as a science book editor at Springer Publishing. As a native New Yorker and lover of history, medicine, and women’s narratives, she became determined to tell their story. In addition to interviewing historians, archivists, and medical professionals, she spent years immersed in the lives and stories of those close to these extraordinary women. Smilios holds a master of arts in religion and literature from Boston University, where she was a Luce scholar and taught in the religion and writing program.
At Lit Hub Smilios tagged "five books [that] reckon with time and mortality in different ways," including:
Elizabeth Tova Bailey, The Sound of a Wild Snail EatingRead about the other entries on the list.
Elizabeth Tova Bailey’s memoir The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, is a gorgeous meditation on finding meaning while suffering from a punishing illness. This slim 120-page book opens with a fantastic scene in which her friend brings asnail to put in the violet plant on her nightstand. Bedridden with a bacterial infection, Bailey is confused by the gift as she has little interest in snails. There she is, stuck with a body that’s gone haywire, a tiny snail, her mind, which “runs like a bloodhound,” and the daunting task of finding ways to “get through each moment.”
To her surprise, as the snail settles in and she continues contemplating her life, she develops a fascination with the tiny nocturnal creature who “moved leisurely,” who pondered “its circumstances,” “waved its tentacles,” and could even be heard as it ate! Soon it becomes her companion, a guide releasing her from the tedium of human visitors and leading her from the white walls of her room into another world: “If life mattered to the snail and the snail mattered to me, it meant something in my life mattered, so I kept on…”
--Marshal Zeringue
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