Product Details
- Author: Jean-Dominique Bauby
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- Binding: Paperback
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- Dewey Decimal Number: 362.19681
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- EAN: 9780375701214
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- ISBN: 0375701214
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- Label: Vintage
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- Manufacturer: Vintage
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- Number of Items: 1
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- Number of Pages: 144
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- Product Group: Book
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- Publication Date: 1998-06-23
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- Publisher: Vintage
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- Release Date: 1998-06-23
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- Studio: Vintage
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- Title: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death
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Avg Customer Rating: 
Product Description: We've all got our idiosyncrasies when it comes to writing--a special chair we have to sit in, a certain kind of yellow paper we absolutely must use. To create this tremendously affecting memoir, Jean-Dominique Bauby used the only tool available to him--his left eye--with which he blinked out its short chapters, letter by letter. Two years ago, Bauby, then the 43-year-old editor-in-chief of Elle France, suffered a rare stroke to the brain stem; only his left eye and brain escaped damage. Rather than accept his "locked in" situation as a kind of death, Bauby ignited a fire of the imagination under himself and lived his last days--he died two days after the French publication of this slim volume--spiritually unfettered. In these pages Bauby journeys to exotic places he has and has not been, serving himself delectable gourmet meals along the way (surprise: everything's ripe and nothing burns). In the simplest of terms he describes how it feels to see reflected in a window "the head of a man who seemed to have emerged from a vat of formaldehyde."
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Customer Reviews
Stunningly beautiful
Absolutely amazing. And a quick read, too, so you really have no excuse to miss it. SHUT UP. NO EXCUSE. Jeez, you can even borrow it from me, okay?
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Excellent!
This is a wonderful book. Very quick read. Makes you truly appreciate your own life. Highly recommended.
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An inspiring life testament
Bauby gives us a truly remarkable and inspirational story of his life trapped inside a body that no longer serves him.
But his mind remains as sharp as ever.
He transcends his immobility with grace and a remarkable gift of a rich, lucid imagination.
He is free in his mind to enjoy all of life and it's lush sensory gifts and memories...to take flight as if a butterfly.
A heartbreaking true story.
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What a great read!
This book was an eye-opening and amazing view into the internal life of a man under tragic circumstances. It is a very human look - sometimes funny and sarcastic and at times tragically sad - into Bauby's mind and spirit which never gives in.
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Amazing
I work with brain injured people daily and they never cease to amaze me. The book and the movie are testimony to the strength of the human spirit.
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