THE WORLD'S STRONGEST LIBRARIAN

THE WORLD’S STRONGEST LIBRARIAN is Hanagarne’s touching, very funny account of growing up Mormon with Tourette’s, struggling to find love and fulfillment, and ultimately realizing his own unexpected strength and resilience.

Standing tall at 6’7” and suffering from loud, impossible-to-ignore Tourette Syndrome tics, invisibility was never an option for Josh Hanagarne.
Although he wouldn’t officially be diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome until his freshman year of high school, Josh was six years old and onstage in a school Thanksgiving play when he first began exhibiting symptoms. By the time he was twenty, the young Mormon had reached his towering adult height of 6'7" when—while serving on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—his Tourette’s tics escalated to nightmarish levels.
Determined to conquer his affliction, Josh underwent everything from quack remedies to lethargy-inducing drug regimes to Botox injections that paralyzed his vocal cords and left him voiceless for three years. Undeterred, Josh persevered to marry and earn a degree in library science. At last, an eccentric, autistic strongman—and former Air Force tech sergeant and guard at an Iraqi prison—taught Josh how to “throttle” his tics into submission through strength training. Today, Josh is a librarian in the main branch of Salt Lake City’s public library and founder of a popular blog about books and strength training—and the proud father of four-year-old Max, who has already started to show what may be symptoms of Tourette’s.

The World’s Strongest Librarian illuminates the mysteries of this little-understood disorder, as well as the very different worlds of strongman training and modern libraries. With humor and candor, this unlikely hero traces his journey to overcome his disability—and navigate his wavering Mormon faith—to find love and create a life worth living. Josh's blog, www.worldsstrongestlibrarian.com, receives over 80,000 visitors each month and he has a fast-growing career as a public speaker, addressing audiences about disabilities, books, and strongman training. This is his first book.