bookpagedev

by Abby Plesser

College graduation is a time of enormous achievement. But for too many grads, it’s also a time of uncertainty and insecurity (just ask any of my soon-to-be-graduate friends). To facilitate a healthy transition from college life to the working world, best-selling author Susan Morem is back with 101 Tips for Graduates: A Code of Conduct for Success and Happiness in Life. Through a series of easy-to-follow tips, Morem encourages readers to build strong communication, leadership and social skills in order to find success on the job and in their personal lives. From advice on how to give the perfect interview to pointers for bolstering confidence, 101 Tips for Graduates is a detailed and clearly organized guide for the career-oriented college grad. Abby Plesser will graduate from Vanderbilt University this month.

College graduation is a time of enormous achievement. But for too many grads, it's also a time of uncertainty and insecurity (just ask any of my soon-to-be-graduate friends). To facilitate a healthy transition from college life to the working world, best-selling author Susan Morem is…

Travel

Travel

The road paved with good abstentions

Review by bookpagedev

by Thane Tierney

Some people travel to Mecca. Others climb Mount Fuji. Some join the sunglassed throng at the gates of Graceland. But even if it’s just down to the local Kwik-E-Mart, sooner or later everybody makes a pilgrimage. Take for instance, self-described couch potato, German television host and comedian Hans Peter “Hape” Kerkeling. In his I’m Off Then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago, which sold more than 3 million copies in its original German, Kerkeling boldly goes where thousands, if not millions, have gone before: along what is called (in German, anyway) the Jakobsweg to Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in the Spanish region of Galicia, where Catholic legend has it that the remains of the apostle Saint James lie buried.

You want some insights? Kerkeling’s book has them sprinkled throughout, like little Easter eggs scattered along a 475-mile path. Some are simple and obvious: wear comfortable shoes; drink plenty of water. Others, particularly as the journey progresses, are more spiritual, nuanced and plain insightful. Despite occasional (well, actually more or less constant) carping about sore feet and bad food, of which there is much along the way, Kerkeling is a highly amiable traveling companion, interested in both the external and internal phenomena that accompany a voyage of exploration. And even if your pilgrimage extends only to your local bookstore, Kerkeling has provided a rich reward at journey’s end.

Humor, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Humor

College 101

Review by bookpagedev

by Abby Plesser

For most of us, the months between high school graduation and our first days of college are filled with excitement, anticipation and, well, a lot of questions. For the soon-to-be college student (and his or her parents), syndicated columnist Harlan Cohen has all the answers in his hilarious guide, The Naked Roommate: And 107 Other Issues You Might Run Into in College. Filled with practical advice, expert opinions and first-hand accounts from collegians, The Naked Roommate guides students through situations such as handling a difficult roommate, succeeding in the classroom, and managing money while exposing the truth about dating, drinking and experimenting on campus. Fun and fact-filled, The Naked Roommate is an excellent resource for the college-bound high school graduate.

Abby Plesser will graduate from Vanderbilt University this month.

Children's & YA

Children's & YA

Crossing over

Review by bookpagedev

by Heidi Henneman

Adult author Neil Gaiman enters the world of children’s books His kids made him do it or at least inspired him to do it. That’s how British author Neil Gaiman claims he began writing stories for young readers. “The thing about children’s books that many people don’t understand is that beloved children’s books are read not once, but many times,” he says.

The award-winning author of the adult novels American Gods and Neverwhere, as well as the Sandman graphic novel series, Gaiman learned this lesson about children’s books by reading to his own kids. When his son was young, he loved a book called Catch the Red Bus, and Gaiman spent night after night reading the story to the boy, often more than once at a sitting. The repetition taught Gaiman that children’s books should be fun not just for kids, but for adults as well. Gaiman has written two previous children’s titles, The Day I Swapped My Dad for 2 Goldfish and Coraline, a New York Times bestseller. His new book, The Wolves in the Walls, is a quirky, hilarious tale that’s fun to read over and over.

