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Kitchen Table Wisdom

Stories That Heal

by Naomi Rachel Remen, M.D.

Published by Riverhead Books
Publication date: August 1, 1996
Hardcover edition, 336 pages, ISBN: 1555913024
Softcover edition, 368 pages, ISBN: 1573226106
Audio casette edition ISBN: 1574530631

Synopsis:

The premise of this best-selling book is that wisdom gets passed along from person to person by telling stories. The author passes along some of these stories told by persons with life threatening cancer and other conditions. She also tells some of her own stories drawn from her experience as a practicing physician. We meet a wide variety of people, including some physicians who are transformed by encountering their patients.

The author was formerly a pediatrician and now calls herself a "psycho-oncologist" counseling people with cancer. Herself a long-term survior of the chronic Crohn's Disease, she speaks from many years of experience working with illness.

This is not a "mind over illness" book that attempts to minimize the progressive nature of many diseases. On the contrary, the author's stories show how some people reached a clarity and acceptance of fatality as an integral part of being. At the heart of this moving book is a love of life that brings peace even in the face of chronic disease and death.

Small observations about nature and human interactions are used to illustrate spiritual and emotional breakthroughs. The stories are brief and easily digested, making it a good "keep on the night stand" item.

Kitchen-table common sense is sprinkled with Zen teachings and Buddhist wisdom. There's some bias for "New Age" jargon, but the book is directed at a general audience and is of non-denominational value. You don't have to be sick to benefit from the inspirational, life-affirming wisdom here.

This book made quite a splash and was serialized in Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, and New Age Journal; it was a Book of the Month Club alternate selection. Positive reviewers include Deepak Chopra and Bernie Siegel.

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