Girl in the Dark

By Anna Lyndsey,

Book cover of Girl in the Dark: A Memoir of a Life Without Light

Book description

Haunting, lyrical, unforgettable, Girl in the Dark is a brave new memoir of a life without light.

     Anna Lyndsey was young and ambitious and worked hard; she had just bought an apartment; she was falling in love. Then what started as a mild intolerance to certain kinds of artificial light…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Girl in the Dark as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I have been telling people about Girl in the Dark ever since I read it eight years ago. More than that—I feel like part of me has still been in Anna Lyndsey’s blackout-curtained room, with heavy tape sealing out every crack of light, ever since then.

I had never heard of her condition, which causes extremely painful sensitivity to the smallest amount of light. Lyndsey describes her physical symptoms with vivid detail, but it’s her attention to the psychological effects of being forced to withdraw from virtually all human society that makes this such a jaw-dropping read. 

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Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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