The concept for Wolves came from the author’s young daughter, who had a bad dream one night. “She was convinced there were wolves in the walls,” says Gaiman, “and as she described them to me, I immediately knew that I would steal the idea for a book.” Not long after, he sat down and wrote the first draft of the story. “I didn’t like it at all,” says Gaiman. Instead of rewriting it, however, he decided to abandon it. After about eight months, he tried once more, but again, he didn’t like it, and again, he abandoned the story. Another eight months passed. Then one night, Gaiman suddenly woke up in bed and thought, “When the wolves come out of the walls, it’s all over!” This, apparently, was just the idea he needed to bring the book to life. That afternoon, he wrote the entire story, to perfection. “It took me one afternoon to write it,” says Gaiman,” but also two-and-a-half years.” Shortly thereafter, Gaiman began reading the story at signings for his adult books, and the reception was overwhelmingly positive. “I was astonished at how incredibly popular a short story for children was to adults,” says Gaiman. He then passed the story along to Dave McKean, his long-time collaborator and the illustrator of Coraline and the Sandman series. McKean’s shadowy, atmospheric pictures, which mix drawings and photographic images to create a collage-like effect, are the perfect match for Gaiman’s spooky yet humorous story. The heroine, Lucy, is sure she hears the scurrying of furry beasts behind the walls. When the wolves finally burst forth, they drive Lucy, her parents and her brother out of the house and into the garden. McKean’s ingenious illustrations bring the wild and wacky animals to life, as they make themselves at home, dressing up in Lucy’s father’s clothes, turning on the telly and consuming the family’s stash of strawberry jam. “Since I had stolen the idea from my daughter, I thought it was only fair to have some element of [McKean’s] family in the book as well,” says Gaiman. This came in the form of a pig-puppet that McKean’s son had treasured. “Some kids have blankets,” recalls Gaiman, “but this one had a pig-puppet, and his parents could never get it away from him long enough to even wash it.” Thus, in the book Lucy is the proud owner of a pig-puppet. The result: a thoroughly inspired Gaiman-McKean family production. Gaiman’s next project is a “proper, honest-to-goodness picture book” entitled Crazy Hair. It’s a Dr. Seuss-type story, and he admits that it’s a bit “goofy.” Yet it’s this very quirkiness that makes Gaiman’s work so appealing. “There’s a strange joy in doing these children’s books,” he says, “and getting into not only children’s heads, but the heads of their parents as well.” With The Wolves in the Walls, Gaiman does both.

Adult author Neil Gaiman enters the world of children's books His kids made him do it or at least inspired him to do it. That's how British author Neil Gaiman claims he began writing stories for young readers. "The thing about children's books that many…

Biography

Biography

The lowdown on the Fab Four

Review by bookpagedev

The title of the new book The Beatles: The True Beginnings is as misleading as it is enticing. And in any event, the key to the book’s appeal lies mainly in the authors’ names.

Three brothers from the Best family put this volume together. One of them, Pete, has for 40 years been the most enigmatic of all who have been touched by the aura of the Fab Four. He was, in fact, Fab himself at one time. As the Beatles’ original drummer, he shared every step with John, Paul and George, from the band’s first gigs up to the dawn of Beatlemania. For literally just a few days he felt the hysteria and adulation that would soon change his friends’ lives, the lives of millions of kids and pop culture itself.

And then, suddenly, mysteriously, he was gone. For reasons that have never been fully explained, his colleagues kicked him out, hauled in a big-nosed guy named Ringo to take his place and roared off into history, leaving Best in the dust to deal with overnight obscurity.

Now, put yourself in his shoes. While your old pals are gallivanting around the world, becoming zillionaires, hanging out with hokey holy men or French screen sirens, you’ve got to keep paying the rent on that flat in Liverpool. Lesser men might have become pathologically bitter. Indeed, Best does admit to being annoyed, but he kept his cool and now, in the most genteel fashion, he gets his revenge.

Revenge, because The True Beginnings isn’t really about the Beatles. Rather, it’s about a cramped little nightclub and the woman who ran it Best’s mother, without whom, her sons argue, the band never would have gotten off the ground.

