that the one that Negro League players were inferior to white major leaguers. O'Neil compares all-star lineups from each league and concludes the Negro players would have a strong chance to beat their White counterparts. Also, his league did not play make-shift games in rag-tag environments with poor equipment as so often was portrayed in movies. Negro Leaguers in fact played established schedules in up-to-date ball parks, cheered on by fans that rivaled the major league parks in attendance numbers.

O'Neil has plenty of stories as well from his own later career as a major league coach and scout. I particularly gasped when, while in Mississippi scouting for the Chicago Cubs, O'Neil once got lost looking for the Jackson State-Grambling game and ended up at an unknown field where the Klu Klux Klan was holding a fund-raising rally in white robes and full hooded regalia.

As a member of the Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee, O'Neil was instrumental in petitioning the Hall to consider including Negro League players initially not eligible for the Hall. Later, he and the Veterans Committee were tasked to come up with the historic Negro League players worthy  to be considered for Hall inclusion. Luckily, O'Neil had either played with, coached, or at least heard about most of the best men from the past.

 

But O'Neil also inserts a few examples of the prejudices facing him and these players, from restaurants to hotels to press coverage, that still go on as he wrote this book.

I still hear African-American players referred to as "articulate," as if we should be surprised a black man speaks so well. I still see a black player labeled as an underachiever, while a while player who carries the same stats is called an overachiever. Joe DiMaggio? Why, when people talk of him, they talk of his grace and his intelligence and his consistency. Willie Mays? He was "naturally gifted," as if he didn't have to work as hard as DiMaggio to be come a great ballplayer. Poppycock. From 1949-1962, eleven of the fourteen National League MVP trophies went to black men, and all of them, including Mays, Aaron, and Banks, worked damn hard to get those trophies.

But for the most part, O'Neil revels in the wonderful opportunity he had to be a part of this league and play with these men who were heroes in their communities. It's a warm, funny, honest depiction of that era, one that any fan (or anyone else) interested in fascinating stories about bigger-than-life personalities playing the game they loved.

 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Ritter, Lawrence. The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It.  

The definitive book of early baseball in the late 1800s through the early1900s as told through oral interviews with the men who played the game then. (previously reviewed here)

Four Lost Cities

Newitz, Annalee. Four Lost Cities: A Secret History to the Urban Age. New York: Norton 2021. Print

First Sentences:

I stood on the crumbling remains of a perfectly square island at the center of an artificial lake created by hydraulic engineers 1,000 years ago.


Description:

Ancient people, civilizations, and cities have always fascinated me since traveling in my youth to climb around the Mexican pyramids of Chichen Itsa and the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, AZ. Nearby today, there are ancient mounds near my home in Ohio. These relics always whisper of mystery, intrigue, and wonder as viewers try to imagine the people, culture, and engineers who constructed and lived with these monuments to human achievement. 

 

Science journalist Annalee Newitz is a like-minded person. In her book Four Lost Cities: A Secret History to the Urban Age, she thoroughly researches four great ancient cities: the 7,000-year-old Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk, Turkey; the 2,500-year-old Pompeii; the Cambodian city of Angkor (from 1,000 years ago); and Cahokiawith, with its pyramids and mounds in southern Illinois, also inhabited about 1,000 years ago.

 

For each city, she interviewers researchers, anthropologists, archeologists, and other scientists to piece together what is known of these ancient urban areas. Always, she visits the sites, picking up details about the people who lived there as she paints a realistic picture of what their lives were like. 

For Pompeii, a scientist who studies the ancient roads, told her he noticed the ruts were the same distance apart, showing all carts were uniform in wheel base. He also noted that curbs were worn down on the right side, revealing that vehicles often cut corners while turning right, gradually eroding the curbs. No such breakage occured on the left curbs. The implication was that traffic direction flowed from the right side, like traffic in the United States, rather than from the left side as in England. Who could not enjoy reading about such details?

In Catalhoyuk, thought to be one of the first cities in the world, Newitz researches the causes behind why humans who settled there switched from being wandering nomads to creators of a cluster of permanent shelters. The next question she explores is why these early city-dwellers  chose to remain in the same location for thousands of years, building and then re-building on top of the foundations of their old cell-like homes (after filling in the old unit with all their trash to serve as a more solid foundation). 

