Will I love The Empathy Exams?

This book is a collection of essays with an almost palpable heartbeat, which is exactly the sort of book I consider mandatory reading.

I found myself leveled by the depth and volume of insights on every page, about what it means to really see and care for one another, to withstand pain ourselves, and to witness it in the world.

I experienced so many moments of recognition, reading an articulation of a human truth I’d perhaps known or felt on a subconscious level but never formed into thought or heard expressed quite so beautifully. It’s as if Leslie Jamison lives… show more.

One of the most powerful benefits of skilled listening is building trust. Empathy is essential to creating trusting relationships. Jamison is a trained actor, and deep listening and empathy are essential to the craft of acting.

This book spans her experiences, from her work in medical training to her research on incarceration, reality TV, and street violence. I was struck by the heartfulness and clarity in Jamison's writing about what she has witnessed and experienced. She pulls no punches.

The stories in this book provide a clarion call for our species to regain our empathy for each other through skilled… show more.

If I could only have one book for the rest of my life it would be this one.

The ur-text of braided essays, and of essay collections, LJ asks us to look at pain, obsession, care, and empathy through radically surprising lenses. In my favorite of the collected essays, “The Devil’s Bait,” she creates a sense of quantum reality that demands that the reader see their own skepticism and ableism, while at the same time implanting a persistent anxiety around the possibility that they might in fact be vulnerable to the very thing they are judging.

I don’t read a lot of creative non-fiction, but I loved this one. It’s a collection of essays that recalls the best of Joan Didion or Tom Wolfe. Minutely observed, crisply written, and suffused with a wry humor, it’s as much fun as a good novel. And the first essay, toggling between the author’s experience as a medical actor (item 31 on the checklist for how medical students handle her supposed conditions: “Voiced empathy for my situation/problem”) and two real medical problems she faced, is all about empathy. Much of the rest of the book deals with empathy too, at… show more.