Good books to read

BonnieR · 09-04-2007, 10:19 PM

Patricia, what is Kitchen Table Wisdom about? You make it sound intriging....I guess i could Google it. But I had chemo today and feel like a slug. Tomorrow I will be wired though, so maybe can research it then....

Patricia · 09-04-2007, 10:49 PM

Hi Bonnie,

Kitchen Table Wisdom is a compilation of healing stories, told by the author who is a Dr. who has suffered from Crohn's Disease for 40 years and changed her path mid-career from practicing internal medicine to practicing psychology for patients with life threatening illnesses (including cancer) as well as with Physicians. The stories she tells are her own and her patient's including those that were ill and the physicians she also treated. This book touched me in a way no book has done in many years. I have since shared it with everyone that I know who has been dx with cancer as well as my own surgeon. I highly recommend it. I hope your chemo went well today and that you have a healing week.

Hugs,
Patricia

Here is the statement on the back of the book:

"Despite the awesome powers of technology, many of us still do not live very well, " says Dr. Rachel Remen. We may need to listen to one another's stories again." Dr. Remen, whose unique perspective on healing comes from her background as a physician, a professor of medicine, a therapist, and a long-term survivor of chronic illness, invites us to listen from the soul. This remarkable collection of true stories draws on the concept of "kitchen table wisdom" - the human tradition of shared experience that shows us life in all its power and mystery and reminds us that the things we cannot measure may be the things that ultimately sustain and enrich our lives. Kitchen Table Wisdom addreses all the spiritual issues; suffering, meaning, love, faith and miracles in the languuage of absolute authority of our own life experience.

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD., is one of the earliest pioneers in the mind/body health field, and was one of the first to develop a psychological approach to people with life threatening illnesses and educate their physcians about hteir needs. She is cofounder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Progrram, which was featured on Bill Moyer's PBS special Healing and the Mind, and is a Clinical Professor at teh University of California San Francisco School of Medicine.

chrisy · 09-05-2007, 04:40 PM

This is another book by Rachel Naomi Remen - sometimes you can get it in a set with Kitchen Table wisdom. Both are really good, inspirational, and definitely (for me anyway) hanky material in a good way.

doh2pa · 09-08-2007, 01:54 PM

Thank you all for some great recommendations. Here's my contributions:

If you like biographies, I liked Jane Fonda's (My Life So Far) and Queen Noors (can't remember the name, sorry). Margaret George does great historical fiction and has done a book a Mary Queen of Scots, Cleopatra and Henry VIII - they are all fascinating and long!

Fiction - Travels with My Donkey, Tim Moore (hysterical), The Time Travelers Wife (fascinating) and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (fascinating asian culture).

Enjoy!!

Mgarr · 10-28-2007, 06:53 AM

Just wanted to thank you all for your books selection. I love to read and to date have enjoyed The Alchemist, Devil in the White City & Infidel. Keep those suggestions coming it will get me through the long Michigan winter.

Mary

Val Pfeiffer · 10-28-2007, 11:48 AM

I just finished two books--you don't need to read the first one before the second, but it helps. Norris Church Mailer wrote them (Norman Mailer's wife). Both are fast reads, not the literary classic sort of books, but definitely enjoyable reads. The first is Windchill Summer and the second one is Cheap Diamonds.

Val