June 2020 Book Review: Into the Magic Shop

Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart

By James R. Doty

~Book Review~

THIS IS A BOOK IMPORTANT for this time. For times when you’re hurting. For times when you’re scared. For every time.

I think a lot now about the people we are when we pick up certain books. I began reading this book when my family member fighting colon cancer recommended it. Said family member devours books as if they’re candy, and so by now, I’ve heard of so many incredible novels that I’ve lost hope of ever catching up.

This time when he made a recommendation to me, I heard him. I wanted this connection between us. I opened the book.

The opening chapter I read aloud to my husband. A neurosurgeon is faced with the delicate operation of removing a tumor from the brain of a four year old. The operating room is brought to life with the sounds, the crunches. They should teach us the sounds a head makes as it’s opening up, Doty tells us, and it’s gruesomely fascinating.

My husband winced after every other sentence and commented this seems extremely graphic.

My response was now that’s great writing.

I’ve always wondered about people who enter careers of the highest stress level. Pilots. Police Officers. Astronauts. Doctors. They’re decision makers. Lives depend on decisions they need to make in a split moment. Doty dives into this form of hypervigilance and the road he took to achieve such focus: which begins with a summer spent in a strip mall magic shop. It begins with his anger, his frustration at an inability to control the chain of events swallowing his family. It begins with his trust in a stranger named Ruth.

From their relationship, Doty learns the deepest magic: how to control what controls us in our everyday lives—the brain. It’s an earnestly compelling account of Doty’s life—how he balanced a dysfunctional family life and jobs with school, fighting for the chance to go to medical school, succeeding beyond his wildest dreams, and losing it all—only to discover that his real dream he had yet to achieve.

It’s a message on kindness. On patience. On what brings meaning to life.

It’s about the beautiful relationship between the brain and the heart, interwoven in the language of neuroscience.

If you’ve ever wondered what goes through the mind of a surgeon, then this book is a riveting place to start. It is an argument for compassion and empathy, a message that can never be shared enough.

Recommended for fans of: Dalai Lama, Michelle Obama, Oprah, medical memoir