Tag: Humanities Highlights

"Write what you know" remains one of the most common pieces of writing advice – although one that often requires experience to stick. With the desire to appear professional, and with professors grading along their chosen literary styles, learning writing often begins as imitation. But equally so, writers who persists reach a vital moment of giddy insubordination where they stop emulating Raymond Carver or whichever literary idol, cast aside their guilt of autobiographical writing and put their own thoughts on the page. While this might be the bias of the author, I believe that given practice and development, the cadence of your own speech, the textures of your dreams, and your own storehouse of memories can prove just as valid as any writer in the canon. You can be an anthropologist of your own mind and have enough to write a career.

This is, of course, an encouragement to write fiction, but it's also an introduction to Andrea Barret, whose historical short story collection Ship Fever could come from experience or research alike. Is she a scientist writing what she knows? Or did she write her way into science?

The answer seems to be both. According to her website, Barret has a degree in biology and according to Wikipedia, she started, but did not finish, a PHD in zoology, beginning writing in her thirties. Regardless, the stories collected here represent a masterly understanding of pace, perspective, and empathy-building. The main character of "Rare Bird," for example, is wealthy enough to be educated in the 18th century, but despite her cosseted upbringing is still not privileged, as a woman with the mind of a scientist but no outlet for career. Or take the doctor in "Ship Fever," who is motivated by jealousy to wake from his academic complacency and devote himself to a public health crisis. This character turns questionable motivation into ethical action – but pays the cost.

More than most fiction, the stories in "Ship Fever" narrate the actual problems of science. For example, several focus on the Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus, a towering figure considered "the father of modern taxonomy" but who still clung to mistaken beliefs, like that swallows hibernated in lake bottoms during the winter: a "fact" anchored in Aristotle and propagated by hearsay. This reminded me of Einstein, a luminary who forced a cosmological constant into his theories – not because of scientific reasoning but assumption and later called this his "greatest blunder." When the narrator of "Rare Birds" argues with Linnaeus, Barret glorifies her narrator's thinking but does not disparage her opponent. Bias and pre-conceptions come naturally, even to the scientists among us.

In various ways, all of these stories ask "what is the cost of real science?" What toll is extracted from those opposing orthodoxy? The doctor in "Ship Fever" cannot find patients because, unlike his contemporizes, he does not believe in bloodletting. What happens when an adherence to truth costs a career? We so easily chide yesterday's mistakes but falter when assessing our own, especially when the stakes reach the ultimate. Both "Ship Fever" and a previous Humanities Highlights, The Ghost Map, subject the battle of ideas to the pressures of plague and death, where we cling to the familiar until we can't.

Even still, her collection echoes other Humanities Highlights as well, like The Knife Man, which detailed John Hunter's grisly early surgery techniques; techniques that may have helped bring about reason-based and inductive surgery practices, but came at the expense of true boundary-crossings. Body-snatching, boiling down human remains, tasting bodily fluids, etc. In her own stories, Barret assesses the gamble of science here. What if Hunter's acts had not led to any medical advance? What would that have made him? Similarly, while killing and preserving specimens in the Amazon, the naturalist in "Birds Without Feet" fills journals with details but never arrives at a theory. Did he kill – and numb himself to the process of cutting up bodies – for nothing?

Unanimously, her characters MUST go out and see – and unanimously, they pay the cost of doing so. A Hollywood narrative would have her characters facing the odds and eventually vindicated (maybe even after substantial periods of neglect), their efforts acknowledged and bettering the world. Barret rarely grants her characters such consolation. Linnaeus sends his pupils out to taxonomize the globe, and almost all catch foreign diseases and die. The aforementioned naturalist in "Birds Without Feet" leaves his home and upbringing and does not succeed. The young woman in "Rare Bird" abandons the family manor to practice science in America, but we never learn what came of her. Even Barret's non-science-based narratives repeat this motif; two biologists abandon their marriages only to be disappointed with the life they bought for themselves.

Of course, both the successes and sacrifices of science must be motivated one way or the other (and many do not know whether they succeeded or not, like Gregor Mendel, another of Barret's subjects), but by what? In Einstein's famous speech for the birthday of Max Planck, "Principles of Research," he posits three types of scientists: the careerists, the utilitarians, and those driven by necessity. Einstein extols Planck as the last but does not spell out the cost for those driven this way, which is often great.

