The first book discussed at our ‘Neurology Book Club’ was The spirit catches you and you fall down (figure 1). This concerns Lia Lee, a child with severe epilepsy whose parents were refugees from Laos in the USA during the early 1980s, and describes the conflict between the Western medicine of the local hospital and shamanistic culture of Lia’s family and community. The story is told alternately from both sides, revealing the very …