It was Mona Best who turned her basement into a coffee bar, named it the Casbah and installed the prototype Beatles as its resident act. “She had a lot of charisma, a lot of foresight, determination and courage,” Pete Best explains by phone from the historic cellar itself. “Consequently, she turned her humble conception into the first rock ∧ roll haven in Liverpool. The Cavern was a jazz room at the time, so all the major bands in Liverpool clamored to play at the Casbah, because they loved the club and they loved my mother. She helped the Beatles when I was with them and even after I had gone. She never got the recognition she deserved, so my brothers and I had to put that story straight.” Fortunately, Pete’s youngest brother Roag had squirreled away newspaper clips, photos and boxes of junk that would turn out to be not only valuable but, improbably, beautifully photogenic a ratty pink hat from the band’s run at Hamburg’s Kaiserkeller, owlish round glasses that John wore while helping to paint the Casbah ceiling.

Then there’s the Casbah itself, a reliquary of wall scrawlings and crumbled furniture. Photographed by Sandro Sodano, the space has a kind of shabby majesty. “We wanted to show off the beauty as well as the character of the Casbah,” Pete Best explains. “I suppose that seems like a funny way to describe it, but rock ∧ roll clubs today are like plastic palaces by comparison. The Casbah was totally different in the late ’50s in its layout and in the artistic work that went into it, so yes, we do call it a thing of beauty.” The text plays almost a subsidiary role to these images, though there is plenty to enlighten even trivia experts. (Try this: What object on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was lent to the band by an apparently forgiving Mona Best for the photo shoot?) And there are recollections from many who were there customers at the Casbah and in the German strip clubs where the band had its coming of age, musicians and, surprisingly, even from George Harrison and Paul McCartney.

“I didn’t actually do the interview with them,” Pete says. “Roag assumed that role because I was involved in other projects. But it was a magnanimous gesture. Like everyone else who spoke to us, they knew there was a wonderful story to be told. And just like everyone else who knew my mother, they loved her too.” Robert L. Doerschuk is the author of 88: The Giants of Jazz Piano and the former editor of Musician magazine.

The title of the new book The Beatles: The True Beginnings is as misleading as it is enticing. And in any event, the key to the book's appeal lies mainly in the authors' names.

Three brothers from the Best family put this volume…

Fiction, Women's Fiction

Fiction Women's Fiction

Behind closed doors

Review by bookpagedev

by Anne Morris

Mary Kay Andrews spoofs the secrets and lies of suburbia Mary Kay Andrews lived the research for Little Bitty Lies, her delicious new comic novel about divorce. The newspaper reporter-turned-novelist spent the last 20 years in a close-knit Atlanta suburb very much like the fictional Fair Oaks of her book. And lately like most of us she has seen several seemingly secure marriages fall apart.

Sitting on a glider outside her restored Atlanta bungalow during a recent telephone interview, Andrews describes how she got the idea for the book she first called Split City.

One Fourth of July she was hosting a potluck get-together before the fireworks, when a neighbor came over with a sad little covered dish and without his wife. “She’s announced she doesn’t love me any more, and she’s involved with someone else,” he told Andrews.

“Now eventually they coped and did fine, but I was just so floored by this,” Andrews recalls, “that the next day when I was returning the dish, I backed into a telephone pole.” Their problem had become her problem and would stay with her until she used it as a starter for her latest book.

In Little Bitty Lies, protagonist Mary Bliss McGowan marvels at how many people around her are getting divorced. Then her husband Parker empties all their bank accounts and disappears, leaving her with a mortgage, a crotchety mother-in-law and a cute teenage daughter whose private school tuition is due. Desperate, and egged on by her daring buddy Kate, Mary Bliss fakes Parker’s drowning death in Cozumel to collect his life insurance. She would have opted for murder if she hadn’t feared being raped by girl gangs in prison. (“That’s the only thing that keeps civilized people in line,” Andrews half-jokes. “Fear of retribution.”) Mary Bliss survives it all betrayal, poverty, fixing 100 pounds of chicken salad and ends up richer for her experiences.

The book jacket suggests Little Bitty Lies is the author’s second novel after Savannah Blues, a mystery involving an antique picker named Weezy but in fact it’s her 12th. Under her real name, Kathy Hogan Trocheck, Andrews wrote eight mysteries starring amateur sleuth Callahan Garrity and two mysteries featuring retired Florida reporter Truman Kicklighter.