This is not to discourage anyone from their chosen career but to advocate for fiction to fill the gap. Fear, betrayal, lapses in memory, failure – these are fiction's terrain and given their full due in Ship Fever. The scientist might fail to discover a theory but find a story nonetheless. The artist cannot determine which stories they can honestly capture, but they should not tire in dipping their nets, just as the scientist (should they find themselves motivated to do so), should not stop witnessing – and thinking through – their world. The writers who develop their own voice and the scientist who validates their theories are those who persist as such. At the very least, excellent fiction like Andrea Barret's gives shape to our often-shapeless narratives and can help us assess our own motivations and whether, like the characters within, we must go out and see.

"I tell her how humiliated I am that I can't deal with it myself. I confess my hypocrisy, professing that I can help other people when I am such a mess myself. She responds that some of the best therapists are the ones with the most darkness in their lives" (Manning, 1994, p. 70).

The phrase "physician heal yourself" survived because of the Bible, but it occurs only in the gospel of Luke, which makes sense, as tradition considers Luke a doctor. Entertaining tradition, one can easily imagine the memory of this phrase – in the research done for his books – to be triggered by the author's profession. In modern times, the saying has come to mean something like, 'Take care of yourself, those who take care of others,' which of course is a valid and necessary concept, but simultaneously quite different from its original context. From the biblical story, we can ascertain that the proverb was used to call out quacks, i.e.: 'if you're selling a cure, prove it on yourself, and then we'll believe you.' For better or worse, Jesus rejects the demand, as did the author of the work selected for this Humanities Highlights: psychologist and depression-sufferer Martha Manning – albeit it with far more turbulence. I thought of both meanings when reading her fantastic mental health memoir, Undercurrents.

The book opens as a domestic comedy, with Manning describing her too-stuffed life with self-deprecating wit and a solid sense of scene making. It could be a family movie – tagline: woman has great career and family, if she can keep the plates spinning! – except for the darkness hinted beneath the surface, the titular "undercurrents," recounted through childhood memories and stories of her grandmother.

The opening allows us to appreciate her sensibilities before we dive into her depression, demonstrating the high contrast of lights and darks that can color the life of the depressed, and preempting stereotypes of the mentally unwell in the process.

As a psychologist herself, Manning suppresses guilt about her own depression, wondering how she can serve her patients while feeling "like an orthopedist in a full body cast giving consultation to someone with a broken leg" (p. 84). But with gumption and high tolerance, she pushes through – until she can't. She seeks treatment, beginning with talk therapy before cycling through SSRIs, and when those don't work, electing to try Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT).

The assistant head nurse gives me a tour and asks how I have gotten so depressed. I stare at her blankly and can't find the words. She might as well ask me why I have brown hair or why I'm not taller. I tell her that I am mostly depressed about being depressed. Her expression informs me that this clearly is not the correct answer. . . . She says dubiously, "Dr. Samuel said you are a psychologist," as if somehow that should make me more articulate about my pain. I reply sheepishly that I am a psychologist but that I'm not very good, in the hopes that this will explain any deficits in my clinical presentation. (p. 111)

But pain, by its very nature, is inarticulate. A burned hand may provoke a life time of philosophy but in the moment hardly prompts more than a monosyllable. The grammar of psychotherapy can only push a DIY mental health intervention so far, but Manning's guilt is understandable. Burdened by their own authority, healers risk this sense of guilty and maybe even fraudulence.

When used to suss out charlatans, "Physician heal yourself" may have limited merit, but clearly, a surgeon – outside of some remote disaster, getting crushed under a boulder when no one else is around – would not perform surgery on themselves. Nor would the dentist fill their own tooth. But when it comes to the mind, it's easy to assume we can operate on ourselves. This should not be.

We all need other people – and their expertise. We do not know everything, and sometimes we experience mental blocks that others can help us hurdle. But, because Manning undergoes these experiences, she is better able to understand the patient's humiliation. She lightens the pressure to dispense insight and better learns when she just needs to "look squarely at people's pain" (p. 172).

It's a great book, one whose application greatly exceeds the particulars that germinated it.

References: 

In his latest book, Francis Collins – former NIH director, leader of the Human Genome Project, and evangelical author of books like "The Language of God" – aims to extend the work of the Braver Angels organization and "unwarp" a country distorted by "divisiveness and politics" (p. 8).

While his discussions range across his own research experience, social media, the Covid-19 pandemic, global warming, and election fraud, as this is a library blog, I intend to focus on the assessment of information and why we believe what we believe.

Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust in the Internet Age

Collins positions truth, science, faith and trust as the key building-blocks of wisdom. And while he does not explicitly state this; these qualities benefit internet-age humans because they increase the friction of information intake.

Truth requires examining evidence. Science requires forming and testing hypotheses. Faith requires meditation to better discern the good. And perhaps most controversially (as many have lost trust in almost every institution), trust requires research and – unless we want to live a paranoid, isolated life – an informed, but unquantifiable, leap.

The road to wisdom is long.

Clearly, one cannot practice this level of critical engagement without drastically reducing the flow of information. Five minutes of reels could prompt five hours of research. But this is good: better to be well-versed in a little than deluded about a lot.

No one has the time research everything, of course, which raises the question of what we need to know, what we feel we know, and what we actually know, which takes us to the next point.

Anger and Algorithms

Inspired by Jonathan Haidt's Atlantic article, "Why the Last Ten Years Have Been Uniquely Stupid," Collins discusses the shift towards toxicity in social media: for example, when Facebook added the "like" button, this generated extensive insight about the fastest-spreading content (with anger emerging as the most viral emotion) – and allowed tailoring around this engagement.

Practically speaking, this means, unless a user actively shapes their experience, they will very likely be served endless amounts of rage.

Anger tightly couples with certainty, and certainty feels good. But this creates a gap in our thinking where other people's anger implicitly conveys a certainty that might be unearned – or may even mask duplicity.

Considering that platforms want to maximize profit and political agents want to weaponize our attention, this should cast serious doubts about much of what we learn on social media. At the very least, this calls for higher standards for ourselves and our information diet.

What We Believe and Why

When discussing truth, Collins invokes the philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine's "web theory" of beliefs, which helps an individual map their ideas and values based on certainty: with the most evidence-based and conclusive in the middle and the most speculative on the edges.

While the diagram itself could be substituted, the model forces people to assess why they believe something. Can we state the evidence behind our beliefs, and have we learned to extrapolate reasonable conclusions from the evidence? If we haven't, why do we believe it?

Moreover, Quine's "web" increases self-awareness of our hierarchy of beliefs. Somewhat paradoxically, our most thought-out beliefs will likely also be our most defended, as these central strands support the rest of the web. But sometimes defense becomes obstinacy and blindness. A scientist who's staked their career on a theory, for example, might be hostile towards other theories. Self-knowledge of our values is invaluable as we approach good faith dialogue. Webs – and worldviews – can be re-spun.

And as we assess our own beliefs, this better equips us to assess online (and offline) content. What are their sources? Motivations for espousing their beliefs? Do they bear the hallmarks of competence and expertise? Can they stand up to scrutiny?

Identity, Aligned Values, and the Book

Part of "unwarping" America involves discussions "across the aisle:" the purpose of the Braver Angels dialogues in general. In an increasingly complex world, tribalism simplifies the complexity, but at a cost. We should have higher standards for evidence than appeals to tribal identity.

That being said, Christians will most likely find Collins credible, which he's aware of. He cites a study where 2000 Christian participants were instructed about the Covid-19 vaccine by health experts, Collins included; some participants were also shown footage of Collins discussing his Christian faith. These showed markedly higher rates of vaccine participation (p. 189).

This appeal to tribal identity – as a Christian who affirms the evidence of global warming, for example – is a secondary good (although it could certainly help heal divisions). Ultimately, though, Collins wishes to transcend this appeal to identity and to train others to do likewise. Whether or not he succeeds, his work is a good prompting to assess our information intake and why we hold our beliefs, as well as inspiration to find good faith discussions, learn to listen, and embody the spirit of a healthy democracy.

References:

Collins, F. S. (2024). The road to wisdom : on truth, science, faith, and trust. Little, Brown and Company.

John Green's latest book, Everything is Tuberculosis, is a profoundly empathetic appeal to humanity's better angels¹: to the generosity and compassion that we're all capable of (and against our folly and cruelty, which we're also capable of).

Much of the book lays out a history of the disease, the progression of medicinal and non-medicinal interventions, and the health organizations that have calculated the costs of treating the world's poor – and determined it too expensive.

As a YouTube historian (see his Crash Course channel with Hank Green) and novelist obsessed with interesting facts (like Miles Halter's obsession with last words in Looking for Alaska), OF COURSE John Green can make any subject interesting, entertaining even. But I finished Everything is Tuberculosis challenged and inspired by the moral, anti-inertia vision Green shares, which centered around Henry: a multi-drug resistant TB survivor that Green met in Sierra Leone.

