New Health Books in the Library: the brain, weight loss, alternative treatments, cancer survivors...

The Cancer Survivor's Guide, the essential handbook to Life after Cancer by Michael Feuerstein and Patricia Findley provides seven chapters concerning challenges that cancer patients experience after surviving the disease. Written by a doctor/cancer survivor, Feuerstein, and a medical social worker, Findley, the book covers the stress, uncertainty, long-term effects of treatment and other important issues.

is it me or my meds? living with antidepressants by David A. Karp addresses the side effects of psychotrophic drugs, and other quality-of-life issues for patients who are on a long-term course of drug therapy for depression.

Stop Being Your Symptoms and Start Being Yourself, a 6-week program to ease your chronic symptoms by Arthur J. Barsky and Emily C. Deans. Using worksheets and exercises, the book teaches coping skills for such chronic conditions as back pain, insomnia, headaches and so on.

Weight Loss Surgery, is it right for you? by Merle Cantor et al. discusses who might be a good candidate for the surgery, how to make the decision, describes the procedures available and the recovery and future for patients who select the surgical option. Take a look at this article on WebMd on this topic also.

What Your Doctor Hasn't Told You and the Health Store Clerk Doesn't Know, the truth about alternative treatments and what works by Edward L. Schneider "offers expert advice about which treatments are effective, which can be dangerous, and what's simply not worth your money," according to the book jacket. Review

And finally, a very thick, 1006 page tome, The Owner's Manual for the Brain, everyday applications from mind-brain research by Pierce J. Howard is a book for browsing or for reference. It has a chapter on teenager's brains, elderly brains, the mind-brain connection, gender differences in brains and so on.

These books can be found on the new non-fiction shelves.

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The Devil in the White City is a title that pops up frequently in reading groups possibly because it is a non-fiction book that seems so incredibly like fiction. It is the story of the building of the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, a massive undertaking created in difficult circumstances and in very little time led by master architect, Daniel Burnham. Interwoven with this story of the artistic and engineering triumphs of a century ago is the concurrent true-crime tale of mass murderer H.H. Holmes. The publisher's website for the book has an interview with author, Erik Larson, and links to information about the fair, the architect, and the murderer. For more information and pictures of the fair, go to this World's Columbian Exhibition website.
For other stories of true crime, browse in the stacks at 364.15.
For books on the Chicago school of architecture browse in the 725's.
For information on America's Gilded Age, try the reference book of the same title by Eyewitness Books in Reference 973.8 CLA

Author Claims 9/11Widows Enjoy Widowhood

Ann Coulter makes waves to promote her newest book. This proves that no publicity is bad publicity when it comes to book promotion and Coulter is a master of that technique. The library has her latest book on order and it has two holds already before it even hits the library shelves.

Best Book of Fiction

The New York Times recently polled writers to determine the best book of fiction in the past twenty-five years. Beloved, Toni Morrison's 1987 book was the choice for number one. Critical Mass, the blog of the National Book Critics Circle has a series of posts called the Rest of the Best , which discuss the books which only received one vote and therefore were not included on the list. Critical Mass also interviews the authors who voted. John Irving admits that he voted for his own book, the Cider House Rules! Here is author Curits Sittenfeld's response to the survey and Rick Moody's.

Who Do You Love?

This weekend, I discovered an author I like , Ayelet Waldman. I gave her Mommy Track myteries another try. A while, ago, the first one in the series joined the ranks of the unfinished books on my bedside table, but A Playdate with Death was pretty good, entertaining, easy to read, funny with a well-plotted storyline. After that I read her serious novel, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits which is an excellent exploration of maternal love; I recommend it. She is interviewed in this BookPage issue. It turns out that she's the one who caused a flap on Oprah last February about remarking that she loves her husband more than her children. I remember that, but hadn't put it together until reading the interview. It would be interesting to see if anyone would have a reaction to a mother saying she loves her children more than her husband. Is that ok, or more acceptable than the reverse?