It was not until 2002 that she published a book under the pen name Mary Kay Andrews (after her daughter, Mary Kathleen 21, and son, Andy, 16). As Andrews, she enjoyed a blank slate. “Mystery fans are so brand conscious,” she says with a sigh. “When I wrote the first Truman book, my Callahan fans got angry with me because they thought I was basically abandoning Callahan. This [writing under a new name] was a big gamble. It worked amazingly well. Savannah Blues outsold any Callahan.” If Andrews sounds proud of herself, she is, but she still sees herself as an ordinary suburban wife and mother. “I don’t think I’m really unlike a lot of women of my time. I drive carpool, bake cakes, but I write about death and divorce and infidelity.” Ever hospitable, she had hosted a riotous chick sleepover for her book club and friends the night before our interview. “We concluded that no group of men would ever come together like this if there wasn’t a sport or beer involved.” Andrews herself once rode shotgun in a car driven by a female friend who followed her wandering, unsuspecting husband to his girlfriend’s house. “I was more like the buddy than the heroine,” Andrews said, laughing, “the unindicted co-conspirator.” Rather than weigh readers down with the domestic trouble she’s witnessed, the 48-year-old reformed journalist exploits the comedic aspects of the situation in Little Bitty Lies. Her eye for social satire and ear for colorful speech turn every novel into an entertainment. Andrews started writing fiction in the 1980s, after spending 14 years as a newspaper reporter and ending up at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution covering the Savannah trial at the heart of John Berendt’s mega-bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. She never expected to be anything but a reporter.

“Newspapers changed in the ’80s,” Andrews says. A new emphasis on shorter stories that fit the USA Today format left her cold. She likes a long story in which a reporter can examine why things happen.

With fiction, she is free to make up the why. Andrews has always loved fiction, from the time she was a child in St. Petersburg, Florida, and her mother read to her. (Her mother ran a restaurant in a residential hotel similar to Truman Kicklighter’s.) “My mother had five kids in six years,” she says, matter-of-factly. “One day she turned to my older sister and said, here, you read to her. I’ve got to change these diapers. So, my older sister got tired of reading to me and said sit up, I’ll show you how to read. So I was reading before I got to first grade, and never stopped.” Buying books was too expensive, but their mother took them faithfully to the Bookmobile. “We all five trooped in. I’m sure the tires went up when we filed out.” Andrews remembers the books she checked out: Nancy Drew, Victoria Holt, Mary Stuart and on, in a Gothic vein.

Today the office where she works a little hut left over from the Atlanta Olympics which her husband fixed up for her has the magnifying glass from the Nancy Drew series as the light to her door.

“I’m living my dream,” says Andrews, who has a luscious long-term goal for her fiction: “I want to write a big, juicy overripe peach of a book, and I want my readers to like it and to feel the juice running down their chin and want more, more, more.” This summer Andrews is writing another Southern novel, Hissy Fit, in which interior designer Keeley Murdock catches her fiancÅ½ cavorting with her maid of honor. Eventually, Andrews hopes to return to Weezie for another book. As to Mary Bliss, who knows? “I do hope she’ll tell me another story,” Andrews says. Anne Morris is a writer in Austin, Texas.

Health & Fitness, Lifestyles

Lifestyles Health & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

by Maude McDaniel

ng with cancer: helpful books for the journey First, you fall apart. That’s OK. You have just been told by your doctor that you have cancer. On hearing such news, everybody falls apart, in his or her own way. Then you gather up the pieces and try to figure out what to do next. It’s a decision facing many Americans, since approximately one-third of women and one-half of men will get cancer during their lifetimes. No one is immune, not even this writer who battled (and survived) uterine cancer. And for many people facing cancer the first step is to amass the most powerful weapon against the disease: information.

Here, we recommend a selection of the best books that offer help and advice for cancer patients and their families. All of these books are written either by health professionals or by cancer survivors (sometimes both), and in each the personal voice is strong, compassionate and empathetic. They share common insights, such as the power of positive thinking (though one is rightly careful to point out that even positive thinking is no magic cure). All are empowering, supplying the information needed for personal decision-making. All deal to some extent with alternative therapies. All include appendices of resources for support groups, information agencies (Internet and other) and health organizations. And all touch on the mind-body connection, some more than others.

