A surprisingly vibrant and rewarding volume spotlighting the true nature and largely unacknowledged heart of a pharmacist.
A veteran pharmacist and international speaker chronicles his 33-year career through the tribulations of his customers.
Sharing stories that have “stumbled around my head and heart, some for years,” Wright (It’s Good to See You Again, 2016) offers brief anecdotes of varying degrees of poignancy, cheer, friendliness, panic, and goodwill from the retail pharmacy where he worked. He begins his book with an admission that, initially, his duties revolved more around the multitiered aspects of clinical knowledge, regulations, and safety measures than on social interaction. With the accumulation of customer encounters, he notes, came a different perspective and a “deeper awareness” of the patient experience from the dispensary side of the business. “Like a good novel,” he writes appreciatively, “all the elements of drama are there: life, death, laughter, love, and dynamic characters.” His anecdotes, most barely over a page in length, are potent, affecting, introspective, and infinitely relatable; readers will recognize some aspect of themselves in many of these vignettes. Spanning periods as far back as 1975, when Wright was just out of the University of Kansas School of Pharmacy, he remembers the first time witnessing a customer taking pills he’d just dispensed in his presence. Other accounts feature late-night phone calls and unexpected visits from worried customers looking for unbiased assurance and advice, colicky babies, asthma sufferers, and Plan B seekers. The book’s brevity is least appreciated after Wright divulges a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease in 2006 when he began existing on both sides of the pharmacy counter and his “faith in medicine got a test.” But the minimal details may leave readers wanting to know more about the author. Adding to the allure of this collection are the many pearls of pharmacy wisdom closing several stories. Wright taps into the wellspring of reflective episodes and experiences that informed his rich career and, though he recognizes that pharmacy work is demanding, he writes that it also can be greatly fulfilling, life-affirming, and heartwarming. Within these eloquently presented memories, the author reveals the essence of his livelihood: to compassionately and professionally tap into the vital connection between “a very trusting public and very potent chemica1s.”
A surprisingly vibrant and rewarding volume spotlighting the true nature and largely unacknowledged heart of a pharmacist.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-578-02876-7
Page Count: 93
Publisher: Summit Press
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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