After carefully assembling this scientific data of the cities and people, Newitz uses other interviews with experts to try to understand why these thriving urban developments were later abandoned. Was the emptying of the city a sudden geological occurrence as with Pompeii, or did the departure of inhabitants occur over many, many years as the artifacts from Angkor and Catalhoyuk suggest? Environment? Politics? Food shortage? Fire? Other factors?

 

Four Lost Cities is a thoroughly engrossing book, clearly-written and understandable to non-scientists like me. Newitz has a passion for history, people, behavior, and cities that shows on every page. If you are intrigued by history, people, culture, and unraveling mysteries, this is the book for you. Highly recommended.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Preston, Douglas. The Lost City of the Monkey God.   

In 2012, author Douglas used sophisticated lidar radar from a plane to locate a lost city densely covered and forgotten by the forest of Honduras. Rumors of the fabulous riches of the "White City" have been whispered since the  days of the Spanish conquistadors. This book details the true adventures, dangers, ferocious animals, disease and other challenges experienced in the exploration Douglas undertakes to rediscover this ancient, sprawling city.   (previously reviewed here)

 

Insomniac City

Hayes, Bill. Insomniac City. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017. Print

First Sentences:

I moved to New York eight years ago, and felt at once at home. 

 

In the haggard buildings and bloodshot skies, in trains that never stopped running like my racing mind at night, I recognized my insomniac self. If New York were a patient, it would be diagnosed with agrypnia excita, a rare genetic condition characterized by insomnia, nervous energy constant twitching, and dream enactment -- an apt description of a city that never sleeps, a place where one comes to reinvent himself.


Description:

From these very first words, I loved Bill Hayes's Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me  Who could not fall in love with such captivating language to describe a unique environment? Clearly, this book promised to be full of wry, thoughtful and unique observations, so I was all in.

 

Author Hayes moved to New York from San Francisco after the sudden death of his long-time partner, Steve. As an insomniac, Hayes began to wander his new city in the late and early morning hours, both observing and conversing with people who were similarly sleep-challenged.

In the summertime, late into the night, some leave behind their sweat-dampened sheets to read in the coolness of a park under streetlights. Not Kindles, mind you, or iPhones. But books,. Newspapers, Novels. Poetry. Completely absorbed as if in their own worlds. And indeed they are.

Hayes also brought along his camera, his "travel companion," during day and night city walks. He shot photos of people for his own private enjoyment. Unwilling to intrude on some intimate scenes, Hayes shot body parts that reflected the person's essence.

Couples captivated me -- on the Tube, on park benches, arm in arm on the street. Couples so in love you could see it in their faces....Their smiles were heartbreaking. I took pictures of their hands, laced together as if in prayer, or their feet -- the erotic dance that is a prelude to a kiss.

Hayes records these episodic meetings, observations, and photos in his diary, entries which he compiles into Insomniac City. And oh, the joy, hope, and humanity each piece presents to us lucky readers fortunate enough to share his everyday sights, elegant writing, and imagery. 

Sometimes I'd sit in the kitchen in the dark and gaze out at the Empire State and Chrysler buildings. Such a beautiful pair, so impeccably dressed, he in his boxy suits, every night a different hue, and she, an arm's length away, in her filigreed skirt the color of the moon. I regarded them as an old married couple, calmly unblinkingly keeping watch over one of their newest sons. And I returned the favor; I would be there the moment the Empire State turned off its lights for the night as if to get a little shut-eye before sunrise.

But there is yet another part of this wonderful book besides late night observations and photographs. Hayes meets Dr. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and best-selling author. The two men connect and become romantic partners, a first for Sacks in decades. Their loving relationship is also reflected on in Hayes' diary as he records bits of their conversations, random thoughts from Sacks, and a peak at the new life they spend together.

...last night the clock chimed,..O[liver] and I counted the chimes carefully. A big smile broke out on his face. "Oh! That's very eccentric! Earlier, it did ten chimes at four o'clock, and now, seven at nine."

We laughed how this is like having an aging parent in the house, one who's a little "dotty," gets a little lost, misremembers, from time to time ... 

I could keep on giving examples of Hayes' narrations, but I have to stop and leave so many more for you to experience. Suffice to say, I fell in love with both these men, New York City, and the beauty of descriptive writing that will stay with me for a long time. Highest recommendation.

I have come to believe that kindness is repaid in unexpected ways and that if you are lonely or bone-tired or blue, you need only come down from your perch and step outside. New York -- which is to say, New Yorkers -- will take care of you.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: and Other Clinical Tales.