Henry: "I Care About Tuberculosis Because I Care About Henry" (p. 141)

"We are not here to be plugged into a cost-benefit analysis. We are here to love and be loved" (p. 141).

Everything is Tuberculosis alternates between the history of tuberculosis and Henry's story. More than just a convenient book-structure, this singular focus is Green's point: 1,250,000 people die of TB every year (a curable disease), but we cannot imagine 1,250,000 people (p. 188). Personally, I cannot even imagine the inner worlds, hopes, dreams, and pains of a metro car full of people, let alone the population size of a city. We need, it seems, a face and story to understand suffering and injustice.

This is the tragedy/statistic dynamic attributed to Joseph Stalin ("A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic)," but utilized here for the good.

But Green's focus on Henry isn't just about hacking the quirks of the human brain. It's a radical vision of the humanity in each person.

All of this happens because of what Dr. Mitnick describes as a failure of imagination. "There is this continued mentality of scarcity in TB," she explained. I think of this in the context of my brother Hank and his cancer care. Cancer care even within the U.S. remains wildly inequitable and littered with all manner of price gouging, but no one questioned whether treating my brother's lymphoma was "cost-effective," even though it cost a hundred times more than it would've to cure Henry's tuberculosis. My brother is my oldest friend, my closest collaborator, and his work has been transformative in many lives. I would never accept a world where Hank might be told, "I'm sorry, but while your cancer has a 92 percent cure rate when treated properly, there just aren't adequate resources in the world to make that treatment available to you." That world would be so obviously and unacceptably unjust. So how can I live in a world where Henry and his family are told that? How can I accept a world where over a million people will die this year for want of a cure that has existed for nearly a century? (p. 155).

Green, in a success of imagination, is able to see any given person as invaluable: as loved by many and worth sacrificing anything for. In other words, each tuberculosis case may as well be his brother and collaborator, Hank Green.

That's a potentially paralyzing vision – one that the brain routinely shields us from – IF we're trying to help the billions in need alone.

Thankfully, we don't have to go alone.

Virtuous Cycles: the example of Partners in Health

"But Jim Kim and others felt certain that if they could prove that MDR-TB was in fact curable in poor countries, then the global health community and governments would begin to invest more in its treatment. They believed they could spur a virtuous cycle" (p. 170).

Once you see all the Henrys in the world as human and worth saving, action naturally follows. However, the world has, to put it mildly, a lot of problems; many of them require ingenuity and funding to solve, which can feel sorely lacking.

Lacking to the point of apathy, inertia, and despair.

But that's where virtuous cycles, Green's second moral insight, comes in. We can understand a virtuous cycles as the opposite of a vicious cycle, which we're more readily familiar with.

A vicious cycle might go something like: 1) people determine a problem isn't solvable, 2) the problem worsens, 3) it's now extra-not-solvable, 4) others mimic the first group and agree no one can solve it, 5) the problem persists in worsening.

A virtuous cycle is similar but opposite: 1) courageous people determine a problem can be solved, 2) they succeed, 3) others see it can be done, 4) as more people join, the "cost" of joining radically drops, until 5) the problem is more/less solved.

Green demonstrates the virtuous cycle with Partners in Health, who invested/sacrificed the initial $20k/patient to prove that MDR-TB (multi-drug resistant tuberculosis) patients could be healed – something the WHO had deemed too expensive to be feasible (p. 168-170), gambling that their success would prompt reform. And it did. Their 85% cure rate sparked further investment in lowering drug costs and for the WHO to adjust their policy around MDR-TB patients. Green reports that by 2023, "the endTB trials – funded by Unitaid, Doctors Without Borders, and PIH – found that around 90% of MDR-TB cases could be cured for about $300 per course, a 98% reduction in price from the 1990s" (p. 174).

These changes were not just statistical. In 2023, their reforms saved the life of Henry (p. 164).

The virtuous cycle understands that we're mimetic creatures; we mimic. From wearing skinny jeans to unironically using the word "rizz" to charitably donating, we tend to do what others are doing.

The world's problems do require ingenuity, investment, and risk to solve. But the good news is double-sided: not everyone has to take the initial courageous step, but doing so opens the path for others, who hopefully will follow, especially as it gets easier and easier to do so.

