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The Cancer Olympics
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Book Synopsis The Cancer Olympics by : Robin McGee
Download or read book The Cancer Olympics written by Robin McGee and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2014-03 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Indie Excellence Award Finalist (2016) for Cancer. Pinnacle Book Achievement Award Winner (2016) for Best Inspirational. Feathered Quill Book Awards Silver Medal for Best Inspirational (2016). Book Excellence Award Finalist (2016) for Inspiration. International Book Award Finalist (2015) for Health-Cancer. Readers' Favorite Award Finalist (2015) for Grief-Hardship. USA Best Book Award Finalist (2015) for Health-Cancer. Listed in The 55 Best Self-Published Books of 2015 - Kirkus IndieReader. Diagnosed with a late-stage cancer, after years of bungled and inadequate medical attention...and then to discover that the best-practice chemotherapy is not available in your province. After her delayed diagnosis of colorectal cancer, Robin McGee reaches out to her community using a blog entitled "Robin's Cancer Olympics." Often uplifting and humourous, the blog posts and responses follow her into the harsh landscape of cancer treatment, medical regulation, and provincial politics. If she and her supporters are to be successful in lobbying the government for the chemotherapy, she must overcome many formidable and frightening hurdles. And time is running out. . . A true story, The Cancer Olympics is a suspenseful and poignant treatment of an unthinkable situation, an account of advocacy and survival that explores our deepest values regarding democracy, medicine, and friendship. Half of the proceeds from the sale of this book go to the Canadian Cancer Society and the Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada....
Download or read book Finish First written by Scott Hamilton and published by Thomas Nelson. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Go for the win! Achieve excellence and be better than you’ve ever been! In his years as a professional ice-skater, Olympic Gold Medalist Scott Hamilton learned to embrace the mind-set of working hard to “beat” the competition. But it seems competition has gotten a bad rap these days. We’ve bought into the belief that it is unfair to participants to rank performance. Yet competition is in fact a good thing because it’s about working toward excellence. Finish First is a wake-up call for business leaders, entrepreneurs, spouses, parents, and even students to stop settling for mediocre and begin to revitalize their intrinsic will to achieve excellence and go for the win. Most of us feel we were made for something more, but we’re often afraid to allow ourselves to be competitive because we think our finishing first might somehow rob others of their chance to shine. This book encourages the hidden potential, the champion within all of us, to come out—which eventually brings our family, marriage, career, business, and the world around us the greatest possible good.
Book Synopsis God, If You Are Real... . by : Spud Alford
Download or read book God, If You Are Real... . written by Spud Alford and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-01-17 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the time Spud Alford was twenty-one, he had strengthened his athletic skills enough to become a serious contender for the American team at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Fate, however, had a different idea of how the young track and field star should outpace his competition. Four years later, it looked like Alford might finally get his shot. Again, fate intervened, and this time, young Alford confronted a cancer diagnosis. God, If You Are Real…. An Olympic Dream, Cancer Nightmare, and the creation of Finger Football is the heartbreaking, hilarious account of one man who time and again passes the wrong end of the torch, only to rally and rise above his seemingly limitless lot of bad luck. With hope, heart, and humor, this frank and funny account of one man's journey from Olympic hopeful to company leader is certain to inspire readers seeking a refreshing perspective. Anyone who is ready to blaze a trail as an athlete, a businessperson, or as an individual seeking deeper meaning in their days will find plenty to laugh about—and think about—in this rollicking, fast-paced memoir of one life on the skids, with only the help of one lost soul.
Download or read book The Kevin Show written by Mary Pilon and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Monopolists, the "fascinating" (People) story of Olympian Kevin Hall and the syndrome that makes him believe he stars in a television show of his life. Meet Kevin Hall: brother, son, husband, father, and Olympic sailor. Kevin has an Ivy League degree, a winning smile, and throughout his adult life, he has been engaged in an ongoing battle with a person that doesn't exist to anyone but him: the Director. In the tradition of Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind, journalist and NYT bestselling author Mary Pilon's The Kevin Show reveals the many-sided struggle--of Kevin, his family, and the medical profession--to understand and treat a psychiatric disorder whose euphoric highs and creative ties to pop culture have become inextricable from Kevin's experience of himself. Kevin suffers from what doctors are beginning to call the "Truman Show" delusion, a form of bipolar disorder named for the 1998 movie in which the main character realizes he is the star of a reality TV show. When the Director commands Kevin to do things, the results often lead to handcuffs, hospitalization, or both. Once he nearly drove a car into Boston Harbor. His girlfriend, now wife, was in the passenger seat. Interweaving Kevin's perspective--including excerpts from his journals and sketches--with police reports, medical records, and interviews with those who were present at key moments in his life, The Kevin Show is a bracing, suspenseful, and eye-opening view of the role that mental health plays in a seemingly ordinary life.
