bookpagedev

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Tackling a weighty problem

Review by bookpagedev

Beginning with this book’s subtitle “How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World” you get the idea that the author, journalist Greg Critser, isn’t going to pull any punches. And he doesn’t. Readers looking for an easy solution to the nation’s weight problem or their own won’t find it here. As Critser explains it, a convergence of circumstances, none particularly ominous in itself, brought us to where we are today. A relaxation of trade barriers in the 1970s, combined with simultaneous advances in food-processing technologies, gave us cheap sweeteners and cooking fats. These enabled fast-food and snack-food purveyors to increase portion sizes without substantially increasing their costs, an irresistible incentive for us to overeat. Also during this period, tax-cutting movements reduced school budgets. This factor led to the dropping or cutting back of physical education classes and the introduction of high-fat fast foods into the schools. At the same time, more women were joining the work force, which meant that they had less time to prepare food at home and monitor the family diet. Even as our individual and collective weight problems grew, Critser says, opportunists made money and reputations by convincing us that there were swift and painless ways to handle the consequences of our gluttony. Some diet theories held that we could eat more and still lose pounds. Special interest groups protested that too much attention to weight would drive young girls to anorexia and cause overweight people to form poor self-images. But there is more here than history and harangue. Having explained why Americans have become fat, Critser then details what this costs in terms of such diseases as diabetes and cancer. He also explores the roles that culture and class play in this national epidemic. Although breezily written, Fat Land is a profoundly disturbing book. The forces that drive Americans to overeat are so strong and entrenched that when we reach Critser’s final chapter, “What Can Be Done,” it seems like a straw in the wind.

Beginning with this book's subtitle "How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World" you get the idea that the author, journalist Greg Critser, isn't going to pull any punches. And he doesn't. Readers looking for an easy solution to the nation's weight problem…
History

The British Empire reconsidered

Review by bookpagedev

In her consistently enlightening new book, Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850, award-winning historian Linda Colley examines the limitations and vulnerabilities of the British Empire during its most wide-ranging period. In 1820, one out of every five human beings on earth was under English rule a formidable fact to consider. Yet Colley proposes that because of its small size, and its dependence on maritime power and the land and resources of other people, “Britain’s empire was always overstretched, often superficial, and likely to be limited in duration.” In Colley’s view, unless we understand the phenomenon of the captivity of British subjects by enemies of that imperial power, we cannot properly appreciate or assess Britain’s overseas experience. By focusing on captivity narratives from the early 17th century to the Victorian era, Colley demonstrates the weaknesses of British power during that period. Focusing on narratives from the Mediterranean (primarily North Africa), North America and India, with a short section on Afghanistan, she offers the stories of men and women of diverse ethnic backgrounds as a means of increasing our understanding of the captivity experience. Her book offers an illuminating re-examination of the colonial experience, the repercussions of which are still being felt today. Almost without exception, Colley demonstrates, individuals became captives because they were not part of the aristocracy, and the government was powerless or indifferent when it came to offering help. It’s interesting to note that when paying ransom to obtain a captive’s release was an option, the government did not play a primary role, but churches in England often did. Colley’s discussions of each of the narratives is engrossing. We see how individuals learned to adapt to changing circumstances, often with the objective of personal survival. Although the narratives often mix insightful reportage with religious, political and historical prejudice, they remain valuable testaments to the relationship between the oppressor and oppressed, despite their shortcomings as historical truth. This is an insightful and stimulating book that presents history with a fresh perspective. Roger Bishop is a frequent contributor to BookPage.

In her consistently enlightening new book, Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850, award-winning historian Linda Colley examines the limitations and vulnerabilities of the British Empire during its most wide-ranging period. In 1820, one out of every five human beings on earth was under English…
Medicine

A guided tour of the child

Review by bookpagedev

In contrast to most writing on science and medicine targeted at the general public, Darshak Sanghavi’s A Map of the Child: A Pediatrician’s Tour of the Body is an example of expert storytelling a true page-turner. A pediatrician and medical researcher, Sanghavi has worked chiefly at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, but also in rural Appalachia, Japan, Kenya, Peru and in Navaho country for the Indian Health Service. His profession has provided him with a wealth of illuminating stories that he weaves together seamlessly in his first book.

