Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

As with those few works where the quality of the writing struck me as among the best I've encountered, I'm going to feel particularly clumsy using the same medium to express my admiration. 
I agree this is a good place to start with Rushdie's work. Considering how much I loved it, I now look forward to trying his fiction. 
There are harrowing moments, but so much of this is about healing, love, reveling in the opposites to hate. His love of reading shines through in where he finds quotes to help him express his physical and psychological journey from near death to a degree of equanimity and recuperation. I appreciate that he chose a fictional interloction with his attacker, that he did not put much focus on the individual who did the violence, even as the results from that violence consumed his life for months. I loved seeing his joy and gratitude for his wife and family and friends. I admire his choice to clearly state that this attack has not changed his mind, he still is not religious, he still sees the need to critique, to satirize ideologies, political or religious, as necessary. He does not feel the need to apologize for or rehash what was previously spoken about in previous works. There's a brief window into a difficult childhood, but again, he doesn't dwell. I gather there is a previous autobiography, so it may be that things were dealt with differently there, but the clarity of conviction displayed here, what he understands as worth fighting for, having the added significance of someone whose life has now been immediately at risk because of how others have reacted to his work, it was quietly impressive to read. 

Tread carefully if you've ever had a loved one in the hospital with an uncertain prognosis, this is likely to bring it back. 

⚠️Alcoholism, child abuse, domestic abuse