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Book What Makes Jo March Tick  Little Women Podcast Transcript

Download or read book What Makes Jo March Tick Little Women Podcast Transcript written by Niina Niskanen and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2023-11-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If she had seen his face when, safe in his own room, he looked at the picture of a severe and rigid young lady, with a good deal of hair, who appeared to be gazing darkly in futurity, it might have thrown some light upon the subject, especially when he turned off the gas, and kissed the picture in the dark." - Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott Emily and Niina are here to discuss Jo's and Friedrich's relationship in Little Women. Rooted in reality, and the author's love life, Little Women has captived the minds and hearts of readers for generations. Here ́s what listeners have said about the Little Women podcast: Melodie I love this podcast! The host knows more, digs deeper, and makes better connections than any other LMA/Little Women researcher I've seen. I would consider myself a big LMA/Little Women fan, and I'd say I know more about the two than the average person (or average fan even), but I always learn something new listening to this podcast. I'm the admin for "The Little Women Book Club" on Facebook, and our members all really love this podcast. If you're an LMA/Little Women fan you will love it, too! rotten Tiger What a beautiful podcast! It's so insightful and entertaining. It understands the characters perfectly (especially Laurie), I love it Jen As a long-time, die-hard Little Women fan, I LOVE this podcast! I stumbled upon it while doing research for a book series I was working on, and I am addicted! Niina is super knowledgeable in all things LW, from the book(s) to the movies and author Louisa May Alcott's real life. I love that the discussions are based on the book and highlight the differences (sometimes controversial) between the original and newer adaptations. Highly recommended for anybody who loves getting lost in the world of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March.

Book What Makes Jo March Tick  Little Women Podcast

Download or read book What Makes Jo March Tick Little Women Podcast written by Niina Niskanen and published by Niina Niskanen. This book was released on 2023-11-28 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emily and I combined our powers once again to discuss Jo's and Friedrich's relationships and Louisa May Alcott's attraction toward intelligence. When Friedrich gives feedback to Jo, Jo appreciates it, because she wants to develop as a writer. Friedrich Bhaer is based on philosopher Henry David Thoreau. Louisa was in love with him and he appears in literal disguise in all of her novels. He is also based on Alcott's favourite writer, the German poet Goethe. Unlike Greta Gerwig that lies to millions of people, Jo and Friedrich never argue in the book, and Friedrich is the one who helps her to become a writer. He literally gives the same advice to Jo, as Goethe inspired LMA to improve as a writer. Laurie is partially based on Alcott's ex, Laddie Wisniewski, and her friend Alf Whitman. She had a maternal relationship with both of these men who were younger than she. One of the goals of the Little Women podcast is to examine these relationships, and how (several) Little Women adaptations ignore their significance. Here´s what listeners have said about the Little Women podcast: Melodie I love this podcast! The host knows more, digs deeper, and makes better connections than any other LMA/Little Women researcher I’ve seen. I would consider myself a big LMA/Little Women fan, and I’d say I know more about the two than the average person (or average fan even), but I always learn something new listening to this podcast. I’m the admin for “The Little Women Book Club” on Facebook, and our members all really love this podcast. If you’re an LMA/Little Women fan you will love it, too! rotten Tiger What a beautiful podcast! It’s so insightful and entertaining. It understands the characters perfectly (especially Laurie), I love it Jen As a long-time, die-hard Little Women fan, I LOVE this podcast! I stumbled upon it while doing research for a book series I was working on, and I am addicted! Niina is super knowledgeable in all things LW, from the book(s) to the movies and author Louisa May Alcott’s real life. I love that the discussions are based on the book and highlight the differences (sometimes controversial) between the original and newer adaptations. Highly recommended for anybody who loves getting lost in the world of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March.