His wife’s positive pregnancy test, confirming that he was to become a father, influenced Sanghavi’s decision to write A Map of the Child. The narrative is structured as a guide to the organ systems of the pediatric body lungs, heart and brain, for example. It explains how they develop, explores the things that can go wrong with them and shows how those things can be made right. Although the child is the major focus, Sanghavi takes a broader view, writing “with the hope that understanding medicine and disease can itself be healing.” That understanding can improve the odds of having a healthy newborn, as well as comfort a family dealing with a child’s illness.

Sanghavi celebrates the medical advances that have saved the lives of countless children. Among the many examples he describes are surfactants, super-slippery substances that now rescue most of the more than 20,000 babies born each year with immature lungs. But he’s also aware of the limitations still to be overcome: bone marrow transplants can work miracles, although only when the match to the recipient is near-perfect. One of the book’s most moving narratives relates the death of a teenager whose transplant didn’t work.

Sanghavi’s broad perspective encompasses a range of topics, from anatomy and physiology to such controversial subjects as circumcision, vaccination for chicken pox and alternative medicine. Compelling, thoughtful and informative, A Map of the Child deserves a wide audience. Albert L. Huebner, a physicist, writes on science for numerous publications.

In contrast to most writing on science and medicine targeted at the general public, Darshak Sanghavi's A Map of the Child: A Pediatrician's Tour of the Body is an example of expert storytelling a true page-turner. A pediatrician and medical researcher, Sanghavi has worked chiefly…
FictionWorld Fiction

Pico Iyer’s mystical journey

Review by bookpagedev

<B>Pico Iyer’s mystical journey</B> Given that Pico Iyer is best known for his idiosyncratic travel writing, it comes as no surprise that the best sections of his new novel, <B>Abandon</B>, are set in foreign locales such as Syria, Spain and Iran. <B>Abandon</B> shares some common themes with Iyer’s nonfiction writing, particularly the uneasiness that can occur when disparate cultures converge in a shared place. Unlike the travel books, though, the novel takes place in a landscape of the author’s imagination, albeit one that approximates our contemporary world.

<B>Abandon</B> begins like one of Graham Greene’s entertainments. John Macmillan, a graduate student in Damascus, pays a visit to a reclusive Islamic scholar, who asks him to deliver a small package to someone in California. Back in Santa Barbara, John tracks down Kristina Jensen, another scholar of Islam. When he goes to deliver the gift, however, he meets Kristina’s sister, Camilla. She is a mysterious, emotionally disturbed woman who will insinuate herself into John’s life in ways he never thought possible.

John, an Oxford-educated Englishman, is in California to study the work of the Sufi poet, Rumi. He is obsessed with the secrets of these ancient works of poetry, and his obsession spills over into his new relationship with Camilla. She is secretive about her origins and about her present life, too, often appearing unannounced, then disappearing for weeks on end. John fills the time between their frustrating liaisons with work on his thesis, but his grasp on day-to-day reality starts to slip.

Rumors of a "Shiraz Manuscript," a long-lost Sufi work smuggled out of Iran during the Revolution, take John on a series of wild goose chases, first to the Persian exile community in Los Angeles, then to Spain and India. Not even sure that such a manuscript exists, John begins a search that starts to parallel his relationship with Camilla, who may not be what she seems. In the end it is Camilla herself who supplies him with a mysterious manuscript, but its origins are as suspect as her own. As the lovers travel to Iran in search of the truth, they discover things about themselves and each other, things that lay beneath the surface all along not unlike the deeper meaning found in the deceptive simplicity of Sufi verse.

