Jay Wellons at Harvard Book Store

This event has been canceled. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Harvard Book Store welcomes JAY WELLONS—professor at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and the Vanderbilt University Medical Center—for a discussion of his new book All That Moves Us: A Pediatric Neurosurgeon, His Young Patients, and Their Stories of Grace and Resilience. He will be joined in conversation by DR. EDWARD SMITH—professor at Harvard Medical School and the R. Michael Scott endowed chair in neurosurgery at Boston Children’s Hospital.

A Return to In-Person Events

Harvard Book Store is excited to re-introduce in-person programming this season. To ensure the safety and comfort of everyone in attendance, the following Covid-19 safety protocols will be in place at all of our Harvard Book Store events until further notice:

• Face coverings are required of all staff and attendees when inside the store. Masks must snugly cover nose and mouth.

About All That Moves Us

Tumors, injuries, ruptured vascular malformations—there is almost no such thing as a non-urgent brain surgery when it comes to kids. For a pediatric neurosurgeon working in the medical minefield of the brain—in which a single millimeter in every direction governs something that makes us essentially human—every day presents the challenge, and the opportunity, to give a new lease on life to a child for whom nothing is yet fully determined and all possibilities still exist.

In All That Moves Us, Dr. Jay Wellons pulls back the curtain to reveal the profoundly moving triumphs, haunting complications, and harrowing close calls that characterize the life of a pediatric neurosurgeon, bringing the high-stakes drama of the operating room to life with astonishing candor and honest compassion. Reflecting on lessons learned over twenty-five years and thousands of operations completed on some of the most vulnerable and precious among us, Wellons recounts in gripping detail the moments that have shaped him as a doctor, as a parent, and as the only hope for countless patients whose young lives are in his hands.

Wellons shares scenes of his early days as the son of a military pilot, the years of grueling surgical training, and true stories of what it’s like to treat the brave children he meets on the threshold between life and death. From the little boy who arrived at the hospital near death from a gunshot wound to the head, to the eight-year-old whose shredded nerves were repaired using suture as fine as human hair, to the brave mother-to-be undergoing fetal spinal cord surgery, All That Moves Us is an unforgettable portrait of the countless human dramas that take place in a busy modern children’s hospital—and a meditation on the marvel of life as seen from under the white-hot lights of the operating room.

Praise for All That Moves Us

“All That Moves Us tells the story of lives that have been shattered and reassembled. The surgical interventions in these pages are dizzying, but the fact that Jay Wellons can write as well as he can operate provides a whole other level of amazement. This is a wondrous and deeply moving book.” —Ann Patchett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth

“As a surgeon, Jay Wellons has long healed with his hands. What this engaging and illuminating book shows us is how important the heart is in the life and work of a doctor charged with the sacred—even staggering—task of operating on the brains of children. At once reflective and searching, Wellons’s stories from the journey give us hope that light can emerge from even the darkest of hours.” —Jon Meacham, #1 New York Times bestselling author of His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope

“Reading All That Moves Us feels like watching a full season of your favorite medical drama, complete with harrowing surgical scenes and meaningful reflections within each episode. In bearing witness to some of life’s most profound moments, Jay Wellons has written an extraordinarily memorable book.” —Mary Laura Philpott, author of Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives