wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Diane Ackerman talks about her husband, Paul West’s, stroke and long recovery. He was afflicted with aphasia—loss of language—and Diane, frustrated with traditional therapies, relied on her scientific understanding of language and the brain to guide Paul back to the world of words. Her book One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing is an account of stroke, aphasia, and recovery, as well as a love story.

Diane Ackerman talks about her husband, Paul West’s, stroke and long recovery. He was afflicted with aphasia—loss of language—and Diane, frustrated with traditional therapies, relied on her scientific understanding of language and the brain to guide Paul back to the world of words. Her book One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing is an account of stroke, aphasia, and recovery, as well a love story.

During World War II, director of the Warsaw Zoo Jan Zabinski and his wife Antonia managed to turn their Nazi-bombed park into a lifesaving shelter for around 300 Jews and Polish resistance fighters. Diane Ackerman reconstructs their remarkable story in The Zookeeper’s Wife, a vivid historical account based on Antonina's ...