Practical advice Three of our recommended books fall into the practical no-nonsense category, with an emphasis on the technical aspects of the disease. Wendy Schlessel Harpham’s Diagnosis: Cancer, Your Guide through the First Few Months is a revised and updated paperback edition of a book first published in 1991. Harpham is both a doctor and a cancer survivor, and she combines the insights of both. The question-and-answer format makes for easy reading, and the questions Harpham poses really are the questions a new cancer patient will ask. Least exhaustive and most manageable of all the books in this group, Diagnosis: Cancer is perhaps the best choice for a first book for the newly diagnosed patient although certainly not the last.

Caregiving: A Step-By-Step Resource for Caring for the Person with Cancer at Home by Peter S. Houts, Ph.

D., and Julia A. Bucher, R.N., Ph.

D., is designed for caregivers but is equally informative for the patient. Another in the down-to-earth category, it covers treatments (including how to pay for them), instruction and advice for emotional and physical conditions, managing care (for example, a section titled Helping Children Understand) and living with the results of cancer treatments. Well organized, although somewhat repetitive, Caregiving is helpful on the matter of when to get professional help for symptoms and answers questions likely to surface in day-to-day support for cancer patients.

Oncology nurse practitioner Katen Moore, M.S.

N., R.N., and medical researcher Libby Schmais, M.F.

A., M.L.

S., declare a simple goal for Living Well With Cancer: A Nurse Tells You Everything You Need to Know About Managing the Side Effects of Your Treatment.: how to feel better during cancer treatment. The emphasis here is not on the treatments themselves but on dealing with their side effects and symptoms. Many cancer patients can maintain a fairly normal life while under treatment; Moore and Schmais enable the patient to play an important role in managing his or her own disease, and in related decision-making. The authors’ traditional technical and medical expertise is obvious, but they also give a good deal of attention to complementary and alternative medicines.

Mind-body connection While all these books acknowledge the importance of treating the whole person, emotionally as well as physically, some authors put more emphasis on the psychological aspects of cancer treatment. Mind, Body, and Soul: A Guide to Living With Cancer is written by Nancy Hassett Dahm, a nurse with broad experience in treating cancer, who seems to take no guff from doctors. Clinical cases illustrate her key points, which include attitudes toward the sick and the dying, managed care, fear, stress and home care. In discussing “the continuum of pain control,” Dahm emphasizes that the patient, family and medical staff must work together to assess pain, report it to the doctor and see that proper medication is administered. Chapters on philosophical and religious inspiration reflect her own deeply felt experiences in these areas. Dahm includes a discussion of spiritual events, such as out-of-body episodes, that have been reported by her patients.

Before I had cancer, I already felt I “knew myself,” and all my “deepest longings, intentions, and purposes.” All I really wanted to do was come out of it safe (in some way) on the other side. Most of us recognize, however, that a traumatic event like dealing with cancer presents an opportunity for personal growth. In The Journey Through Cancer: An Oncologist’s Seven-Level Program for Healing and Transforming the Whole Person, oncologist Jeremy Geffen, M.D., makes that kind of personal growth the major goal of the cancer experience. His program aims to produce healing and spiritual transformation in cancer patients “at the deepest levels of your body, mind, heart, and spirit.” The author’s voice is compassionate and persuasive, especially as heard in clinical cases where he counsels patients and in his own experience with his father’s cancer when he was a medical student. Profoundly influenced by 20 years of “exploring the great spiritual and healing traditions of the East,” he invites readers to “embrace all the dimensions of who you are as a patient and as a human being.” Like the Eastern religions on which it is based, Geffen’s program presents sequential levels in the cancer experience, from the first level of learning basic information about the disease to levels of emotional healing, life assessment and the spiritual aspects of healing. Readers may not care to go all the way with Dr. Geffen, but they will find rich resources in joining him for some part of the journey.

Dr. Jimmie Holland’s The Human Side of Cancer: Living with Hope, Coping with Uncertainty combines all the best parts of this category and reveals an independent streak. Top psychiatrist at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Holland has tired of the universal emphasis on positive thinking and includes a whole chapter on the “tyranny” of the truism, tackling in the process the idea that mind-body connection means you bring your cancer on yourself. Many anecdotal illustrations ease the reading and further her purposes, which include dealing with the diagnosis, societal myths, treatments and unique chapters on surviving cancer, dying from cancer and the grief of dying patients and their families. Holland’s book is less technical than some, but it’s wise and warm and a stand-out in the genre.