The mystery that frames the love story in <B>Abandon</B> is far more intriguing than John and Camilla’s fanatical love affair, which borders at times on the ridiculous. The novel would be a stronger work if Iyer had trimmed a little of the New Age dialogue between these two neurotic lovers. But John and Camilla do manage to make the occasional acute, well-phrased observation, and revelations about Camilla that surface near the end are surprising. Iyer is an atmospheric writer, and the sheer beauty of some of his descriptive passages compensates for the more mundane moments in the narrative.

One of the arresting puzzles of the novel is the way Iyer plays with the word "abandon" which can take on many shades of meaning, both negative, in the physical sense of abandonment, and positive, in the spiritual or mystical sense. Many scenes in the book take place in abandoned spaces houses, mosques, the desert which lend an appropriate sense of unreality. In an end note, Iyer tells us he has never been to Iran, and has based his depiction on the writings of others. This fabrication is an intentional choice, because the place he is writing about is really the romantic Persia of literature, though seen through modern eyes. He has, of course, been to California (he lives there part of the year), but his portrayal of that landscape is no less mythic, shaped to suit the exigencies of his fiction.

There are a number of allusions in the book to Persian carpets, and those textile masterpieces seem an apt metaphor for Iyer’s book itself. We need to step back and look at the work as a whole to see what the pattern is trying to tell us. Abandon is about the clash between spiritual and secular cultures, about the misunderstandings and misinterpretations that can occur when our individual stories are put into a greater context, about centuries-old Islamic traditions and how they can be distorted all themes that have powerful relevance these days. <I>Robert Weibezahl has worked in the book publishing industry for 20 years as a writer and publicist. He lives in Los Angeles.</I>

<B>Pico Iyer's mystical journey</B> Given that Pico Iyer is best known for his idiosyncratic travel writing, it comes as no surprise that the best sections of his new novel, <B>Abandon</B>, are set in foreign locales such as Syria, Spain and Iran. <B>Abandon</B> shares some common…

Science Fiction & FantasyScience Fiction

Brand new: the future is today

Review by bookpagedev

William Gibson, the influential science fiction author who coined the term “cyberspace” and created the character Johnny Mnemonic, has moved closer in his recent work to writing about the present day. In Gibson’s eagerly awaited new novel, Pattern Recognition, the present collides with the future in a world where corporations are pushing their brand messages ever-deeper into everyday life.

In this uncomfortably familiar world, a young woman named Cayce Pollard possesses a sixth sense regarding logos and advertising; she can tell whether symbols or words in ads will be successful. The flip side of this talent is her hypersensitivity to branding a display of Tommy Hilfiger clothes can send her reeling.

Pollard is working for an ultra-hip ad agency in London when a Belgian tycoon, Hubertus Bigend, offers her a job. Her prior knowledge of Bigend warns her away, but the combination of his charisma and her curiosity is irresistible, and she is soon on her way to Tokyo. She has been hired to find the origins of “the footage” a film being anonymously uploaded to the Internet a few seconds at a time. Pollard is already a “footagehead,” one of thousands of people keeping track of the developing story and arguing over the film’s origins.

Pattern Recognition takes place one year after the events of September 11, 2001, and the terrorist attacks are part of the context of Pollard’s life. Her father who was not supposed to be near the World Trade Center that morning disappeared on September 11, and his body was never found. His probable death and Pollard’s response let us ponder the attacks, consider our own reactions and see the events in relation to the rest of the world.

In Pattern Recognition, Gibson puts his visionary focus on the impact of the interconnected global economy and reveals how the constant pressure to consume chips away at our sense of self. With spare prose and an intriguing plot, Gibson’s novel offers a powerful warning about the dangers that lurk in a society where human beings are seen as nothing more than a collection of marketing behaviors. Gavin J. Grant runs an independent small press in Northampton, Massachusetts.