Book Little Women Podcast  The First Season

Download or read book Little Women Podcast The First Season written by Niina Niskanen and published by Niina Niskanen. This book was released on 2023-11-07 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the captivating story behind the beloved book series with the Little Women Podcast. Immerse yourself in the first season as you delve into Louisa May Alcott's life and the inspiration behind her timeless tale. Uncover the secrets and insights that shaped this literary masterpiece. Start your literary journey today with the Little Women Podcast. First season includes transcripts from such classic episodes such as "150 Year Laurie Problem", "Love and Sex In Little Women", "Real-Life Friedrich Bhaer" and "What Makes Jo March Tick". Dive deep into the world of Little Women. Find how these beloved characters were created and the real-life people who inspired them. Here´s what listeners have said about the Little Women podcast: Melodie I love this podcast! The host knows more, digs deeper, and makes better connections than any other LMA/Little Women researcher I’ve seen. I would consider myself a big LMA/Little Women fan, and I’d say I know more about the two than the average person (or average fan even), but I always learn something new listening to this podcast. I’m the admin for “The Little Women Book Club” on Facebook, and our members all really love this podcast. If you’re an LMA/Little Women fan you will love it, too! rotten Tiger What a beautiful podcast! It’s so insightful and entertaining. It understands the characters perfectly (especially Laurie), I love it Jen As a long-time, die-hard Little Women fan, I LOVE this podcast! I stumbled upon it while doing research for a book series I was working on, and I am addicted! Niina is super knowledgeable in all things LW, from the book(s) to the movies and author Louisa May Alcott’s real life. I love that the discussions are based on the book and highlight the differences (sometimes controversial) between the original and newer adaptations. Highly recommended for anybody who loves getting lost in the world of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March. @senseandpeace, writes "At the end of part two, Jo states that she'll open up a school specifically for boys. I've seen people express their dislike about this, which I can understand, but at the same time, that is Jo's choice. It's not like Louisa May Alcott was forced by anyone to have a Jo teach boys only. This is also another case of how those people see themselves in Jo. There's nothing wrong with relating to her and using her as a self-insert, yet failing to understand her because you can see how Jo relates more to boys and has an easier time communicating with them. I don't think Jo has any female friends outside of her family. plus Jo says this herself who believe is Nat, in one chapter of Little Men when they talk. The two things she loves are books and boys. Does that make Jo a misogynist for not including girls? No. She just happens to have an easier connection with boys same as she feels a connection to books".

Book 150 Year Laurie Problem  Little Women Podcast Transcript

Download or read book 150 Year Laurie Problem Little Women Podcast Transcript written by Emily Lau and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2023-11-16 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emily and I combined our powers and had an in-depth chat about Laurie Lawrence, his character arc and the lack of it in every-single-little-women adaptation. In the novel, Laurie starts out as a very idle and sometimes pretty misogynistic figure and it is thanks to Amy he becomes a better person, but these elements of him are not in the adaptations. One of the most downloaded episodes of the Little Women Podcast, 150 Year Laurie problem, makes a deep dive into Laurie's character and compares the book's narrative to the several Little Women adaptations, which consistantly keep erasing his character arc. As a long-time, die-hard Unga Kvinnor fan, I LOVE this podcast! I stumbled upon it while doing research for a book series I was working on, and I am addicted! Niina is super knowledgeable in all things LW, from the book(s) to the movies and author Louisa May Alcott's real life. I love that the discussions are based on the book and highlight the differences (sometimes controversial) between the original and newer adaptations. Highly recommended for anybody who loves getting lost in the world of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March. - Jen Brady, Author of the March Sisters Sweet Romance Please notice that this is a short-form book, based on a podcast episode. Little Women Podcast is an ongoing series of video essays, articles and podcast episodes that examines the intersections in Louisa May Alcott ́s Little Women. Hosted by Alcott essayist Niina Pekantytär. Regular visits from literal scholars and Little Women fans.

Book Eden s Outcasts  The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father

Download or read book Eden s Outcasts The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father written by John Matteson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2010-08-13 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography Louisa May Alcott is known universally. Yet during Louisa's youth, the famous Alcott was her father, Bronson—an eminent teacher and a friend of Emerson and Thoreau. He desired perfection, for the world and from his family. Louisa challenged him with her mercurial moods and yearnings for money and fame. The other prize she deeply coveted—her father's understanding—seemed hardest to win. This story of Bronson and Louisa's tense yet loving relationship adds dimensions to Louisa's life, her work, and the relationships of fathers and daughters.