Not too long ago there were few technical and spiritual resources for newly diagnosed cancer patients; now a wealth of information floods bookstores and Web sites. That is hardly a cause for celebration but certainly one for gratitude.

Maude McDaniel is a long-time BookPage reviewer who writes from Cumberland, Maryland.

ng with cancer: helpful books for the journey First, you fall apart. That's OK. You have just been told by your doctor that you have cancer. On hearing such news, everybody falls apart, in his or her own way. Then you gather up the pieces…

Family & Relationships, Parenting

Parenting Family & Relationships

Mothers know best

Review by bookpagedev

by Linda Stankard

A working mother of two boys, Katherine Ellison gives us The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter. “A modern affliction called Ã”Mommy Brain’,” she writes, “is a cheerful synonym for abrupt mental decline. The phrase summons the image of a ditzy pregnant woman who weeps at Kleenex commercials, or of a frazzled mom with nothing in her head but carpool schedules and grocery lists.” But Ellison argues that the diverse demands of motherhood actually improve the brain’s plasticity, the formation of new neurons and connections. “What stimulates us in a sense re-creates us, creating new and stronger pathways between synapses.” She names five attributes of a “baby-boosted brain,” including perception, emotional intelligence and efficiency. A well-documented resource book for women’s studies, The Mommy Brain would also make a great gift for a sleep-deprived new mother who feels like she can’t think anymore! Linda Stankard is a mother and a daughter.

A working mother of two boys, Katherine Ellison gives us The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter. "A modern affliction called Ã”Mommy Brain'," she writes, "is a cheerful synonym for abrupt mental decline. The phrase summons the image of a ditzy pregnant woman who…

Health & Fitness, Lifestyles

Lifestyles Health & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

by Linda Stankard

weet dreams: books to help you make friends with the night Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, usually slips in quietly, delivers his blissful gift of slumber then melts humbly, silently away into the shadows of the night. But the gods can be contrary. Though you offer up countless sheep trying to entice his arrival, sometimes Hypnos is nowhere to be found, leaving you alone, agitated and wide-eyed in the dark. When the god of slumber abandons you, what better reading material to have by your bedside than books on sleep and dreaming? How to Sleep Soundly Tonight by Barbara L. Heller, is a charming and inexpensive little handbook full of simple, easily implemented methods for assessing your night’s sleep and making it the healthiest, most restorative experience it can be. Heller takes a naturalistic approach, promoting sleep-inducing tips like keeping your feet warm at night or drinking chamomile tea, but she concludes with a chapter about what to do and where to turn when self-help doesn’t work. The No More Sleepless Nights Workbook by Peter Hauri, Murray Jarman and Shirley Linde delves a little more deeply into the underlying causes of insomnia. (Hauri is the former director of the Mayo Clinic Insomnia Program and one of the world’s leading authorities on the problem.) The workbook provides many self-examining questionnaires on topics like “Lifestyle,” “Depression” and “Sleep History.” These are designed to help you pinpoint your individual type of sleep problem before planning your own “better-sleep” program. This step-by-step approach is followed by chapters on solutions to each particular “sleep stealer,” including night work, jet lag and Seasonal Affective Disorder. No More Sleepless Nights Workbook is a terrific overall resource book for insomniacs.

Though obviously many sleep robbers such as stress or a poor sleep environment are not gender related, certain sleep adversaries such as hormone-instigated night sweats or the demands of trying to juggle work and new motherhood are specific to women. A Woman’s Guide to Sleep by Joyce A. Walsleben, Ph.

D., and Rita Baron-Faust addresses the particular stumbling blocks to sleep that women face from menstruation through menopause and beyond and offers a wealth of research, insight and advice in a scholarly yet accessible style.

These books are about getting to sleep, but once you’ve gotten there and have Hypnos paying regular nocturnal calls to your bedside, you’ll want a visit from Morpheus, the god of dreams. (We mortals are so demanding!) In fact, many experts believe that REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, which takes place during dreaming, is not only a normal and essential quality of “good” sleep, but plays a crucial role in memory and learning. Much has been written about why we dream, what we dream and what it all means, but The Committee of Sleep, by Deidre Barrett, Ph.

