Blog Archives
Sheltered
Sheltered, by Elisa Hertzan Schetrompf, is a memoir of grief, faith, family, and unexpected resilience, following the author after the sudden death of her husband, John, and into a trip to Israel that becomes something far more dangerous and transformative than the pilgrimage she imagined. What begins in Tennessee, with boat races, church, late-life love, and the raw shock of widowhood, opens into a journey through wartime Israel, where Schetrompf finds herself stranded amid sirens, shelters, cancelled flights, medical uncertainty, and the startling tenderness of relatives she barely knows. The book moves from loss to dislocation to a hard-won sense of purpose, tracing how grief can be held, not erased, by faith, memory, and human kindness.
I was moved by the way the memoir lets love remain ordinary and immense at the same time. John isn’t presented as an abstract saint, but as a vivid man of engines, boats, teasing confidence, and rough working hands. The scene of him racing on the Tennessee River gives the book its first pulse of danger and joy, while the later hospital scene, when Schetrompf kisses his cold hands and smooths his hair, lands with quiet devastation. I also appreciated how honestly she writes about spiritual identity. Her Jewish roots, her Christian church community, the breaking of the glass at her wedding, her prayers, and her complicated attachment to Israel all sit together in a way that feels lived rather than neatly resolved. The book’s strongest idea, to me, is that healing doesn’t always arrive gently. Sometimes it comes through exhaustion, sirens at 2 a.m., a crowded shelter, a stranger’s cookies on a plane, or a cousin saying, in effect, you belong to us now.
The writing is at its best when it trusts small, concrete moments. Uncle Isaac’s disciplined routines, the bus full of soldiers headed toward Eilat, Shorayna filling a kitchen with music and food, the musty bomb shelter with children’s toys, the beach glowing beneath the Red Mountains while war presses in from elsewhere, all of these details give the memoir its emotional texture. I did occasionally feel that the narration became more explanatory than evocative, especially when historical and political reflections somewhat overtook the intimacy of the personal story. Schetrompf writes as someone trying to make meaning while still shaken, and that urgency gives the memoir its particular human grain.
By the end, when the author returns through Rome and New York, rests on the Kavanah, and begins to speak of being “whole and healing,” the memoir has earned its title in a way I found unexpectedly affecting. Sheltered is not only about physical refuge from missiles, but about the shelters made by memory, kinship, prayer, and the stubborn will to keep living after love has been torn away. I would recommend it to readers who appreciate reflective memoirs about grief, interfaith identity, Israel, family inheritance, and the strange ways crisis can reveal both vulnerability and strength.
Pages: 189 | ASIN : B0H42WQ5CC
The Resilience Mindset: How Adversity Can Strengthen Individuals, Teams, and Leaders
The Resilience Mindset is Terry Healey’s part memoir, part practical guide to living through adversity without letting it harden or diminish you. Healey begins with the devastating cancer diagnosis he received as a young UC Berkeley student, then follows the long aftermath of surgery, facial difference, recovery, faith, work, support, and self-rebuilding. From there, he shapes those hard-won lessons into his ReBAR framework: Reflect, Build, Act, and Renew. The book widens near the end through stories of people such as Robert Paylor, Shawn Harper, Jamie MoCrazy, and Jason Schechterle, each of whom has faced profound hardship and found a way to keep moving toward purpose.
Healey doesn’t write about resilience as if it’s a glossy slogan on a conference wall. He writes from the raw place where fear has a pulse. The scene after the Tumor Board, when he runs to the restroom after hearing he might lose part of his face and possibly his eye, is painful in a way that feels completely human. So is the moment on the Bay Bridge when Corey Hart’s “Never Surrender” comes on the radio and suddenly, almost mysteriously, the world lets in a little light. I found that tenderness persuasive. The “take it away” guy could have felt too neat in another book, but here the encounter lands because Healey is so alive to the small mercies that arrive when a person is nearly out of strength.
I also appreciated the book’s central idea that confidence can be rebuilt through repeated, deliberate acts. That feels compassionate and useful. The ReBAR framework has a sturdy, workable quality, especially when Healey connects reflection to gratitude, action to risk, and renewal to the daily work of becoming less afraid of change. The book leans into encouragement and statistics. I appreciated how the book leans into encouragement and supporting research, giving its message both warmth and structure. Even when the prose moves quickly from pain toward purpose, that momentum feels true to Healey’s larger vision: resilience as an active, daily practice rather than a place where we stay still for too long. The writing has a warm directness that suits the material. Healey’s voice is earnest, and even when the book becomes more workbook-like, it never loses the sense that someone real is sitting across from you, offering what helped him survive.