This inverts the initial despair, which feels like: "there's only one of me and billions in need; there's nothing I could possibly do" to "there's millions of resourceful people, helping billions in need."

As Green – a novelist and YouTuber – exemplifies, each of our talents, when applied to better the world, can be a signal flare for others, who see it and make the world a less disconnected place.

Turning Anxiety into Moral Action

"I should acknowledge, I guess, that one reason I'm interested in TB is that I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, and my particular obsessive worries tend to circle around microbes and illness" (p. 94).

Lastly, Everything is Tuberculosis inspires not just because of its clarity or moral insight, but because of how John Green brings his whole self to the book. Because he has OCD (reflected in Aza Holmes of Turtles All the Way Down), this led to an intensive self-education about microbes, which made writing a book about tuberculosis much more possible.

In other words, Green turned his mental health disorder into a gift for the world, one that hopefully will compound the already-increasing global reform.

It's not just OCD, though. As John explains in this video, he turned a health crisis and anxiety over publishing further fiction, into Everything is Tuberculosis.

Green's example suggests that our anxieties, rather than hinder us, can help guide what projects we should devote ourselves to next.

Overall, Everything is Tuberculosis itself is an inspiration – whether we work in global health or not – for how we might use our individual skills and brains to better the world.

References:

Green, John. (2025). Everything is Tuberculosis. Penguin.

1. a phrase coined by Lincoln in his first inaugural address ↩︎

With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing "Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past" by David Reich.

About the Book: From the front lines of the genomic revolution, David Reich lays out whole genome sequencing, the technologies that have reduced its costs [like the (now obsolete) robots that can decode DNA at a fraction of the cost], and insights that challenge preconceptions of ancestry. What emerges is a rich mosaic of human past that testifies to the "multitudes" we contain – to borrow Walt Whitman's term. Completed in 2003, the Human Genome Project will surely only keep yielding insights and implications. "Who We Are" testifies to that advancement and provides one of the more robust snapshots of the field in the late 2010s (published 2018).

Reasons to Read: Reich calls "Who We Are" a book of curiosity, and it indeed rewards the curious: the type of people interested in hidden history or excited by clues found in caves and riverbeds. Reich's work investigates "ghost populations:" people groups who no longer exist but can be inferred from the genetic record (and would fall outside written history). Therefore, Reich's book and similar research is worthwhile for readers looking to expand their understanding of just how far back the human experience goes – and how we have persevered around the globe.

Reasons to Avoid:  If you're annoyed by misnomer titles. "Who We Are And How We Got Here" was a title probably picked by the publisher. A more accurate title would be: "Some Inferences About Human Nature and Clues of How We Got Here." Because whole-genome sequencing is both new and rapidly developing, any results will definitionally be inconclusive. Reich himself states that research-rate outpaces publishing and acknowledges that imminent research will most likely supersede his findings (p. xxi). We have no definitive answers: but many beginnings. So, if you're only partially invested in the conversation – then there could be wisdom in waiting.

For similar reasons, "Who We Are" is not a one-stop-shop on genetics. As a layperson myself, I would have benefited from more foundational knowledge in order to test the integrity of his claims. Other books are also in order.

Further Reading:

• "A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes" by Adam Rutherford. [Available through Consortium Loan]
• "DNA Demystified: Unravelling the Double Helix" by Alan McHughen [Available online at Himmelfarb]
• "CRISPR People" by Hank Greely [Available through Consortium Loan]

References:

Reich, D. (2018). Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past.

Vintage Books.

[Note: Himmelfarb has replaced this copy with the 2021 edition]

With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. 

About the Book: In short, fascinating chapters – many of them originally published as articles – Sacks records the case studies of his neurological patients. Told with erudite whimsy, these case studies incorporate Sack’s knowledge of philosophy, from Nietzsche to Goethe to Wittgenstein, and his humane spirit. Many chapters expand the original article with a postscript that further defines the neurological condition (like Korsakoff’s Syndrome) and connects Sack’s research with similar cases and increased insights. 

Reasons to Read: Oliver Sacks is the kind of author I’d recommend to almost anyone. These cases are like Poe, Lovecraft, Kafka, and Philip K. Dick, except more astonishing because of their reality. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat could be enjoyed both by readers that want to ponder the philosophical implications of these cases and those who simply want to read something interesting. 

Reasons to Avoid: Primarily, if you had to decide between An Anthropologist on Mars (also highlighted in the Rotation) and The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, I recommend the former. With only seven case studies in Anthropologist, Sack has much more space to develop the patient’s story and the background of their condition. But, both books are great. 

