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A Midwife's Tale Laurel Thatcher Ulrich Drawing on the diaries of a midwife and healer in eighteenth-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier. Ulrich gives the reader an intimate and densely imagined portrait of the industrious and reticent Martha Ballard and her society. |
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Nisa Marjorie Shostak It is the story of Nisa, a member of the !Kung hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa's Kalahari desert, told in her own words -- earthy, emotional, vivid -- to Marjorie Shostak, an American ethnographer. Together, these two women break through immense barriers of language and culture to give us a fascinating view of a remarkable life. |
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Return to NISA Marjorie Shostak Shostak -- diagnosed with breast cancer and troubled by a sense of work yet unfinished -- returns to Nisa's story. This book tells simply and directly of her rediscovery of the !Kung people she had come to know years before. Throughout, we observe a woman of threatened health but enormous vitality as she pursues the promise she once discovered in the !Kung people and, above all, in Nisa. |
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Do They Hear You When You Cry Fauziya Kassindja Forced into an arranged marriage at seventeen, Fauziya was being prepared for female genital mutilation when she fleed Africa just hours before the ritual was to take place. This is her story of seeking asylum in America, being locked up in U.S. prisons, and of meeting a determined young law student who would ultimately help Kassindja's case be a landmark decision in immigration history. |
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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Anne Fadiman Three-month-old Lia Lee -- a member of the Laos refugee Hmong community in California -- was taken to an emergency room and diagnosed as an epileptic, launching a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication. The Lee family adheres steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors, ascribing her illness to a wandering soul. But Lia's Western pediatricians fought to treat the misfiring of her cerebral neurons. Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for her, but the lack of understanding between them led to tragedy. |
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Mountains beyond Mountains Tracy Kidder At the center of Kidder's exciting moral adventure is Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard-trained physician who decided to take his expertise and kindness on the road. In his bright-eyed quest to cure the world, Farmer has battled AIDS and other infectious diseases in Haiti, Cuba, Russia, and Peru. Kidder's powerful narrative about a hero who believes that "God loves everyone but especially the poor" will inspire and challenge every reader. |
