Stranger than Fiction

For the category Medical Memoir for the 2022 NONFICTION READER CHALLENGE , I read My Lobotomy: A Memoir by Howard Dully, written with Charles Fleming, 2008. I saw this book while browsing in a bookstore, and the title caught my eye. The idea of lobotomies has fascinated me for quite a while, particularly those called “ice pick lobotomies,” practiced by Walter Freeman from the 1940s to 50s. I first heard about the procedure because of the one performed on Rosemary Kennedy (John F. Kennedy’s sister), which turned her into a vegetable for the rest of her life. I was intrigued by the idea that a lobotomy patient (or victim) could write about it. The “operation” involves ramming a long, sharp object (the first one really was an ice pick from Freeman’s kitchen) into the upper part of the eye socket, into the frontal lobe of the brain, and wiggling it around a bit. This was to disconnect this part of the brain from the rest because it was considered (or guessed) to be the area that crea...

I had thought to read this book ( by Dr. Aaron E. Carroll and Dr. Rachel C. Vreeman, 2009)  for the category Popular Science of the 2022 Nonfiction Reader Challenge, but since there wasn’t much science presented, I instead read The Big Necessity (post of 22 April). The title of this book seemed interesting and it was on a clearance sale. Even so, it feels like I paid too much for it. The main problem for me about this book is that I did not believe any of the so-called myths, half-truths or outright lies. For some of them, it’s hard to believe that anybody believes them. For example: Your hair and fingernails continue to grow after you die Men with big feet have bigger penises You only use 10% of your brain The average person swallows eight spiders per year Chewing gum stays in your stomach for seven years Each section focuses on a particular area of health (Myths about your body; Myths about how we contract and treat diseases; Myths about what we eat and drink; etc.) and i...