Further Reading: 

• An Anthropologist on Mars [available at Himmelfarb]
• The Man with a Shattered World [available through the consortium]
• The Mind of a Mnemonist [available through the consortium]

With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World,” by Steven Johnson. 

About the Book: A story of epidemiology in its infancy, Steven Johnson analyzes the cholera outbreak in 1854 and the key investigators unraveling the mystery of transmission. Balancing urban planning, biology, and politics, The Ghost Map explores the rise of ultra-dense urban communities and the trial-and-error discovery of basic civic needs, like waste management. It’s a book about ideas: both why we cling to bad ones and the consequences of doing so. 

Reasons to Read: If you enjoy medical detective stories, Johnson provides an excellent one, assembling information into an efficient and intelligible chain of cause and effect while commenting insightfully on the history of disease. The book has no shortage of Victorian horrors, as well, if you want to further your gratitude for 21st century life. 

Reasons to Avoid: well, it is fundamentally a book about poop (and ingesting it); "what cholera wants is an environment where people are eating other people's excrement” (Johnson, 2006, pg. 40). Scatological tolerances aside, it’s a book as much about urban planning and the competition of ideas as it is a straightforward disease narrative, compared to something like Pale Rider. 

Further Reading: 

• The Power of Plagues [available in Himmelfarb’s Humanities collection]
• Pale rider : the Spanish Flu of 1918 and how it changed the world [available in Himmelfarb’s Humanities collection]
• Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: a Life of John Snow [Available Online through Himmelfarb]
• Underworld [available through the Consortium Loan Service] - Delillo’s novel of nuclear waste management spanning the 20th century

References

Johnson, S. (2006). The Ghost Map. Penguin.

With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers,” by Mary Roach. 

About the Book: The book that launched Mary Roach's science-writing career, "Stiff" investigates the contribution of human cadavers to science [with studies ranging from humane to grisly to wacky; from crash safety to the physics of crucifixion], as well as human burial practices [including alternatives to burial or cremation]. Written with humor and respect – and without sacrificing the ethical questions – Roach follows her journalistic interest while guiding readers along the various labs, morgues, and fields of rotting corpses in the industry.

Reasons to Read: If you like books that make you say "dang" a lot (or your preferred utterance), if you want to take a steady (but never overly macabre) look at death (and maybe get a party fact about Victorian medicine along the way), or if you want to understand the reality of cadaver testing for you or your loved one.

Reasons to Avoid: If you like your books to be focused [Roach encompasses the history of anatomy, organ donation, crash and ballistics testing, embalming techniques, funeral practices, and more.], or if you'd rather dial down the wisecracks in books about death.

Further Reading: 

• The Knife Man [available at Himmelfarb]
• The Butchering Art : Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine [available at Himmelfarb]
• Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife [available through the Consortium Loan Service]
• Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex [available through the Consortium Loan Service]

With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing “An Anthropologist on Mars,” by Oliver Sacks. 

About the Book: "An Anthropologist on Mars" explores seven fascinating cases of mental conditions, depicting outliers who not only had a rare experience but the talent or background to make sense of it. Drawing from his direct contact with these patients, Sacks enriches the facts of these accounts with history and a strong narrative sense. These limit cases help us not only understand others with these conditions but human cognition itself.

Reasons to Read: If you like listicles but want something more robust and literary; "Anthropologist" is a set of seven attention-grabbing, memorable cases; except, unlike the average listicle (which features recycled content and minimal research), the stories in "Anthropologist" come from first-hand accounts and benefit from Sacks bountiful knowledge and narrative capabilities. Recommended if you enjoy thinking about creativity and the relationship between limitations and strengths.

Reasons to Avoid: While eloquent and readable, the book is aimed at general readers (and therefore contains broad overviews of neurological conditions that might be redundant to researchers); moreover, Sacks interacts with patients in a "gonzo journalism" kind of way, embedding himself in their lives outside of a clinical setting. This gonzo psychiatry makes excellent reading but may be of less clinical use.

Further Reading: 

• Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain [available at the Himmelfarb Library]
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat [available through the Consortium Loan Service]
• A Collection of Moments: A Study of Involuntary Memories [available through the Consortium Loan Service]
• Scattered Shadows: a Memoir of Blindness and Vision [available online through E-Book Central Complete]