The Resilience Mindset understands that adversity is not a single dramatic event, but a long-term internal weather system that changes how a person sees everything. Its best passages are the ones where Healey lets vulnerability and resolve stand side by side. This is a good book for readers facing illness, grief, career disruption, insecurity, or any season that has shaken their sense of self, and it will especially resonate with people who like personal stories braided with practical reflection. I’d recommend it to anyone who needs a steady, humane reminder that rebuilding is rarely glamorous, but it can be deeply beautiful.
Pages: 208 | ISBN : 978-1770418561
A Life in Too Many Margins
S. E. Thomson’s A Life in Too Many Margins: Laughing Through the Labels is a whip-smart and emotionally stirring memoir that opens in a hospital room, David, chronically ill and exhausted, finally believed after months of dismissal, staring at the “beige hospital blanket” and coping with gallows humor as doctors confirm an omental infarction tied to Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. From there, the book moves through a childhood and adulthood spent ricocheting between forced gender roles, neurodivergent masking, disability and medical trauma, and the slow, hard-earned assembly of a self, one chapter at a time, like a life rebuilt from receipts and radiology reports.
I liked the voice in this book. It’s not “funny” as decoration; it’s funny as a crowbar. In the prologue alone, the humor keeps snapping the seal on the airless jar of medical neglect: the hospital gown “afraid of commitment,” the Jell-O christened Gary, the pain described as a “damp grocery bag full of bees.” That comedic metabolism doesn’t dilute the suffering; it metabolizes it, turning indignity into something you can hold up to the light without going blind. I found myself laughing, then immediately feeling implicated, because the joke keeps pointing back to the systems and people who require disabled folks to audition for basic credibility.
I also didn’t expect the book to be so precise about the small origin-moments that become a lifelong weather pattern. The early sections about gender feel like being trapped in a brightly colored room where everything is a script you didn’t agree to learn; the “pink” isn’t just décor, it’s enforcement. And when the narrative arrives at pronouns later, quietly, almost offhand, in a classroom roll call, it lands with the force of a key finally fitting a lock: “Uh, I don’t care?” becomes the hinge that swings the door open. The moment David names it, I am transgender… I am a man, it’s rendered not as a glossy reveal, but as an “ohhhhhhh” that rearranges decades of memory in one night. That ordinariness is the point. Self-recognition isn’t always fireworks; sometimes it’s just the first time someone asks the right question in a room that doesn’t punish honesty.
This is for readers who gravitate toward memoir, humor, disability, neurodiversity, LGBTQ+, and trauma recovery narratives, especially anyone who’s ever been treated like a “case” instead of a person, or who wants a story that makes space rather than demanding palatability. If you like the sharp, self-protective candor of Jenny Lawson (or the laughter-through-the-bruises essay energy of Samantha Irby), Thomson’s voice will feel familiar. And when the book closes by insisting, without sentimentality, that if your body is falling apart and no one believes you, you should write it down because it might save someone else’s life, it doesn’t read like a slogan; it reads like a field note from a survivor.
Pages: 229 | ASIN : B0FL6XG768
Keeping The Stethoscope, Hanging Up The Uniform!: The Curse of Combat Disability Retirement
Keeping the Stethoscope, Hanging Up the Uniform! is a raw and forceful memoir that follows Steven Wayne Davis as he moves from the intensity of military medical service into the equally demanding world of civilian emergency care. The book blends personal history, frontline trauma scenes, and a fierce critique of how the United States treats its combat-disabled veterans. In simple terms, the story traces what happens when someone who gave everything comes home and finds the system stacked against him. The result is part autobiography, part social commentary, and fully grounded in the lived experience of a combat-disabled veteran trying to stay afloat.
The writing is direct. Sometimes weighty. Sometimes almost poetic in how it describes exhaustion, anger, and purpose. Davis doesn’t dance around his trauma or the trauma he’s witnessed. The early chapters drop you straight into the ER, and those scenes throb with the same frantic rhythm he lived through. What struck me most was how he uses the language of medicine and combat not to impress but to show us what’s at stake. The choices he makes as an author feel intentional. He lets certain moments sit in silence, and he lets others crack open with frustration. It works. You can feel the emotion in the pauses.
What I also liked was his honesty about the bigger system. He talks about disability offsets, homelessness, suicide, and the empty ritual of “thank you for your service” with a mix of weariness and fire. It’s a tough blend, but he pulls it off because he’s writing from within the problem, not looking at it from the outside. The ideas in the book aren’t polished arguments. They’re lived realities, and they’re delivered with the kind of clarity that comes from surviving things most people never see. At times I found myself nodding along. Other times, I felt a lump in my throat. The memoir genre is full of reflection, but this one feels like someone opening a door they’ve held shut for years.