Book Synopsis It's Not About Perfect by : Shannon Miller
Download or read book It's Not About Perfect written by Shannon Miller and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-04-21 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's Not About Perfect is inspirational memoir of the most decorated gymnast in American history, her recovery from cancer, and her miracle pregnancy. "When the odds were against me, I was always at my best." When she retired at age 19, Shannon Miller did so as one of the most recognizable gymnasts in the country. The winner of seven Olympic medals and the most decorated gymnast, male or female, in U.S. history, Shannon tells a story of surviving and thriving. A shy, rambunctious girl raised in Oklahoma, Shannon fell in love with gymnastics at a young age and fought her way to the top. In 1992 she won five Olympic medals after breaking her elbow in a training accident just months prior to the Games. Then, in 1996, a doctor advised her to retire immediately or face dire consequences if she chose to compete on her injured wrist. Undeterred, Shannon endured the pain and led her team, the "Magnificent Seven," to the first Olympic team gold medal for the United States in gymnastics. She followed up as the first American to win gold on the balance beam. Equally intense, heroic and gratifying is the story of her brutal but successful battle with ovarian cancer, a disease from which fewer than fifty percent survive. Relying on her faith and hard-learned perseverance, Shannon battled through surgery and major chemotherapy to emerge on the other side with a miracle baby girl. Her story of trial, triumph and life after cancer reminds us all that its life's bumps and bruises that reveal our character. From early on in her career, Shannon knew that life wasn't about perfection. In this incredible and inspirational tale, Shannon speaks out so as to be seen and heard by thousands as a beacon of hope.
Book Synopsis Crazy Sexy Cancer Survivor by : Kris Carr
Download or read book Crazy Sexy Cancer Survivor written by Kris Carr and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You are a Survivor from Day One On the heels of the acclaimed Learning Channel documentary and best-selling survival guidebook Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips comes this survivor's companion. In Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips Kris Carr and her posse of Cancer Babes shared their wealth of insights, tricks, how-tos, and hell yeahs for living life with cancer. Now Kris invites all the Cancer Cowgirls (and dudes) out there to chat back and record their own journeys, with this beautifully illustrated, full-color go-anywhere companion. Pairing Kris's signature sass and smart, soulful, real advice with thoughtful exercises, new contributors, and ample space for writing and reflecting, Crazy Sexy Cancer Survivor reaffirms that it is possible to live a real, fun, crazy, sexy life—with cancer. Kris shares her wit and wisdom on everything from food and exercise to make-up, meditation, spirituality, dreams, planning for today (and the future), and much, much more. The user-friendly trim size and flexible-cover format meanwhile ensure that this incomparable blend of informative pocket companion and journal can go anywhere—brightening up those hours in hospital waiting rooms, at home, or spent out in the big, wide, wonderful world putting into practice that most precious truth: healing is about truly living.
Book Synopsis The Boys in the Boat (Movie Tie-In) by : Daniel James Brown
Download or read book The Boys in the Boat (Movie Tie-In) written by Daniel James Brown and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2023-12-05 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for the Major Motion Picture Directed by George Clooney—exclusively in theaters December 25, 2023! The #1 New York Times bestselling true story about the American rowing triumph of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin—from the author of Facing the Mountain For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant. It was an unlikely quest from the start. With a team composed of the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew team was never expected to defeat the elite teams of the East Coast and Great Britain, yet they did, going on to shock the world by defeating the German team rowing for Adolf Hitler. The emotional heart of the tale lies with Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not only to regain his shattered self-regard but also to find a real place for himself in the world. Drawing on the boys’ own journals and vivid memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, Brown has created an unforgettable portrait of an era, a celebration of a remarkable achievement, and a chronicle of one extraordinary young man’s personal quest.
