Reviews/Media

CHECK THIS OUT– “The Mystery of Sleep” is a lecture series/conference I organized at Scripps College, spring 2009:
http://pages.scrippscollege.edu/~ggreene/pdfs/conference.pdf

This series looks at sleep as it’s described by the sciences and social sciences, by artists and people with sleep disorders. Sleep, which has been described as “the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” needs this variety of voices.

Insomniac was shortlisted for the Gregory Bateson Prize, Society for Cultural Anthropology, for being ”interdisciplinary, experimental, and innovative.”

“http://sca.culanth.org/prizes/bateson/bateson.htm

JULY 16:  Elsa Dixler, “Paperback Row,” New York Times, July 16, 2009 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/books/review/PaperRow-t.html

“Studying Insomnia,” Claudio Bassetti, Nature Medicine, 15, 481, 2009

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v15/n5/full/nm0509-481.html

“This book will appeal most to insomniacs, whether lifelong sufferers or victims of a few sleep-deprived nights.  And they may hand it to their loved ones as a guide to the magnitude of their difficulty.  But, anyone who enjoys good, clear science writing should give this book a chance.  

Fueled by her own frustrations and lifelong quest for a good night sleep, her cry for further research seems stunning.  It points out larger issues about the culture of medicine, the business of medicine, and the way patients can be shortchanged.”

MARCH 3: “10 ways to get better sleep” Lindsay Lyon, U.S. News and World Report
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/sleep/2009/03/03/10-ways-to-get-better-sleep-and-maybe-cure-your-insomnia.html?msg=1

FEB 1: Best Consumer Health, 2008, Library Journal
http://www.libraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=talkbackCommentsFull&talk_back_header_id=6580810&articleid=CA6630780

JAN 10: “Tired and True Tales of the Bedroom,” Daphne Guiness, Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/wellbeing/bedroom-tales/2009/01/09/1231004275878.html

DEC 16: Julie’s Health Club, “Great Health Books of 2008,”
Chicago Tribune.com
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/2008/12/my-favorite-hea.html

NOV 30: “Confessions of an Angry Insomniac,” Independent, U.K.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/healthy-living/confessions-of-an-angry-insomniac-1038144.html

NOV 25: “My life as an insomniac,” Lisa Jewell, Irish Independent
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/my-life-as-an-insomniac-1551754.html

NOV 15: “The Sleepless Epidemic,” Marina Jiminez, Globe and Mail, Toronto
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081115.wsleep15/BNStory/lifeMain/home

SEPT 25: Review, Fred Turek, New England Journal of Medicine
359, 13, 1412-13
“I found the presentation of sleep science very impressive and up to date…at a level I would expect to find in a scientific review…
If you want an in-depth overview of the patients, the physicians, and the science that are part of the contemporary culture surrounding insomnia, Greene’s book is the best available on the subject.”

SEPT: Review, Elizabeth Willse,
http://elizabethwillse.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/insomniac-book-review/
“Greene’s attention to cultural views about sleep and sleep disorders, reminds me of Susan Sontag’s “Illness As Metaphor.”
Fueled by her own frustrations and lifelong quest for a good night sleep, her cry for further research seems stunning. It points out larger issues about the culture of medicine, the business of medicine, and the way patients can be shortchanged unless they meet specific criteria.
This book will appeal most to insomniacs, whether lifelong sufferers or victims of a few sleep-deprived nights. And they may hand it to their loved ones as a guide to the magnitude of their difficulty. But, anyone who enjoys good, clear science writing should give this book a chance.”

SEPT. 12: TALKABOUTSLEEP Newsletter,
http://view.exacttarget.com/?j=fe5e157773670c7c7016&m=ff2412787d61&ls=fdfc1273756d027c70147575&l=
fed815707667047d&s=fe281174776d017a751576&ju=fe26167072630c74741370

JULY: Review, http://www.nawbo-kc.org/a-book-review-of-insomniac-by-gayle-greene.html

JULY: D.T. Max, “Walking Nightmare,” Review
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=459232

JULY 11: Dorothy Wall, review
Prohealth, FibrymyalgiaSupport.com
http://www.fibromyalgiasupport.com/library/showarticle.cfm/ID/8970
Wellsphere.com
http://stanford.wellsphere.com/healing—recovery-article/insomniac-book-review-by-dorothy-wall/22743
“I have rarely read such an intelligent, probing book, by someone who asks all the right questions. And, for a book about sleep, it’s a page-turner, as Greene combines the saga of her own slog through the land of sleepless nights with her pithy investigations and questions.”

