A Brain Wider Than the Sky

A Migraine Diary

By: Andrew Levy

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Paperback | 11 May 2010

At a Glance

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289 Pages

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20.96 x 13.65 x 2.29

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With more than one in ten Americans — and more than one in five families — affected, the phenomenon of migraine is widely prevalent yet often ignored or misdiagnosed.

For Andrew Levy, his migraines were occasional reminders of a persistent illness that he'd wrestled with half his life. Then in 2006 Levy was struck almost daily by a series of debilitating migraines that kept him essentially bedridden for months, imprisoned by pain and nausea that retreated only briefly in gentler afternoon light.

When possible, he kept careful track of what triggered an onset and in luminous prose recounts his struggle to live with migraines, his meticulous attempts at calibrating his lifestyle to combat and avoid them, and most tellingly, the personal relationship a migraineur develops — an almost Stockholm syndrome–like attachment — with the indescribable pain, delirium, and hallucinations. Levy researched how personalities and artists throughout history — Alexander Pope, Freud, Virginia Woolf, even Elvis — dealt with their migraines and candidly describes his rehabilitation with the aid of prescription drugs and his eventual re-emergence into the world, back to work and writing.

An enthralling blend of memoir and provocative analysis, A Brain Wider Than the Sky offers rich insights into an illness whose effects are too often discounted and whose sufferers are too often overlooked.

About the Author

Andrew Levy is the author of several books including The First Emancipator, and his work has appeared in Harper's Magazine, Dissent, and Best American Essays, among other publications. He lives in Indianapolis.

Industry Reviews

"A most remarkable book. "A Brain Wider Than the Sky" is learned, witty, allusive, and poetic -- and migraine becomes, for Levy, a window into the whole landscape of body and mind, health and disease, and the sheer complexity of being alive." -- Oliver Sacks, author of "Migraine" and "Musicophilia"

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Biographies & True Stories Memoirs Family & Health Coping with / Advice about Personal, Social & Health Topics Coping with / Advice about Illness & Specific Health Conditions

Author's Note	p. ix
Introduction: A Man with Patches on His Head	p. 1

Ancient History	p. 15
Enlightenment, Part 1	p. 27
Victorian and Modern	p. 36

Tongue-Tied	p. 49
Nerve-Storm	p. 63
Enlightenment, Part 2	p. 78
Reading	p. 87
The Four Paths of the Migraineur	p. 113

Opening the Case	p. 139
Taking the Cure	p. 159
Migraine Parties	p. 177
Weather	p. 196
Notes	p. 215
Bibliography	p. 261
Acknowledgments	p. 283
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

A Brain Wider Than the Sky

A Migraine Diary

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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Longlisted for the 2026 Womens Prize for Non-Fiction