By the time I finished, I felt grateful that Davis chose to write this at all. The story isn’t trying to be perfect. It’s trying to be honest. And that honesty is what gives the book its strength. Readers who appreciate memoirs rooted in service, healthcare, mental health, and social justice will find a lot here to sit with. If you’ve ever wondered what happens to the people we send to war after the uniforms come off, this book doesn’t just answer the question. It challenges you to care about the answer. A powerful memoir that refuses to stay quiet, speaking the truth that so many veterans live but rarely share.
Pages: 192 | ASIN : B0G1L9FM6F
Keeping the Stethoscope, Hanging up the Uniform, The Curse of Combat Disability Retirement
Keeping the Stethoscope, Hanging Up the Uniform tells the story of a combat-disabled Army nurse who carries his battlefield memories into the civilian ER. The book shifts between gripping trauma-room scenes, raw reflections on disability retirement, and a steady, painful questioning of how a nation can praise its veterans yet leave so many struggling to survive. It blends medical urgency with personal grief, while also tracing the larger social and political failures that shape veterans’ lives. The chapters move from intense medical narratives to broader calls for reform, tying individual suffering to systemic problems.
This was a thought-provoking and emotionally stirring book. The writing feels like a pulse that speeds up and slows down. It mimics the chaos of an ER and the quieter, heavier weight of memory. I kept feeling this mix of admiration and frustration. The author speaks plainly, and that plainness hits hard. There’s no dressing up the trauma, no soft edges on the anger. The stories the author shares are vivid. The medical scenes come alive in a way that made me tense up, and the personal reflections feel like someone talking late at night when honesty comes more easily.
What stayed with me most wasn’t the medical detail, but the sense of abandonment threaded through the book. I could feel his disappointment. His exhaustion. His hope trying to hold on even while he keeps pointing to everything that is broken. He talks about veterans who are homeless, veterans who end their own lives, veterans who are reduced to numbers in the system, and he handles all of it with a mix of sorrow and grit. Some passages made me angry in a way that almost surprised me. Others made me pause and sit with my own discomfort.
By the time I reached the final chapters, I felt grateful for his honesty. This book is a call to pay attention, to stop pretending that “thank you for your service” solves anything. It’s a reminder that behind every veteran is a story still unfolding, sometimes painfully, sometimes quietly, sometimes with no support at all.
I would recommend this book to readers who want an unfiltered look at military and medical life, especially those who work in healthcare, public policy, or veteran support fields. It’s also a strong read for anyone who wants to understand the deeper emotional cost of service, far beyond the slogans and ceremonies.
Pages: 192 | ASIN : B0G1L9FM6F
Defy Stereotypes
Dementia Man is your memoir, sharing your story of cognitive decline, receiving the diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s, and your blunt observations on a broken medical system and call for change. Why was it important for you to share your story?
I wanted to share an authentic voice—I do have Alzheimer’s—that can help others imagine living a meaningful life with this disease. Some voices and organizations promote suicide. Many individuals lose heart and fold into themselves. I want to be a model of what might be possible, defy stereotypes, and encourage us all to strive to help find a cure to this disease. Maybe, just maybe, there is something about any one of us with a diagnosis that might help find the cure just a little sooner!
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
First, if there is anyone in your family history who has had Alzheimer’s, you should find out whether you carry a genetic marker called ApoE4. It increases your risk, and finding out early allows you to pursue medications and lifestyle changes that can help.
Second, be careful. Frauds and scams abound around this disease. There is no cure. Hard stop. Many excellent U.S. government and state government resources are available on safe, effective approaches to slowing decline and getting help.
Third, I provide a list of a growing number of patient-led organizations that offer support, community, and guidance to help you and your family navigate this stage of life with dignity, purpose—and yes, even some joy.
What was the most challenging part of writing your memoir, and what was the most rewarding?
So many challenges… it’s hard to pick. Yes, the challenge of memory impairment and writing means I need some help, and I use a writing coach. It is frustrating. There is also the emotional impact of imagining the late stages. The most rewarding thing is the impact it has had on others and on myself. The responses shared with me by readers are humbling—not about my writing, but about insights gained and the hope instilled as they, or a family member, move forward.
What is one thing that you hope readers take away from Dementia Man: An Existential Journey: Choosing Life and Finding Meaning with Alzheimer’s?