Highly unusual cases recorded and commented on by Sacks, detailing his experiences in a New York neurology clinic depict some of his patient' symptoms and treatment, including: a man with no recollection of any events in the last sixty years; a man who cannot recognize faces (including his own); an autistic, but brilliantly gifted artist; a woman who has Irish songs from her childhood constantly running through her head; and of course, the title character who grabbed his wife's head and tried to put it on his own head. Incredible, readable, and wonderfully entertaining as you try to imagine the reality of these patients.

 

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales. New York: Touchstone 1970. Print

First Sentences:

Dr. P. was a musician of distinction, well-known for many years as a singer, and then, at the local School of Music, as a teacher.

It was here, in relation to his students, that certain strange problems were first observed.....Not only did Dr. P. increasingly fail to see faces, but he saw faces when there were no faces to see: genially, Magoo-like, when in the street he might pat the heads of water hydrants and parking meters, taking these to be the heads of children....


Description:

Such an unusual title for a book, but Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat refers to an actual event. The patient, Dr. P described above, as he left Sacks' neurological consulting office, put on his coat and then reached over to his seated wife, grabbed her head, and tried to yank it up to put onto his own head as if it was his hat. Earlier, Dr. P had been unable to identify the name or purpose of his shoe as well as a common glove which he guessed was "a container of some sort" although a container for what he couldn't say.

You might think Dr. P and other highly unusual patient afflictions described in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat are fiction, but they are all fascinatingly true. Each chapter describes a patient presented to Dr. Sacks in his capacity as a neurological consultant in New York City hospitals, nursing homes, and chronic care facilities. The patient exhibited such behavior as:

• A gray-haired man unable to remember anything since his military days when he was nineteen years old. He refused to recognize himself in a mirror as an old man and did not believe a photo taken of the Earth from the moon was possible since in his mind man had not been to the moon, He currently could not remember anything after only a few seconds, including people he had just met, conversations he'd held, or events.

•  A hospitalized patient who, looking down to the foot of his bed, saw a grotesque leg sitting next to him. When he continually tried to toss it out of the bed, he fell along with it, repeatedly not recognizing it as his own healthy leg attached to his body.

•  A strapping, healthy woman who, just before a minor gall stones operation, mysteriously and suddenly lost complete sense of her body. She could not get information from any part of herself head to toe, thus making her unable to sit up, control her fluttering hands, or even keep her mouth from hanging open.

• A ninety-year-old woman who has become "frisky" and "euphoric" about men ... the results of an illness seventy years ago.

Dr. Sacks is at first as puzzled by these cases as we readers are. They are simply so odd that he even wonders to himself whether these people are faking their symptoms. But he tests them closely, reviews the literature, and consults with other experts in various fields until he comes up with a working hypothesis for each case. Unfortunately, often there is no treatment much less a cure for these patients, but Dr. Sacks does provide some reassurance that the person is not crazy, just suffering from an extreme case of a neurological mis-functioning.

I was absolutely riveted by these case histories. Dr. Sacks is a extraordinary observer of people and clear relater of facts and symptoms to weave each afflicted patient into a captivating story. You want so much for there to be a magic pill for each person suffering these calamitous behaviors, but unfortunately, Dr. Sacks finds that often there is not.

A great read from the fascinating symptoms, the mystery behind the causes, to the unending pursuit of treatment. Highly recommended.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Sacks, Oliver. An Anthropologist on Mars.   

Any of Sacks' books would be a great follow-up to learn about more unusual cases of neurological diseases. In addition to these patient histories, this book presents a bit more about Sacks' life and thoughts on his profession. He is a wonderful writer, scientific, neutral, and clear in his descriptions of mind-bending problems and patients.

My Abandonment

Rock, Peter. My Abandonment. New York: John Murray 2018. Print

First Sentences:

Sometimes you're walking through the woods when a stick leaps into the air and strikes you across the back and shoulders several times, then flies away lost in the underbrush.  

There's nothing to do but keep walking, you have to be ready for everything and I am as I follow behind Father down out of the trees, around a puddle, to the fence of the salvage yard. It's night.

Description:

Based on a true life situation, Peter Rock's My Abandonment retraces the lives of man and his thirteen-year-old daughter who live off the grid, hidden in a vast nature park outside the city of Portland, Oregon. Narrated clearly by the young girl, Caroline, we get a peak at their day to day existence over the past four years after the death of her mother. She and her father live in a self-made shelter, tend a small garden, even read from their small library of sorts as they live off the lands.

