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The Man Who Forgot How to Read
Howard Engel
A Memoir
Thomas Dunne Books
July 2008
On Sale: July 8, 2008
176 pages ISBN: 031238209X EAN: 9780312382094 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
The remarkable journey of an award-winning writer struck
with a rare and devastating affliction that prevented him
from reading even his own writing One hot midsummer morning, novelist Howard Engel picked up
his newspaper from his front step and discovered he could no
longer read it. The letters had mysteriously jumbled
themselves into something that looked like Cyrillic one
moment and Korean the next. While he slept, Engel had
experienced a stroke and now suffered from a rare condition
called alexia sine agraphia, meaning that while he
could still write, he could no longer read.< Over the next several weeks in hospital and in
rehabilitation, Engel discovered that much more was affected
than his ability to read. His memory failed him, and even
the names of old friends escaped his tongue. At first
geography eluded him: he would know that two streets met
somewhere in the city, but he couldn’t imagine where. Apples
and grapefruit now looked the same. When he returned home,
he had trouble remembering where things went and would
routinely ?nd cans of tuna in the dishwasher and jars of
pencils in the freezer. Despite his disabilities, Engel prepared to face his
dilemma. He contacted renowned neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks
for advice and visited him in New York City, forging a
lasting friendship. He bravely learned to read again.
And in the face of tremendous obstacles, he triumphed in
writing a new novel. An absorbing and uplifting story, filled with sly wit and
candid insights, The Man Who Forgot How to Read will
appeal to anyone fascinated by the mysteries of the mind, on
and off the page.
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