William Gibson, the influential science fiction author who coined the term "cyberspace" and created the character Johnny Mnemonic, has moved closer in his recent work to writing about the present day. In Gibson's eagerly awaited new novel, Pattern Recognition, the present collides with the future…
FictionWorld Fiction

The institution of adultery

Review by bookpagedev

A married and middle-aged male teacher whose life is going nowhere woos one of his young, female students, thereby fouling up his life all the more. Sound familiar? It should. Cautionary tales about adultery are a perennial favorite with writers and readers. And now that many writers are also professors, the temptation to dally with the cutie in your Comp-Lit class must be sublimated into yet another version of The Scarlet Letter, lest the institution of marriage crumble altogether. But The Guru of Love by Nepalese-American author Samrat Upadhyay offers a slight variation on the threadbare scarlet A, and the novel, despite its hackneyed premise, is utterly absorbing.

Ramchandra is the teacher; Malati the student; Goma the teacher’s wife. Malati, who already has a child by an AWOL father, hopes to pass the national exam, go to college and escape her squalor. Ramchandra seduces the young woman and confesses the transgression to his wife, who promptly leaves him. Yet and here’s the twist when Malati finds herself homeless, Goma makes the bizarre decision to take Malati into her home. Rumors fly; Goma’s parents wail; the kids rebel. “Something,” thinks Ramchandra, “had gone terribly wrong.” But Goma perseveres until, happily, the AWOL father returns.

Mirroring this moral chaos is the chaos of Nepal, the novel’s setting and one of the world’s poorest countries. Westerners tend to identify Nepal with trekking in the Himalayas, smoking dope in Katmandu and so on. Upadhyay’s novel should help change that. His Nepal is no Shangri-La. “I’m stuck in this miserable job, teaching you miserable students, clinging to my miserable salary,” moans Ramchandra. Nepal and India share a culture that includes a deep and abiding fatalism, which Upadhyay superbly conveys. The novel is not joyless, and its descriptions of Nepalese festivals and family life are colorful and inspiring. But no sooner has the party ended than somebody, somewhere, is weeping. And only love, however fleeting and confused, offers a respite. Kenneth Champeon is a writer based in Thailand. He formerly lived in India.

A married and middle-aged male teacher whose life is going nowhere woos one of his young, female students, thereby fouling up his life all the more. Sound familiar? It should. Cautionary tales about adultery are a perennial favorite with writers and readers. And now that…
Fiction

Comedy is serious business

Review by bookpagedev

The thing about good comedy and silliness, the kind that endures, is that it takes a truly accomplished, adaptable author to pull it off, all the while making it look easy. Ron Hansen, the acclaimed author of such serious literary works as Mariette in Ecstasy, has given us the gift of well-wrought fun in Isn’t it Romantic?, a literary confection he spun, in part, out of his own need for levity after the tragedies of 9/11. And what better way to deliver this ode to the charm, strangeness and warm familiarity of “normal” America than through the eyes of an equally charming outsider? Natalie Clairvaux, a beautiful young Parisian woman with a love for all things American, has chosen an atypical vacation America by sightseeing bus. Her tour features such thrilling sights as Goodyear’s World of Rubber in Ohio, Herbert Hoover’s birthplace in Iowa and the home of the grandmother who won the Tiniest Handwriting Contest a far cry from the typical European tourist’s itinerary of “shopping in New York” and “Mickey Mouse in Orlando,” as her French travel agent puts it. And these quaintly unusual, mundane curiosities are, for Natalie, the antidote to the polish of trips to Avignon or Aix with her snobby fiancŽ, Pierre. They remind her of tales told by her grandmother, Sophie, who thought of the American soldiers stationed in her town during WWII as movie stars. When Pierre tracks Natalie down in Nebraska, looking around him with the ticks and sneers of a royal among peasants, they quarrel and set a deadline to decide whether they should marry after all. At that, Natalie and her red-wheeled suitcase march off into the dust toward the town of Seldom (pop. 395), and Pierre has no choice but to follow her. In Seldom, our travelers happen upon the local diner the beehive-like hub of the town’s quirky but lively social activity and are quickly installed as the King and Queen of the annual “Revels,” a festival to honor the town’s French founder, Bernard LeBoeuf. Pierre is ushered off by Owen, Nebraska’s only master vintner, and Natalie is whisked away to the local no-men-allowed boardinghouse by Marvyl Christiansen, the local retired French teacher. Here ensues a true culture clash, full of all the romance, confusion and poetry that comes when sophistication meets true salt-of-the-earth charm. As Natalie is politely pursued by Dick Tupper, a Byronesque cattle rancher, Pierre is tempted by Iona, local beauty and diner waitress who is secretly coveted by Carlo Bacon, the diner’s cook. Friendships form quickly and seamlessly amid misunderstandings, secret plots, high hopes and injured feelings. It is the Revels, after all, and throughout the story, there is a kind of whirling, flirtatious vividness to life in Seldom and its unpredictable inhabitants. Without giving one delicious crumb of the plot away, I will say that this mingling of cultures and personalities produces much humor, beauty and simply delightful humanity. For those who would sample this sweet story and find it too sugary, I say lighten up, pour it over your diner pancakes and dig in. Sarah Goodrum writes from Nashville.