Until they are discovered by a passing jogger ...

Then everything changes. Of course, they are taken from the park, separated, questioned with suspicion, and finally relocated with another family that offers work and shelter. Although living in the confines of society is tremendously difficult for the father, Caroline tries to become part of her new life. Escape for both of them is planned, but that is just the beginning of their adventure.

This is a wonderful book, full of passion, strength, inventiveness, and adaptation. All characters are believable as are their intentions to do good in the world for themselves and those around them. It just is a bad fit for this father interacting with the outside world and people.

I really enjoyed it as you can tell and highly recommend it to anyone looking for unique characters who test themselves against challenging everyday situations. If nothing else, you can watch the excellent movie based on this true story, Leave No Trace, with Ben Foster and Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie ably playing the father and daughter. Both film and book are well worth your time and attention.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Mejia, Mindy. Leave No Trace.   

[This is a book, not the film based on My Abandonment. Confusing, I know.] 

When Lucas, a teenage boy who has been missing for ten years, emerges from the Boundary Waters forest in Minnesota, he is violent and uncommunicative. Involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility, he comes under the observation of Maya, a lowly language therapist who somehow is able to win Lucas' trust, and slowly his story slowly unfolds.  (previously reviewed here)

The Lost City of the Monkey God

Preston, Douglas. The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story. New York: Grand Central Publishing. 2017. Print.

First Sentences:

Deep in Honduras, in a region called La Mosquitia, lie some of the last unexplored places on earth....

Early maps labeled it the Portal del Infierno, or "Gates of Hell," because it was so forbidding. The area is one of the most dangerous in the world, for centuries frustrating efforts to penetrate and explore it.

Description:

In today's era where seemingly every inch of our Earth has been thoroughly explored, wouldn't it be fantastic to discover the ruins of a vast civilization? A thriving culture previously never before identified? A huge city and art right under our noses, completely sheltered by the thick rain forests of Honduras? 

Well, enter Douglas Preston and his new book on the recent exploration of just such a modern-day architectural/cultural find: The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story.

While there had been whispered rumors and scraps in ancient diaries of a great "White City," Ciudad Blanca, or the Lost City of the Monkey God, deep in the forests of Honduras, natives were reluctant to lead explorers to possible locations due to curses and evil histories of the city. Thick tree canopies, impossible terrain, and dangerous fel-del-lance snakes, leopards, insects, and unrelenting rain, rain, rain helped preserve any possibility of finding such a city. One could walk five feet by ruins covered by vines and other vegetation and never notice them.

But technology to the rescue. A new radar system from Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed to analyze photos from space was also able to penetrate thick tree cover and up to 15 feet below the Earth's surface to identify potential lost cities. An ariel survey in the late-1990s identified several possible locations   for the White City deep in the Honduran jungle but it was ten years before a physical exploration on foot could be mounted. 

The White City expedition, accompanied by writer Preston, is described in all its wet, scary, trackless, and dangerous glory. Slogging through knee-deep mud, relying on GPS systems when more than 100 yards from camp to find your way home, the explorers do eventually discover ruins and statues, but their difficulties are only beginning.

Intertwined with historical details about the lost culture that may have existed and built these unknown cities, the possible reasons the abandoned their homes, and the effect of the Spanish conquerors is carefully described by author Preston as well. I knew nothing about Honduras and its cultures, so this research was absolutely fascinating.

That all this exploration and discovery happened and continue to develop as of 2017 is unbelievably exciting. The explorers and scientists from the first trek continue to re-live the discovery long after their return via publications due to diseases brought back from the jungle. The knowledge and city they literally uncovered and continue to explore will keep scientists and anthropologists challenged for years.

Happy reading. 

Fred

(See more recommended books)
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Grann, David. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon

The 1925 true story of explorer Percy Fawcett and his gripping, obsessive hunt for the Lost City, the rumored civilization full of gold, in the Amazon rainforest (previously reviewed here)

Adams, Mark. Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time

Author Adams retraces the steps of ancient Incas through Peru to explore ancient cities. Along the way, this inexperienced hiker and historian uncovers tales of this ancient culture, the men who originally discovered it, and the future of these fragile cities. (previously reviewed here)