Join us for an in-person Countway Reads book discussion!

About the event: 

Storytelling is at the heart of medical and public health practice and Countway Library is here to help foster this tradition. Our Countway Reads initiative invites the community to read and learn together by engaging with creative works by people from all walks of life. 

For this edition of Countway Reads, we are reading The Body Factory. In this narrative nonfiction translation from the French, we follow a man who requires an amputation following an accident. His conversations with Ambroise Paré, "the father of amputation," lead to discussions on amputation, phantom limb, prostheses, and transhumanism, each topic receiving its own chapter, with the man's personal experiences depicted in between.

These book discussions, held each semester, are open to all Harvard ID holders and facilitated by Countway Library librarians. Light refreshments will be provided. Registration is limited, so sign up early!

About the book:

The Body Factory: From the First Prosthetics to the Augmented Human by Héloïse Chochois (Author), Kendra Boileau (Translator)

A young man has a horrible motorcycle accident. He wakes up in the hospital to discover that one of his arms has been amputated. Then a portrait on the wall of his hospital room begins to speak to him. The subject of the painting introduces himself as Ambroise Paré, the French barber-surgeon who revolutionized the art of amputation.

From this wonderfully absurd premise, the two begin an imaginary conversation that takes them through a sweeping history of surgical amputation, from the Stone Age to the Space Age. Unencumbered by pathos or didacticism, this graphic novel explores the world of amputation, revealing fascinating details about famous amputees throughout history, the invention of the tourniquet, phantom limb syndrome, types of prostheses, and transhumanist technologies.

Playfully illustrated and seriously funny, The Body Factory is sure to delight anyone interested in the history and future of medicine and how we repair and even enhance the body.

About the factilitator:

Countway Reads is faciliated by Countway's Lead Collection & Knowledge Management Librarian, Matthew Noe. Matthew is a world-renowned expert on graphic medicine and is an advocate for the importance of reading for not just information, but for enjoyment and community, at all levels of education. Find out more about Matthew on his Harvard Library staff page and learn more about graphic medicine on Countway's Graphic Medicine landing page.

Learn more about the Countway Reads initiative at countway.info/reads.