JULY 8: Mike Perlis, “When Sleep Proves Impossible,” Science
Vol. 321. no. 5887, p. 343
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/321/5887/343
“Drawing on her lifelong affliction with chronic insomnia and her interviews with neurologists, sleep researchers, physicians, psychiatrists, and fellow sufferers, the author weaves a wide-ranging account of the condition, its causes, and potential remedies.”

JULY 17: Jesse Ellison, “By the Numbers,” Five Myths about Sleep and Insomnia,
Newsweek.com,
http://www.newsweek.com/id/146794?from=rss

MAY 25: Anthony Risser, “Three Brainy General-Readership Books,” Brainblog, “…a great account of the world of insomnia…”
http://neuropsychological.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html

MAY 20: “Good for People or Good for the System”
CHW Thought Blog,
http://blog.chwhealth.org/2008/05/index.html

APRIL 17: Jim Horne, “Bedtime Reading,” Nature 452, 813-814, | doi:10.1038/452813a
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v452/n7189/full/452813a.html
Provides . . . insights that many sleep researchers and doctors have lost track of. . . Among the best books of its kind.

APRIL 7: “Great Reads: Nonfiction,” PEOPLE Magazine
“No easy answers–but fascinating.”

SPRING 2008: Scripps College Magazine, “Let’s Sleep on It”
http://www.scrippscollege.edu/media/magazine/lets-sleep-on-it

AMAZON BEST BOOKS OF MARCH PICK, SPOTLIGHT TITLE
“…a courageous memoir of chronic insomnia interwoven with a fascinating examination of the emerging biological understanding of sleep disorders. Similar in depth and scope to Andrew Solomon’s remarkable memoir of depression, The Noonday Demon…so fascinating and so affecting that it’s worth losing some sleep over.”
http://amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_6352872_2?ie=UTF8&docid=1000061771

MARCH 31: Julie’s Health Club, where alternative and mainstream health meet
Julie Deardorff, “Why reading ‘Insomniac” helped me sleep,”
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/2008/03/why-reading-ins.html

MARCH 25: Julie Deardorff, “Recorded books for insomniacs,” Julie’s Health Club, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/20…
“Greene’s lively first-person account of her experience as a writer and academic living with chronic insomnia…[is] comforting.”

MARCH 24: Anya Yurchyshyn, “Random Knowledge: Insomnia How insomnia makes you fat and five other facts from the new book Insomnia , by literature professor and insomniac Gayle Greene.” ESQUIRE
http://www.esquire.com/features/insomnia-facts-0408

MARCH 21: Review, Lynda V. Mapes, “Gayle Greene is bedeviled by the inability to sleep in Insomniac,” THE SEATTLE TIMES, March 21, 2008
“It’s hard to imagine a more frightening affliction than being eaten alive by insomnia, as depicted by author Gayle Greene in her disturbing, important book.” Read more…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2004293617_insomniac23.html

MARCH 21: Tara Parker-Pope, “The Wretched Life of the Insomniac,”
NEW YORK TIMES
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com
“Writer Gayle Greene’s new book, “Insomniac,” from the University of California Press, is both memoir and investigation into the world of insomnia. Here is an excerpt…. ” http://well.blogs.nytimes.com

MARCH 18: Susan Mitchell, “Sleep at any Price,” Irish Business News, Sunday Business Post Online, The Post.IE
http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/wholestory.aspx-qqqt=INSIDE+STORY-qqqs=agenda-qqqsectionid=3-qqqc=10.1.0.0-qqqn=1-qqqx=1.asp

MARCH: Review, Scienceagogo.com
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/books.shtml

MARCH: Review, Healthstatus.com
http://www.healthstatus.com/books/Books-1000-Gayle+Greene-Author-sr-1.html

FEB 29: Review, “The Long Dark Night of the Soul,” Andrew Stark,
WALL STREET JOURNAL
February 29, 2008; Page W4
“a harrowing memoir,”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120425526586802131.html?mod=2_1167_1

FEB 7: Review, “Sleepless in America,” THE OPRAH MAGAZINE, Francine Prose
“Shut-eye–and how it eludes us–is the eye-opening subject of a fascinating new book,”
http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/readingroom/omag_200803_book_greene

FEB. 7: Mary Brophy Marcus, “Insomnia Fuels a Run in Drug Sales,” USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-02-06-insomnia-drugs_N.htm
“In her new book, Insomniac (University of California Press), Gayle Greene, a professor of women’s studies at Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., and a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, a professional medical society for researchers and clinicians, calls insomnia an “invisible epidemic.” There are no outward signs of it, she says in her book. “No wounds, scars, crutches, casts, wheelchairs.” Read more…