Book Go Back to Where You Came From  And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American

Download or read book Go Back to Where You Came From And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American written by Wajahat Ali and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Go back to where you came from, you terrorist!” This is just one of the many warm, lovely, and helpful tips that Wajahat Ali and other children of immigrants receive on a daily basis. Go back where, exactly? Fremont, California, where he grew up, but is now an unaffordable place to live? Or Pakistan, the country his parents left behind a half-century ago? Growing up living the suburban American dream, young Wajahat devoured comic books (devoid of brown superheroes) and fielded well-intentioned advice from uncles and aunties. (“Become a doctor!”) He had turmeric stains under his fingernails, was accident-prone, suffered from OCD, and wore Husky pants, but he was as American as his neighbors, with roots all over the world. Then, while Ali was studying at University of California, Berkeley, 9/11 happened. Muslims replaced communists as America’s enemy #1, and he became an accidental spokesman and ambassador of all ordinary, unthreatening things Muslim-y. Now a middle-aged dad, Ali has become one of the foremost and funniest public intellectuals in America. In Go Back to Where You Came From, he tackles the dangers of Islamophobia, white supremacy, and chocolate hummus, peppering personal stories with astute insights into national security, immigration, and pop culture. In this refreshingly bold, hopeful, and uproarious memoir, Ali offers indispensable lessons for cultivating a more compassionate, inclusive, and delicious America.

Book The Bitch Switch

Download or read book The Bitch Switch written by Omarosa and published by Phoenix Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When a woman acts assertively, makes demands, and struggles for what she wants, she is labeled a bitch. The secret is to know when and how to turn on (or turn off) that "bitch switch." Not being able to locate your "switch" leaves you open to being a victim; not knowing how to turn it off will get you a label that is hard to shake. From Omarosa, reality star, global television personality, and the prime-time woman you love to hate, comes The Bitch Switch, the smart and bitingly honest must-read for every woman who aspires to succeed in relationships, in business, and at home.

Book Leading Quietly

Download or read book Leading Quietly written by Joseph Badaracco and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Badaracco (business ethics, Harvard) observes that the most effective leaders are rarely public heroes or high-profile champions of causes. His study of "quiet leadership," carried out over four years, presents a series of stories describing quiet leaders at work and drawing practical lessons for executives and aspiring corporate leaders. The cases include a hospital CEO dealing with a case of sexual harassment; a bank president under pressure to remove underperforming but longtime employees; and a high-tech marketing rep who learned that his company was dumping obsolete equipment on its small customers. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Book These Precious Days

Download or read book These Precious Days written by Ann Patchett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays. "The elegance of Patchett’s prose is seductive and inviting: with Patchett as a guide, readers will really get to grips with the power of struggles, failures, and triumphs alike." —Publisher's Weekly “Any story that starts will also end.” As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores “what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self.” When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks’ short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman—Tom’s brilliant assistant Sooki—with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer’s eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo’s children’s books (author of The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz’s Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author’s grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark—and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

Book Dare to Lead

Download or read book Dare to Lead written by Brené Brown and published by Random House. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Brené Brown has taught us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong, and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers, and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead. Don’t miss the five-part HBO Max docuseries Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart! NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential. When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work. But daring leadership in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the exact same time as we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines and AI can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection, and courage, to start. Four-time #1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown has spent the past two decades studying the emotions and experiences that give meaning to our lives, and the past seven years working with transformative leaders and teams spanning the globe. She found that leaders in organizations ranging from small entrepreneurial startups and family-owned businesses to nonprofits, civic organizations, and Fortune 50 companies all ask the same question: How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture? In this new book, Brown uses research, stories, and examples to answer these questions in the no-BS style that millions of readers have come to expect and love. Brown writes, “One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of four skill sets that are 100 percent teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No. Because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here.” Whether you’ve read Daring Greatly and Rising Strong or you’re new to Brené Brown’s work, this book is for anyone who wants to step up and into brave leadership.