The one thing is that it is possible to engage with purpose, love, and joy in life with this disease. You are NOT alone; there is a world out there of help and support. You can become the best version of yourself with Alzheimer’s that the world has ever seen. I have tried to include many resources—things I didn’t even know existed—that are available almost everywhere. Just one small example: I didn’t know that 211 existed, a phone number people can call to locate essential community services.
Author Links: GoodReads | X (Twitter) | Facebook | Website | Amazon
After decades as a tireless advocate for justice and social change, Samuel A. Simon faces the most personal fight of his life: the slow, undeniable progression of cognitive decline. When the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease comes, he refuses to fade quietly.
Based on his award-winning play Dementia Man, this deeply personal memoir invites readers into Simon’s “existential journey”—a story told with candor, courage, and an unflinching look at a broken medical system. As he revisits pivotal moments from his past and navigates the daily challenges of neurocognitive disease, Simon offers an intimate portrait of a man determined to shape his own future, even as the disease seeks to define it.
Both moving and urgently important, Dementia Man is changing the conversation about Alzheimer’s in America. It’s a story of hope and defiance that challenges us all to imagine a future of dignity, connection, and purpose for the millions living with cognitive decline.
Dementia Man
Dementia Man tells the story of Sam Simon as he moves from early memory lapses to a diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Impairment and then early-stage Alzheimer’s. He shares vivid scenes from his life. He brings the reader into the raw moments of confusion, fear, stubborn hope, and even humor as he and his wife, Susan, navigate a medical system that often leaves people like him stranded. The book blends memoir, social critique, and a call for change. It follows Sam’s love story, his activist past, his moments inside what he calls The Nothingness Place, and his determination to choose life for as long as he can.
This is an emotional memoir. The writing feels close to the skin, almost like Sam is talking straight at me from across a kitchen table. His descriptions are sharp and strange at the same time. I kept pausing because the images stayed with me. His voice has this mix of clarity and fog that mirrors the disease he is trying to explain. Some passages made me laugh because he can be blunt and warm in the same breath. He shows how lonely and scary cognitive decline can be when the world does not know how to help. What struck me most was how he refused to let fear become the whole story.
He questions the medical system in a way that feels earned, not angry for the sake of it. He wants navigators for people with cognitive disorders. He wants society to change the way we talk about brain diseases. He wants families to have real support. His push for dignity feels bold and simple at the same time. The honesty about his own confusion and frustration gave the book a heartbeat. It is not a tidy narrative, and that is exactly what makes it feel real.
I would recommend this book to caregivers, medical professionals, families who are beginning this journey, and anyone who wants to understand what cognitive decline feels like from the inside. It is also a strong read for advocates and students in health fields who need to hear a patient’s voice in full color. Above all, it is for readers who want a story about choosing life even when life gets hard.
Pages: 209 | ASIN : B0G1TZRVXL
A Teacher, Evangelist, and Leader
Born Missionary tells the remarkable life story of Islay Walden, a man born into slavery who overcame blindness, poverty, and prejudice to become an educator, poet, and minister. What inspired you to tell the story of Islay Walden?
Islay Walden was the founding minister and teacher at the church and school where my maternal ancestors lived. I was aware that he was a poet, known as the “Blind Poet of North Carolina.” but when I began looking for information on his life, I noted that there was scant information published about him. Most of the information was repetitious and frequently inaccurate. In addition, none of the essays noted that his primary focus was to bring education and the gospel to his community. Poetry was a tool he would use to help him accomplish that. None of the biographical essays noted that he had begun two successful school programs, one in Washington, DC, and the other in New Brunswick, New Jersey before returning to North Carolina. However, his reputation as a teacher, evangelist, and community leader had not gone unnoticed during his lifetime or at his death. Thus, after reading an obituary that extolled his talent as a “born missionary,” I chose that for the title.
How much research did you undertake for this book, and how much time did it take to put it all together?
There was a section about his life primarily focused on his poetry in my previous book, From Hill Town to Strieby, which took about four years to research. This book was published four and a half years later. Once I began seeking research information beyond literary criticism, I found that there was very little official information available. I found that the best guide was Walden’s own poetry, which was heavily biographical, a fact not noted in any of the literary reviews or biographical essays.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
It was important to be able to show that while Walden had been successful as a poet, he had used his poetry primarily to further his vocation as a teacher and minister. His desire to bring education and foster the faith of his community were his greatest desires. He believed those were the tools that would help all he encountered and especially his community in North Carolina prosper both materially and spiritually.
What do you hope is one thing readers take away from Islay Walden’s story?
I want people to know that his was a story of resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity. He overcame a legacy of slavery, financial challenges and physical disability to gain an education in order to help all he encountered to have a better life.
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