The Book Prize Index

One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing

Diane Ackerman

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize Finalist for the National Book Circle Critics Award "Diane Ackerman's most enjoyable, intimate, and heartrending work yet."—Atul Gawande Everyone who cherishes the gift of language will cherish Diane Ackerman's narrative masterpiece, an exquisitely written love story and medical miracle story, one that combines science, inspiration, wisdom, and heart. One day Ackerman's husband, Paul West, an exceptionally gifted wordsmith and intellectual, suffered a terrible stroke. When he regained awareness he was afflicted with aphasia—loss of language—and could utter only a single syllable: "mem." The standard therapies yielded little result but frustration. Diane soon found, however, that by harnessing their deep knowledge of each other and her scientific understanding of language and the brain she could guide Paul back to the world of words. This triumphant book is both a humane and revealing addition to the medical literature on stroke and aphasia and an exquisitely written love story: a magnificent addition to literature, period.

Memoir & AutobiographyMemoir & Autobiography · high confidenceMemoir & Autobiography81 signalsLlm Classifier: Memoir & Autobiography -> Memoir & AutobiographyGoogle Books: Biography & Autobiography -> Memoir & AutobiographyGoogle Books: Biography & Autobiography -> BiographyMemoir & Personal HistoryTravel, Exploration & PlaceFamily, Childhood & Adoption

Award History

0 wins · 2 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Pulitzer Prize in General NonfictionMajor2012FinalistSecondary source
National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir and AutobiographyMajor2011FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (2)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact. Automated checks have flagged this profile for extra review.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • Diane Ackerman74%
    Show lower-confidence suggestions

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Paul West65%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    By combining knowledge of each other with scientific understanding of language and the brain, Diane Ackerman was able to guide Paul West back toward language after stroke-related aphasia when standard therapies failed.

    Model confidence 66%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    38 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 77%.