Download or read book Fast Girls written by Elise Hooper and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE SUMMER BY POPSUGAR, FROLIC, PARADE, TRAVEL & LEISURE, SHE KNOWS, and SHE READS! NAMED A REAL SIMPLE BEST BOOK OF 2020 (SO FAR). “Fast Girls is a compelling, thrilling look at what it takes to be a female Olympian in pre-war America...Brava to Elise Hooper for bringing these inspiring heroines to the wide audience they so richly deserve.”—Tara Conklin, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Romantics and The House Girl Acclaimed author Elise Hooper explores the gripping, real life history of female athletes, members of the first integrated women’s Olympic team, and their journeys to the 1936 summer games in Berlin, Nazi Germany. Perfect for readers who love untold stories of amazing women, such as The Only Woman in the Room, Hidden Figures, and The Lost Girls of Paris. In the 1928 Olympics, Chicago’s Betty Robinson competes as a member of the first-ever women’s delegation in track and field. Destined for further glory, she returns home feted as America’s Golden Girl until a nearly-fatal airplane crash threatens to end everything. Outside of Boston, Louise Stokes, one of the few black girls in her town, sees competing as an opportunity to overcome the limitations placed on her. Eager to prove that she has what it takes to be a champion, she risks everything to join the Olympic team. From Missouri, Helen Stephens, awkward, tomboyish, and poor, is considered an outcast by her schoolmates, but she dreams of escaping the hardships of her farm life through athletic success. Her aspirations appear impossible until a chance encounter changes her life. These three athletes will join with others to defy society’s expectations of what women can achieve. As tensions bring the United States and Europe closer and closer to the brink of war, Betty, Louise, and Helen must fight for the chance to compete as the fastest women in the world amidst the pomp and pageantry of the Nazi-sponsored 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Download or read book Gold written by Chris Cleave and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-07-03 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building on the tradition of Little Bee, Chris Cleave again writes with elegance, humor, and passion about friendship, marriage, parenthood, tragedy, and redemption. What would you sacrifice for the people you love? KATE AND ZOE met at nineteen when they both made the cut for the national training program in track cycling—a sport that demands intense focus, blinding exertion, and unwavering commitment. They are built to exploit the barest physical and psychological edge over equally skilled rivals, all of whom are fighting for the last one tenth of a second that separates triumph from despair. Now at thirty-two, the women are facing their last and biggest race: the 2012 Olympics. Each wants desperately to win gold, and each has more than a medal to lose. Kate is the more naturally gifted, but the demands of her life have a tendency to slow her down. Her eight-year-old daughter Sophie dreams of the Death Star and of battling alongside the Rebels as evil white blood cells ravage her personal galaxy—she is fighting a recurrence of the leukemia that nearly killed her three years ago. Sophie doesn’t want to stand in the way of her mum’s Olympic dreams, but each day the dark forces of the universe seem to be massing against her. Devoted and self-sacrificing Kate knows her daughter is fragile, but at the height of her last frenzied months of training, might she be blind to the most terrible prognosis? Intense, aloof Zoe has always hovered on the periphery of real human companionship, and her compulsive need to win at any cost has more than once threatened her friendship with Kate—and her own sanity. Will she allow her obsession, and the advantage she has over a harried, anguished mother, to sever the bond they have shared for more than a decade? Echoing the adrenaline-fueled rush of a race around the Velodrome track, Gold is a triumph of superbly paced, heart-in-throat storytelling. With great humanity and glorious prose, Chris Cleave examines the values that lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships, and the choices we make when lives are at stake and everything is on the line.
Book Synopsis We Came Here to Forget by : Andrea Dunlop
Download or read book We Came Here to Forget written by Andrea Dunlop and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of She Regrets Nothing, which BuzzFeed called a “sharp, glittering story of wealth, family, and fate,” a vivid novel about a young Olympic skier who loses everything and reinvents herself in Buenos Aires, where she meets a man keeping dark secrets of his own. Katie Cleary has always known exactly what she wants: to be the best skier in the world. As a teenager, she leaves her home to live and train full time with her two best friends, brothers Luke and Blair. Their wealthy father hires the best coaches money can buy and after years of training, the three friends are the USA’s best shot at bringing home Olympic gold. But as the upward trajectory of Katie’s elite skiing career nears its zenith, a terrifying truth about her sister becomes impossible to ignore—one that will lay ruin not only to Katie’s career but to her family and her relationship with Luke and Blair. With her life shattered and nothing left to lose, Katie flees the snowy mountainsides of home for Buenos Aires. There, she reinvents herself and meets a colorful group of ex-pats and the alluring, charismatic Gianluca Fortunado, a tango teacher with secrets of his own. This beautiful city, with its dark history and wild promise, seems like the perfect refuge, but can she really outrun her demons? “Searing, gripping…a complicated story of sisterhood unlike any told before” (Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Daisy Jones & The Six), We Came Here to Forget explores what it means to dream, to desire, to achieve—and what’s left behind after it all disappears.
Book Synopsis Tokyo Ueno Station (National Book Award Winner) by : Yu Miri
Download or read book Tokyo Ueno Station (National Book Award Winner) written by Yu Miri and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN TRANSLATED LITERATURE A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A surreal, devastating story of a homeless ghost who haunts one of Tokyo's busiest train stations. Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Japanese Emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and has been shaped at every turn by modern Japanese history. But his life story is also marked by bad luck, and now, in death, he is unable to rest, doomed to haunt the park near Ueno Station in Tokyo. Kazu's life in the city began and ended in that park; he arrived there to work as a laborer in the preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and ended his days living in the vast homeless village in the park, traumatized by the destruction of the 2011 tsunami and shattered by the announcement of the 2020 Olympics. Through Kazu's eyes, we see daily life in Tokyo buzz around him and learn the intimate details of his personal story, how loss and society's inequalities and constrictions spiraled towards this ghostly fate, with moments of beauty and grace just out of reach. A powerful masterwork from one of Japan's most brilliant outsider writers, Tokyo Ueno Station is a book for our times and a look into a marginalized existence in a shiny global megapolis.
Book Synopsis No Boston Olympics by : Chris Dempsey
Download or read book No Boston Olympics written by Chris Dempsey and published by University Press of New England. This book was released on 2017-05-02 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2013 and 2014, some of Massachusetts' wealthiest and most powerful individuals hatched an audacious plan to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to Boston. Like their counterparts in cities around the world, Boston's Olympic boosters promised political leaders, taxpayers, and the media that the Games would deliver incalculable benefits and require little financial support from the public. Yet these advocates refused to share the details of their bid and only grudgingly admitted, when pressed, that their plan called for billions of dollars in construction of unneeded venues. To win the bid, the public would have to guarantee taxpayer funds to cover cost overruns, which have plagued all modern Olympic Games. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) chose Boston 2024's bid over that of other American cities in January 2015-and for a time it seemed inevitable that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would award the Games to Boston 2024. No Boston Olympics is the story of how an ad hoc, underfunded group of diverse and engaged citizens joined together to challenge and ultimately derail Boston's boosters, the USOC, and the IOC. Chris Dempsey was cochair of No Boston Olympics, the group that first voiced skepticism, demanded accountability, and catalyzed dissent. Andrew Zimbalist is a world expert on the economics of sports, and the leading researcher on the hidden costs of hosting mega-events such as the Olympics and the World Cup. Together, they tell Boston's story, while providing a blueprint for citizens who seek to challenge costly, wasteful, disruptive, and risky Olympic bids in their own cities.
Download or read book Social Q's written by Philip Galanes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A series of whimsical essays by the New York Times "Social Q's" columnist provides modern advice on navigating today's murky moral waters, sharing recommendations for such everyday situations as texting on the bus to splitting a dinner check.
Book Synopsis Olympic Dreams by : Lauraine Snelling
Download or read book Olympic Dreams written by Lauraine Snelling and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirteen-year-old DJ needs God's help in achieving her dream of getting a horse and competing as a show jumper in the Olympics.
Download or read book The Nolympics written by Nicholas Lezard and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-09-13 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nicholas Lezard loved London. Then the London 2012 Olympics came along ... Suddenly his beloved city was invaded by über-people in branded sportswear who had contorted their bodies into odd shapes in order to run a bit faster, or throw things a bit further. Not to mention armies of reptilian brand-managers, chancers and corporate cheerleaders all wanting to cash in, as a blameless piece of the East End was turned (at tear-inducing cost) into one huge folly. In The Nolympics Nicholas Lezard gives us the perfect antidote to Olympics fever with a hilarious blow-by-blow account of how he survived its highs and lows, triumphs and soul-destroying boredom. It is a book for anyone who would rather sit in the dark watching TV than ever wave a flag, who was last to be picked for PE, or who just feels that somewhere along the way the Spirit of the Games was smothered by wads of money. It is the only Olympic souvenir you'll ever need.
