Category Archives: books

Starvation Heights

My current book of choice is Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen. You can check out the site here: http://www.starvationheights.com/. I’m about half way through and it’s proving to be an interesting read. It’s astounding really the things people believed in regards to health and some of the ridiculous things that doctors were allowed to get away with until too many people died from these so-called treatments. In this book Linda Burfield Hazzard’s treatment is starvation – a “fasting cure” and this story is about two of her more wealthy and well-known patients who were heiresses to a very large fortune, Clare and Dora Williamson – one of which died and the other barely survived. Patients of Hazzard’s treatment were kept on diets of a cup or two of tomato broth a day and little else for upwards of 45 days to 100 days until they were literally skin and bones and most could barely walk. This picture is of Dora who was 60 pounds when a family friend finally rescued her from the sanitarium.

Along with starving the patients, they were given daily enemas – sometimes lasting for hours and extremely painful and doing a strange osteopathic massage that involved roughly thumping her fists against patients’ heads, stomachs and backs.
Who can say what led people to actually go and submit themselves to this treatment, but once they committed themselves, they were at the hands of Hazzard and her husband. Maybe like the Williamson sisters they were naive and overly trusting and hypocondriacs willing to try anything and believing almost anything – most giving the Hazzard’s money and control of their finances – misguided and taken advantage of while delirious with hunger.
Perhaps even more amazing is that after starving at least a dozen people to death with her treatment, Hazzard eventually died herself from starvation from her own cure. She actually believed in her treatment. she even performed autopsies on patients who had died and never put two and two together that their organs were shruken because of the starvation and that they didn’t die because the organs were bad, which is what she believed.

Eye Contact by Cammie McGovern

This month’s book is about a young autistic boy who witnesses the murder of a fellow classmate. It took a while for the book to really draw me in and then even when it did, it felt like it was hard to feel close to any of the characters. I didn’t feel like I had been given enough to really know any of them. The author seemed intent on keeping you guessing and scratching your head, which is great – in moderation. I think I’ve read maybe a handful of books with autistic characters, though, so it was interesting, especially when I found out the author has a son who is autistic, so she’s writing from actual experience when it comes to that aspect of the novel. I really didn’t feel emotionally attached to the book, though (I tend to really get into books when I read them). It wasn’t particularly thrilling, and while parts of it were definitely mysterious, the writing often felt scattered.

So after reading that I moved on to “Dewey” which I read in two days and laughed and cried and if you’re a cat lover than you have to read it!

How can you not love that face?! He truly sounded like a very special cat.

The Time Traveler’s Wife


I think this is the second time this year that I’ve read this book and it’s just as good. I’ll try not to give too much away in my description either. Henry DeTamble is a time-traveler. He doesn’t use a machine, but it’s actually a genetic disease, which I thought was kind of a nice twist. Often brought about by stress and without warning he will suddenly and instantly vanish and travel backward or forward in time, often running into himself and people he knows. It is also in this manner that he meets Clare Abshire as a young girl. Through her youth he time travels to a meadow near her home and Clare learns that this is the man she will one day marry. It’s really a very romantic book, but not in a super mushy sort of way. There is heartbreak and passion and if you’re anything like me, you’ll cry when you read it. There were moments where my heart just broke for Clare and Henry. I recommend a nice lighthearted read after, but even several days after I finished, it’s fresh in my mind, and I think that Audrey Niffenegger has a very good future as a writer.

The Secret Life Of Bees

I joined a book club recently and the first book of choice was ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ by Sue Monk Kid. We had our first meeting last Thursday, and I enjoyed it. I felt awkward at first, as always when meeting with a group of strangers, but I think by the next meeting I’ll find it easier to join in. As for the book itself, it was good. It takes place in the 60s and is about several women, one of whom is a young white girl Lily who ends up breaking the woman who looks after her Rosaleen out of jail, who happens to be black and the two of them run away to the small town of Tiburon, led there by a picture that Lily’s mother (who is deceased) left behind. It ends up being a label for a honey jar – Black Madonna Honey and ultimately leads the two to the women who are behind the honey. It’s a very heart-felt book and you feel a bond with the group of women you’re introduced to. They all have various troubles and problems and somehow they get through it. It’s a pretty inspiring book about overcoming obstacles and seeing things from different perspectives. You’ll laugh and you might even cry a little – I did and you might even come to have a little bit of respect for the tiny creatures the book is named for. Generally I don’t care for bees, but I definitely feel a bit differently about them now.