Pietro Bartolo

I adore Caitlyn Doughty. I obsessively watch her YouTube channel and listen to her podcast (which I miss like crazy since it hasn't been updated in ages). FROM HERE TO ETERNITY was one of my favourite books of the year when I read it. Suffice it to say, I'm a big fan. I had high hopes for WILL MY CAT EAT MY EYEBALLS?, and I'm delighted to say it didn't disappoint.

Caitlyn approached each question with her usual respectful, wry, and downright hilarious take on death. She somehow manages to walk the fine line between dignity and humour with an enviable sharpness. Each answer is precise, riveting, and offering just enough detail to fascinate a layperson not well versed in the ins-and-outs of death. I can't wait to read what she writes next!… (mais)

Simply told and apparently well translated, Tears of Salt provides a glimpse into the boyhood of Dr. Pietro Bartolo on the island of Lampedusa and tells of his work over the past two decades tending to the migrants who have ended up on the island’s shores. Everyone has seen the newsreels of desperate migrants on the Mediterranean; Bartolo’s book puts a human face on the crisis. Not all migrants arrive alive. Many women, alive and dead, arrive with umbilical cords dangling after giving birth on cramped boats and rafts. Numbers of people bear the marks of pain and torture, some put there by traffickers who have done more than capitalize on human desperation . Many suffer terribly from “rubber-raft syndrome” (a condition I’d never before heard of) in which chemicals from boat fuel form a lethal mix with salt water and cause excruciating burns to the skin. Some have had kidneys removed to finance their escapes from war-torn, chaotic situations. Such organ harvesting, notes Bartolo, certainly confirms the complicity of well-trained, first-world surgeons.

Bartolo’s book is brief and compelling. His dedication and service to some of the most vulnerable on earth is very moving indeed.… (mais)

"This book is an eyewitness account, put down on paper just as it s, black and white,
Without filters or embellishment. It has not been easy."

I have never written a review before that I started with a quote, but this is so fitting. This book was not easy to read, it quite emotionally shredded my heart. Another strange twist of fate, I found myself reading two books about the Syrian refugee crisis. One fiction, part of a series I like very much and this one, which is nonfiction. Lapadusa is an island between Africa and Italy, and it is where Bartolo, this amazing man and physician works. He is aided by many other compassionate people who rescue those on boats, or raft, sometimes barges, sometimes from the sea itself. These Islanders do everything possible to welcome these war torn, often brutalized, or sick from the journey, sometimes raped, or burned, people fleeing from a certain death. Willing to risk all, staggering numbers, at the mercy of traffickers who often use and abuse them, so many dead. In one year over 7000 children and teenagers alone arrive, having lost their family on the way or traveling alone because of money. Some sell kidneys, to her the money for the journey, desperate people, cruel times. Palermo, Italy who take those who need more extensive medical help, people helping in whatever way they could.

The toll taken on them emotionally, pleading with the rest of the world to show some compassion, aid in whatever way possible instead of closed borders. Like I said a hard boom to read, but alternating chapters do go into Bartolos background, a slight break from the horror. There are times of success, and times of failure. Personal crisis's, and team work that is awesome inspiring. A documentary was made from his work called Fire at Sea, that is available on UTube for a small price. I do intend to watch it. People and places like this give me hope for our world, that all are not close minded, selfish, and without compassion. This is a book I feel everyone should read, but those who need to read it the most will not.

ARC from Edelweiss… (mais)