D., takes a different twist. Barrett presents dreams as a means of creative problem solving and explains how creative thinkers through the ages have capitalized on their subconscious visions. The book takes its title from a John Steinbeck quote: “It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.” In addition to authors, Committee discusses artists, musicians, filmmakers, scientists, mathematicians and others who have used their dreams something which “the committee” has fortuitously sent to them at night to enhance their creative work by day. This book will inspire you to keep a dream journal, so if and when the committee slips you a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize-winning idea, you can write it down and claim it for your own! If you or someone you know needs to make friends with the night, these books (and maybe a glass of warm milk) should help pave the way along the path to the Land of Nod. Sweet dreams! Linda Stankard is a writer in Cookeville, Tennessee.

Memoir

Memoir

The mother she never knew

Review by bookpagedev

by Linda Stankard

But what if you never had a chance to know your own mother? In Motherland: A Memoir, Pamela Marin writes a first-person account of her quest to know the mother she lost to bone cancer in 1973, when she was 14. Since her father removed all evidence of her mother’s existence after her death and her mother had been a very private person, Marin had little to go on but her childhood memories so she embarks on a journey to Tennessee, Chicago and California to find her. “What was I doing, exactly?” Marin asks herself as she begins to interview a woman her mother went to art school with in Tennessee. But she answers her own question: “A daughter wants to know about her mother. Simple as that.” And that knowledge is empowering.

Linda Stankard is a mother and a daughter.

Health & Fitness, Lifestyles

Lifestyles Health & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

by Linda Stankard

t dreams: books to help you make friends with the night Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep, usually slips in quietly, delivers his blissful gift of slumber then melts humbly, silently away into the shadows of the night. But the gods can be contrary. Though you offer up countless sheep trying to entice his arrival, sometimes Hypnos is nowhere to be found, leaving you alone, agitated and wide-eyed in the dark. When the god of slumber abandons you, what better reading material to have by your bedside than books on sleep and dreaming? How to Sleep Soundly Tonight by Barbara L. Heller, is a charming and inexpensive little handbook full of simple, easily implemented methods for assessing your night’s sleep and making it the healthiest, most restorative experience it can be. Heller takes a naturalistic approach, promoting sleep-inducing tips like keeping your feet warm at night or drinking chamomile tea, but she concludes with a chapter about what to do and where to turn when self-help doesn’t work. The No More Sleepless Nights Workbook by Peter Hauri, Murray Jarman and Shirley Linde delves a little more deeply into the underlying causes of insomnia. (Hauri is the former director of the Mayo Clinic Insomnia Program and one of the world’s leading authorities on the problem.) The workbook provides many self-examining questionnaires on topics like “Lifestyle,” “Depression” and “Sleep History.” These are designed to help you pinpoint your individual type of sleep problem before planning your own “better-sleep” program. This step-by-step approach is followed by chapters on solutions to each particular “sleep stealer,” including night work, jet lag and Seasonal Affective Disorder. No More Sleepless Nights Workbook is a terrific overall resource book for insomniacs.

Essays, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Essays

Voices from the front

Review by bookpagedev

by Linda Stankard

Because I Said So, edited by Kate Moses and Camille Peri, is a searing collection of essays from 33 women facing the challenges of motherhood in the 21st century, when automatic, autocratic parental axioms are of little help. Despite the common thread of motherhood, there’s a wide span of subject matter here children, sex, men, aging, faith, race from an eclectic array of cultural perspectives and attitudes, and from a terrific lineup of first-rate writers. “On Giving Hope” is just one of the many gems in this collection. Written by Mariane Pearl (her husband, journalist Daniel Pearl was killed by terrorists in 2001 while she was pregnant with their first child), this narrative testifies to the power of love to override hate and bring hope. “I know that by killing my husband, the terrorists expect to break my life, too, and that of my son,” Pearl writes. “But I am fighting the holiest of fights, and I win. Giving birth to our baby is my ultimate act of anti-terrorism.” Linda Stankard is a mother and a daughter.