Download or read book Honey Blood written by Kirsty Everett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I thought if I was going to die I should write some things down' Kirsty Everett was going to be an Olympic gymnast. But as she made plans to win gold, life, as it does, laughed at the goal she'd set. Aged nine, she was diagnosed with leukaemia and spent the next two and a half years in treatment and attending the funerals of children she met in the cancer ward. At the age of sixteen, Kirsty's cancer returned. Faced with a devastating prognosis, she threw herself into as much as she could - friends, school, drama, sport, even a life-writing course with Patti Miller. As she said, 'I thought if I was going to die I should write some things down.' Against the odds, Kirsty survived. She never achieved gold at the Olympics, but she learned a lot about people, attitudes and resilience. This is a book about growing up different when you want to be the same; sparking hostility where there should be support; and how love can be tested to its utmost. It's wise and unflinching and hopeful, and you won't feel the same after reading it. PRAISE 'Told by a writer who's a real natural' Steven Carroll, Sydney Morning Herald '[An] incredible book ... I haven't been able to stop thinking about Kirsty's journey' Chyka Keebaugh 'Everett is a born writer, her compelling story shot through with the extraordinary sensitivities of childhood' - B+P magazine 'Honey Blood is one of the most exuberant, life-affirming memoirs I have ever read. The fact that it is about the uncompromising reality of childhood cancer, makes it all the more extraordinary. Read it and be utterly bowled over Kirsty Everett's astonishing courage, honesty and cheeky humour' - Patti Miller, author 'If the Olympic Games are designed around people achieving their personal best, commitment, courage, determination and reaching their goals, Kirsty has been to the equivalent of two Olympics' - Wayne Staunton, managing director, Sold Out events management 'Do not be afraid of this book. The big C in it is not cancer, it's Courage. The courage to deal with pain, loss, fear and the shattering of a young girl's big dreams. 'Instead of tiptoeing around the tough stuff, and leaving the most difficult bits out, Kirsty Everett dives right in, taking the reader into her world, bravely, honestly, with raw humour and grit. We get up close to her tight-knit family, boisterous friends, tender first loves, doctors both brusque and kind, and rude strangers. Death hovers on every page, but life's vitality and Kirsty's defiant spirit shove it aside. 'This refreshingly straight-talking account of adolescent leukaemia goes beyond pain to a fuller, wiser, deeper understanding of what really matters when everything you hope for hangs by a thread. It offers the best medicine for anyone who has ever faced relentless physical and mental odds and obstacles that create seemingly insurmountable roadblocks as tests of character. It may not be a cure, but it is one mighty transfusion of the powerful drugs that make us human and help us survive: hope, compassion, and love' - Caroline Baum, author 'This is a coming of age story that will shock and inspire you. Told with searing honesty Honey Blood tells the close-up story of growing up while everything is falling down. In her compassionate, funny and warm way Kirsty Everett tells her story that will inspire others to tell and live through their stories. A wonderful and truthful insight into how to survive and thrive against the odds' - Michael Anderson, Professor of Creativity and Arts Education, University of Sydney
Book Synopsis Between Two Kingdoms by : Suleika Jaouad
Download or read book Between Two Kingdoms written by Suleika Jaouad and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission to re-entry into “normal” life—from the author of the Life, Interrupted column in The New York Times ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Rumpus, She Reads, Library Journal, Booklist • “I was immersed for the whole ride and would follow Jaouad anywhere. . . . Her writing restores the moon, lights the way as we learn to endure the unknown.”—Chanel Miller, The New York Times Book Review “Beautifully crafted . . . affecting . . . a transformative read . . . Jaouad’s insights about the self, connectedness, uncertainty and time speak to all of us.”—The Washington Post In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone. It started with an itch—first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times. When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward—after countless rounds of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant—she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal—to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live. How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost? Jaouad embarked—with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt—on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives. Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.