Book Dig

    Dig

    Book Details:
  • Author : A.S. King
  • Publisher : Penguin
  • Release : 2019-03-26
  • ISBN : 1101994924
  • Pages : 402 pages

Download or read book Dig written by A.S. King and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-03-26 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Michael L. Printz Medal ★“King’s narrative concerns are racism, patriarchy, colonialism, white privilege, and the ingrained systems that perpetuate them. . . . [Dig] will speak profoundly to a generation of young people who are waking up to the societal sins of the past and working toward a more equitable future.”—Horn Book, starred review “I’ve never understood white people who can’t admit they’re white. I mean, white isn’t just a color. And maybe that’s the problem for them. White is a passport. It’s a ticket.” Five estranged cousins are lost in a maze of their family’s tangled secrets. Their grandparents, former potato farmers Gottfried and Marla Hemmings, managed to trade digging spuds for developing subdivisions and now they sit atop a million-dollar bank account—wealth they’ve refused to pass on to their adult children or their five teenage grandchildren. “Because we want them to thrive,” Marla always says. But for the Hemmings cousins, “thriving” feels a lot like slowly dying of a poison they started taking the moment they were born. As the rot beneath the surface of the Hemmings’ white suburban respectability destroys the family from within, the cousins find their ways back to one another, just in time to uncover the terrible cost of maintaining the family name. With her inimitable surrealism, award winner A.S. King exposes how a toxic culture of polite white supremacy tears a family apart and how one determined generation can dig its way out.

Book The Power of Strangers

Download or read book The Power of Strangers written by Joe Keohane and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “meticulously researched and buoyantly written” (Esquire) look at what happens when we talk to strangers, and why it affects everything from our own health and well-being to the rise and fall of nations in the tradition of Susan Cain’s Quiet and Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens “This lively, searching work makes the case that welcoming ‘others’ isn’t just the bedrock of civilization, it’s the surest path to the best of what life has to offer.”—Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Homeland Elegies In our cities, we stand in silence at the pharmacy and in check-out lines at the grocery store, distracted by our phones, barely acknowledging one another, even as rates of loneliness skyrocket. Online, we retreat into ideological silos reinforced by algorithms designed to serve us only familiar ideas and like-minded users. In our politics, we are increasingly consumed by a fear of people we’ve never met. But what if strangers—so often blamed for our most pressing political, social, and personal problems—are actually the solution? In The Power of Strangers, Joe Keohane sets out on a journey to discover what happens when we bridge the distance between us and people we don’t know. He learns that while we’re wired to sometimes fear, distrust, and even hate strangers, people and societies that have learned to connect with strangers benefit immensely. Digging into a growing body of cutting-edge research on the surprising social and psychological benefits that come from talking to strangers, Keohane finds that even passing interactions can enhance empathy, happiness, and cognitive development, ease loneliness and isolation, and root us in the world, deepening our sense of belonging. And all the while, Keohane gathers practical tips from experts on how to talk to strangers, and tries them out himself in the wild, to awkward, entertaining, and frequently poignant effect. Warm, witty, erudite, and profound, equal parts sweeping history and self-help journey, this deeply researched book will inspire readers to see everything—from major geopolitical shifts to trips to the corner store—in an entirely new light, showing them that talking to strangers isn’t just a way to live; it’s a way to survive.

Book The Whole30

    Book Details:
  • Author : Melissa Urban
  • Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • Release : 2015
  • ISBN : 0544609719
  • Pages : 435 pages

Download or read book The Whole30 written by Melissa Urban and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2015 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millions of people visit Whole30.com every month and share their stories of weight loss and lifestyle makeovers. Hundreds of thousands of them have read It Starts With Food, which explains the science behind the program. At last, The Whole30 provides the step-by-step, recipe-by-recipe guidebook that will allow millions of people to experience the transformation of their entire life in just one month.

Book The Castle in the Attic

Download or read book The Castle in the Attic written by Elizabeth Winthrop and published by Holiday House. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic children's story about a young boy, his toy castle, and a magical adventure that reveals the true meaning of courage When his beloved caretaker Mrs. Phillips tells him she's leaving, William is devastated. Not even her farewell gift of a model medieval castle helps him feel better—though he has to admit it's fascinating. From the working drawbridge and portcullis to the fully-furnished rooms, it's perfect in every detail. It almost seems magical. And when William looks at the silver knight, the tiny figure comes to life in his hand—and tells him a tale of a wicked sorcerer, a vicious dragon, and a kingdom in need of a hero. Hoping the castle's magic will help him find a way to make his friend stay, William embarks on a daring quest with Sir Simon, the Silver Knight—but he will have to face his own doubts and regrets if he's going to succeed. William's story continues in The Battle for the Castle, available as a redesigned companion edition. An IRA-CBC Children's Choice A California Young Reader Medal Winner A Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award Winner Nominated for 23 State Book Awards

