Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Author Lisa Genova brings to her first novel both her personal and professional expertise in regard to Alzheimers' disease. Watching her grandmother deteriorate from this wretched illness prompted her to ponder what exactly was happening inside her grandma's brain as she became increasingly lost within herself. Genova now has a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard and using the knowledge accumulated through her profession, penned Still Alice, about a fifty-year-old Harvard professor who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers'. The story, told throughout from Alice's perspective, fleshes out the affects of this disease on the afflicted (namely, Alice) and her husband, children, career. It is a heartbreaking and true-ringing portrait of a life and family nearly stopped in its tracks. Filled with both clear scientific information and characters whom you can't help but love (or be disgusted by), it is a beautiful work of fiction.

BOTTOM LINE: Expect a few tears and expect to take stock of your life, newly cherishing every healthy, aware moment with which you've been blessed.

A Reading Momma's Proud Heart

From the first turn of a picture book page with Jeran when he was a baby, I've been anxiously awaiting the day when we (and now Ben and Grayson too) would cuddle together and lose ourselves in chapter books. In my head I always pictured it at bedtime. We'd wrap up a section and I'd close the book, leaving my kids in suspense, begging for "just one more chapter". While on our vacation in the DR, my mom-in-law kicked off this new era of reading adventures with Jeran by reading "Charlotte's Web" with him. I was surprised and thrilled when Jeran and Grandma told me they had been reading it together. And I even got a little choked up at bedtime that evening when James, his parents, and I sat around the living room, and Jeran cuddled up in my lap, handing me the book and granting me the honor of reading the last two chapters. My little boy is growing up. For one thing, he can finally (just barely) sit still long enough to make it through a chapter or two. But also, he's retaining the story and can stay involved in it night after night. We've moved on to The Boxcar Children and have involved Ben as well (he is maybe not quite so much ready. His involvement is basically interrupting with a plethora of irrelevant questions. But I still find myself glad to share this with him). It's the thrill I always pictured it to be, sharing this passion for reading with my kids.