when life hands you Tourette’s…

Imagine how stressful growing up with Tourette’s syndrome must be. Now go a step further and picture Tourette’s along with Mormonism, and throw in a very large bodied librarian. If you can’t manage to imagine any of this, or you are just plain confused, or both, no worries, Josh Hanagarne paints a very descriptive picture in his memoir, The World’s Strongest Librarian.

Hanagarne, who works at the Salt Lake City Public Library, is six-feet-seven-inches tall and weighs two hundred and sixty pounds. He was raised as a Mormon, has extreme Tourette’s syndrome, and in his spare time trains for strongman competitions. In a very straightforward manner, Hanagarne details the ways in which his condition, coupled with a Mormon upbringing, multiplied the countless embarrassments and miseries of adolescence. Not surprisingly, he also didn’t have much luck with girls. “Two things kept getting in the way … God and Tourette’s.” Those major obstacles, and the fact the people were not exactly kind to Hanagarne, lead to a deep depression that lasted until he made the decision to rebuild his life, and so he did.