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The World Strongest Librarian A Memoir of Tourette Faith Strength and the Power of Family Josh Hanagarne Books

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The World Strongest Librarian A Memoir of Tourette Faith Strength and the Power of Family Josh Hanagarne Books

Can a mother be objective about her son's writing as he expresses his feelings about his life? Does that review help one other person? I don't know. I do know that as I read the book I relived some of the very difficult and joyful times in Josh's life. It is an interesting juxtaposition of events that have shaped him to be the man he is. Josh hates to be labeled courageous, but courage in the face of extreme adversity is what this book is about. Who can't be inspired by someone who perseveres when it would be easy to give up? Our whole family started this journey with Josh asking "When will his Tourettes go away so he can have a life?" to realizing "How can we help him have a life with Tourettes?" was really the question. Josh has accomplished many worthwhile things in his life and still has many great things to accomplish. We are an imperfect family, we have problems like everyone else does, and we love each other deeply. I love Josh. I respect Josh's right to make his own choices in this life and am very proud of him and his book. It's an amazing, interesting, funny, sad, inspiring read whether you are his mother or anyone else. Linda Hanagarne


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The World Strongest Librarian A Memoir of Tourette Faith Strength and the Power of Family Josh Hanagarne Books Reviews

I loved Josh and learning about the Mormon way of life. I loved his fight to beat his Tourette’s. I loved his marriage and their struggle to have kids. I loved his love of books and learned an awful lot about weights and strength building. And I learned how often the medical profession doesn’t ask the right questions. I loved how he felt about his faith journey. My book club rocks!!!
Leaving the library one day, I picked up a copy of Library Page, as I usually do. On the back of the short newsletter was a full page ad for the book, "The World's Strongest Librarian" by Josh Hanagarne. The title alone made me pledge to read it. I went online to You Tube and watched the trailer for the book. I immediately went online and ordered the hardcover.

This memoir is the story of Josh Hanagarne and his journey as he dealt with his Tourette's Syndrome. While this was the focus of the book, I found myself more intrigued by his love affair with books. Also intriguing was his Mormon faith and struggle with it.

This is a quotable book. Here are some of my favorites

1.) "We lose the boys first. They're excited about reading at first, but once they get tight with someone who looks down on reading, knowledge, or librarians, their opinions change." Reading this saddens me and reinforces why I always feed the desire to read when I see it in any child.
2.) "If she saw no issues w/ binding herself to a God she'd never seen, I didn't see why I couldn't bind myself to a guy out in Maine who wrote horror stories." Josh's response to his mom forbidding him to read Stephen King.

3.) "If hate & fear have ignorance at their core, maybe the library can curb their effects, if only by offering ideas & neutrality." The library is a wealth of info. Use it.

4.) "A library is a miracle. A place where you can learn just about anything, for free. A place where your mind can come alive." I remember spending hours in the library when I was younger, just taking in all of the books that surrounded me.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. I never read books twice. This one, I will be rereading, and I will be taking my highlighter along for the ride.
I first read about this book in an e-mail. I think it was from Goodreads as part of their Best Books of the Month feature, but it could have been through Books-A-Million or Barnes and Noble. I saw a memoir about a weight-lifting bookworm and I was at once both thrilled and apprehensive.

If I have two great loves in life (not counting people), it's weight-lifting and books. And while there are books about bookworms, and books about lifters, not ONCE have I encountered a book about both of these things. It was so uniquely up my alley, and it had so much potential to be wonderful. But if it fell short of its potential, then that was it. There went my only possibility to read a book highlighting this unique combination of interests.

The verdict? This book was even better than I had dared to hope for. I laughed out loud a whole bunch of times. I really mean that too, I'm not the kind of person who reads every book that is supposed to be funny and laughs out loud. Loads of books fall short of what they're aiming for, even -- perhaps especially -- books by comedians. But this book was genuinely funny, in a sometimes self-deprecating but never nasty way.

Which brings me to my next point. Josh Hanagarne is such a loving person. He mentioned in his acknowledgements that his editors kept saying "It's just so refreshing to see someone write lovingly about their parents." (Yes, I loved this book so much I even read the acknowledgements word for word.) I completely agree, and will take it a couple steps further as well. Hanagarne writes about meeting his wife in a beautiful way. From the way he writes about her, you can tell that she's not exactly a siren that brings all the men running to her (29-year-old woman in the church choir, seldom wears makeup, never been kissed, and prone to talk about 401ks on the first date). But he writes about her in such a way that everyone can see how she is incredibly well-suited for him, and that he loves her not in a "she's-all-I-can-get" way, but in an "if-I-could-have-anyone-in-the-world-I'd-still-choose-her" way. I've read memoirs (and fiction books) where people fall in love, and you just don't quite by the falling-in-love story. This one absolutely hits home; their relationship seems completely genuine (not perfect, but generally good) and a great thing for everyone to aim for.

Even the library patrons Hanagarne frequently talks about, the ones with schizophrenia and other mental problems, are written about with love. There's a sense of humor present, but never any sense of derision or snark, and it's beautiful to read from the perspective of someone like that. I think I fell in love with the author just a little bit.

Regarding the weight lifting parts of the book, an author I greatly respect (Lou Schuler) reviewed this book, saying it was possibly the best weight-lifting book he'd ever read, even though only about 10% of the book was about lifting. After reading the book, I know exactly what he means. While there are lots of books about there about programs and techniques, this book addresses the mental aspect. It goes into detail about the psychological and therapeutic effects of weight-lifting, how it can calm and focus your mind, and how the ability to move large objects really gives you a sense of having a handle on your life and your body.

The sections on his love for books were great at capturing that feeling of escape that makes me love books, forgetting about your own life in your urgency to get lost in fake emergencies and problems and worry about if these fictional characters are going to get out okay.

The parts on Tourette's syndrome were illuminating. I've never known anyone with Tourette's (at least not very well), and I was fascinated by having an inside look on the syndrome, seeing how it affects you and what it feels like.

The parts on Mormonism were my least favorite parts of the book. I'm not religious and religion doesn't particularly interest me. I do suspect that this book may have had a bit of redemptive effect for Hanagarne. He had to cut his mission short due to health problems, and perhaps writing this book helped him to feel like he was still reaching a lot of people with the message of religion.

And now I'm incredibly late for my morning workout, but I finished this book last night and I just couldn't wait to share my love for this book with the world. This book was absolutely wonderful.
Can a mother be objective about her son's writing as he expresses his feelings about his life? Does that review help one other person? I don't know. I do know that as I read the book I relived some of the very difficult and joyful times in Josh's life. It is an interesting juxtaposition of events that have shaped him to be the man he is. Josh hates to be labeled courageous, but courage in the face of extreme adversity is what this book is about. Who can't be inspired by someone who perseveres when it would be easy to give up? Our whole family started this journey with Josh asking "When will his Tourettes go away so he can have a life?" to realizing "How can we help him have a life with Tourettes?" was really the question. Josh has accomplished many worthwhile things in his life and still has many great things to accomplish. We are an imperfect family, we have problems like everyone else does, and we love each other deeply. I love Josh. I respect Josh's right to make his own choices in this life and am very proud of him and his book. It's an amazing, interesting, funny, sad, inspiring read whether you are his mother or anyone else. Linda Hanagarne