Thank You Audiobooks!

Lately, I've been having trouble focusing for long enough to get through longer books. Thank you audiobooks for being there for me! This is a tribute to all the audiobooks that have helped me get through the past few months: 

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

I wasn't a huge fan of this one, but I totally get why people liked it. I liked the conflicts between faith and science, adding the immigrant experience, grief, and drug addiction on top of it. The complexity of it made the story feel very real to me. I also enjoyed the little scientific discussions scattered throughout, giving context and relevant analogies to the story.  Plus it's narrated by my faaaaavorite reader, Bahni Turpin. It was an engaging read, and this book would be great for those who like literary fiction and novels highlighting social issues. 

261 pages

Rage by Bob Woodward

I know, I know. Everyone is sick of politics by now. Why would I put myself through this book? (To be fair, I read this in October) It's partly because I've enjoyed Woodward's other books. He asks very good interview questions, and the answers given by the subject in this one are... mindboggling. Not surprising, just perplexing. I really liked how the audiobook had the actual recorded interview segments included in the Appendix. That was cool. This would be a good read for anyone who actually isn't sick of politics right now (so what, that's maybe 50 or so people, if that?).

452 pages

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

The premise of the novel is really good! A family is on vacation, only the homeowners show up to stay while the world is falling apart around them. My biggest issue with the book is that the actual details of the apocalypse are never described besides flashes and tidbits. Was it nuclear war? Climate change? Power outages? Something else? Who knows! That isn't really the point though. This is a well written apocalypse novel for dystopian junkies and literary fiction lovers alike. 

241 pages

Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness and Family Secrets by Luke Dittritch

Dittritch is a journalist, but his grandfather was the brain surgeon who sliced out Henry Molaison's hippocampus, leaving him incapable of storing long term memories. I remember learning about H.M. in a psychology course, but this book got so deep into the personal details of the people surrounding Henry's life. Dude, this doctor was nuts! He climbed the Brooklyn Bridge when it was still under construction! He experimented on (mostly female) asylum patients  just to see what would happen after chopping up their brains! He even conducted surgery on his own wife! That is seriously messed up. Also, the psychologist who worked with Henry later in life was so possessive of him and her research that we can't even look back at her research notes anymore. *insert anger emoji* This story was engaging and shocking, and I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in medicine, psychology, or narrative nonfiction. 

440 pages

I forgot to remember by Su Meck

Imagine waking up every day to a whole new world. That's what happened to Su Meck when she was 22 years old. She had a husband, a two-year-old son, and an eight-month-old baby. No one is really sure how the accident happened, because her husband's back was turned, and she can't remember, but she was hit in the head by a ceiling fan. The injury didn't look bad; just a one-inch cut, but it knocked her out and  she was bleeding profusely, so she was taken to the hospital. Her brain had bounced around inside her skull, and when she awoke she had no memory of her life up to that point.

After three weeks, she was sent home with a husband she did not know, to a house and children she had no memory of. The doctors had decided she was faking her memory loss, and she got no more therapy. But she couldn't read or write, couldn't find her way home if she went more than a few blocks, and had to idea how to care for her children. She was thrust abruptly back into the life of a suburban housewife, with no help and very little sympathy. She was essentially a child raising two other children.

This memoir was written to help people understand more about traumatic brain injury. Even the medical profession doesn't have a lot of knowledge about it, although it is better now than in 1988, when this happened. And family, friends, neighbors...she was treated with pity, disdain, contempt, and exasperation. She wanted to understand more about the whole issue herself, and she wanted others  to know what life is really like with this type of injury. She had a co-writer, and they went through her medical records, and did a lot of research on TBI. She explains the different types of memory, and how it works.

A very interesting, thought-provoking book.

280 pages