Book The Bright Hour

Download or read book The Bright Hour written by Nina Riggs and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Built on her ... Modern Love column, 'When a Couch is More Than a Couch' (9/23/2016), a ... memoir of living meaningfully with 'death in the room' by the 38-year-old great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson--mother to two young boys, wife of 16 years--after her terminal cancer diagnosis"--

Book Seattle 100

    Book Details:
  • Author : Chase Jarvis
  • Publisher : New Riders
  • Release : 2010-10-04
  • ISBN : 0133085473
  • Pages : 463 pages

Download or read book Seattle 100 written by Chase Jarvis and published by New Riders. This book was released on 2010-10-04 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seattle 100: Portrait of a City is the culmination of a two-year personal project by renowned photographer, filmmaker, and social artist Chase Jarvis. Both a creative project and an insightful ethnography, Seattle 100 shares—via more than 300 stunning black-and-white portraits and biographies of each subject—a curated collection of leading artists, musicians, writers, scientists, restaurateurs, DJs, developers, activists, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, and more, all of whom are defining and driving culture in Seattle. Some faces you will know, other names you may have heard in passing, and others will have been unknown to you until now. With this book, Jarvis has created a snapshot of a city’s culture through its people. And it’s inclusive. Descriptive rather than prescriptive. It’s a 100, not an exclusive the 100, and it invites each of us to survey our own surroundings, our lives, our friends—and those not yet our friends—that make up the place we live, whether that’s Seattle or anywhere else. Individually, the images and words here introduce you to 100 engaging and important people. Collectively, this portrait of a city tells a fascinating, interwoven story about a unique and vibrant place. Beyond the photos and commentary by Jarvis, there are pithy musings by a select handful of subjects on the topics of art, food, community, region, culture, and film. In addition, many of the subjects share their favorite things, places, and doings in and around the Seattle that they have explored, discovered, and rediscovered time and again. Chase Jarvis is donating 100% of his artist proceeds from this book to the amazing arts and culture organization www.4culture.org.

Book The Deep Places

Download or read book The Deep Places written by Ross Douthat and published by Convergent Books. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • In this vulnerable, insightful memoir, the New York Times columnist tells the story of his five-year struggle with a disease that officially doesn’t exist, exploring the limits of modern medicine, the stories that we unexpectedly fall into, and the secrets that only suffering reveals. “A powerful memoir about our fragile hopes in the face of chronic illness.”—Kate Bowler, bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason In the summer of 2015, Ross Douthat was moving his family, with two young daughters and a pregnant wife, from Washington, D.C., to a sprawling farmhouse in a picturesque Connecticut town when he acquired a mysterious and devastating sickness. It left him sleepless, crippled, wracked with pain--a shell of himself. After months of seeing doctors and descending deeper into a physical inferno, he discovered that he had a disease which according to CDC definitions does not actually exist: the chronic form of Lyme disease, a hotly contested condition that devastates the lives of tens of thousands of people but has no official recognition--and no medically approved cure. From a rural dream house that now felt like a prison, Douthat's search for help takes him off the map of official medicine, into territory where cranks and conspiracies abound and patients are forced to take control of their own treatment and experiment on themselves. Slowly, against his instincts and assumptions, he realizes that many of the cranks and weirdos are right, that many supposed "hypochondriacs" are victims of an indifferent medical establishment, and that all kinds of unexpected experiences and revelations lurk beneath the surface of normal existence, in the places underneath. The Deep Places is a story about what happens when you are terribly sick and realize that even the doctors who are willing to treat you can only do so much. Along the way, Douthat describes his struggle back toward health with wit and candor, portraying sickness as the most terrible of gifts. It teaches you to appreciate the grace of ordinary life by taking that life away from you. It reveals the deep strangeness of the world, the possibility that the reasonable people might be wrong, and the necessity of figuring out things for yourself. And it proves, day by dreadful day, that you are stronger than you ever imagined, and that even in the depths there is always hope.