The thing about good comedy and silliness, the kind that endures, is that it takes a truly accomplished, adaptable author to pull it off, all the while making it look easy. Ron Hansen, the acclaimed author of such serious literary works as Mariette in Ecstasy,…
Memoir

Finding the father inside

Review by bookpagedev

Sherwin Nuland recalls his “ambivalent heritage” Throughout his childhood in the 1930s and ’40s, Sherwin Nuland viewed his immigrant father through a prism of fear and embarrassment. Meyer Nudelman was never a violent man, according to his son, but he did have an unpredictable and volcanic temper that withered anyone in its path. Moreover, he suffered from a progressively crippling disease that made it difficult for him to walk about his Bronx neighborhood without his self-conscious son at his elbow. This tense proximity was so emotionally wrenching, Nuland says, that he had to write his new memoir, Lost In America: A Journey With My Father to finally come to terms with it.

Despite its ominous beginning, the book emerges as a heart-melting story of delayed compassion and love. Formerly a clinical professor of surgery at Yale and now a teacher of bioethics and medical history there, Nuland is also the author of The Mysteries Within, Leonardo da Vinci, and the National Book Award-winning How We Die. “I think my father left me with this ambivalent heritage,” the author explains, speaking to BookPage from his home in Connecticut. “As a child, as an adolescent, in my 20s, I always felt that the way to pattern my life the way of bringing up my own children, the way of being a husband was to be exactly the opposite of what he was. But clearly something was churning inside of me because of this very strong identification I had with his disabilities. . . . It wasn’t a question of consciously perceiving that he was with me all the time but that, in fact, he was inside of me without my knowing it.” Nuland’s reactive approach notwithstanding, his life began falling apart when he was in his late 30s and early 40s, long after his father had died. In addition to seeing his first marriage collapse, Nuland descended into such deep and unresponsive depression that he had to be hospitalized and subjected to a long series of electroshock treatments. “If you had seen me during this time,” he says, “you would say, My God, he has become his father!’ I spoke that way. In profile, I looked that way. I responded that way.” Even after he recovered (“I’m the least depressed human being on earth when I’m not actually depressed,” he says cheerfully), the filial complexities lingered.

Another strand of Nuland’s remembrances is of cultural assimilation. Until his death, Meyer Nudelman remained a transplanted Russian Jew not homogenized. He never lost his impenetrable accent, nor tried to, and he showed little interest in exploring his alien surroundings. Son Sherwin, however, was a quick study in fitting in, in assessing and mastering the landscape. “I think [assimilation] is the arc of a life,” Nuland says. “For some people, there’s a conscious need to accelerate it, because you really want to leave behind what you have been born into. To others, the motivation is more forward in the sense that you don’t necessarily want to leave what you have and what you are, but you’re really planning to become this other thing in this society which you find yourself. For me, it was both. But I think it was largely the first that I really had to get out of this atmosphere that I thought was stifling.” While still in high school, he legally jettisoned his father’s last name in favor of the more English-sounding Nuland. Eventually, he departed from his father’s religion as well. “It’s been one of the conflicts of my life,” he says. “It didn’t resolve until I fell apart. I came out of that experience realizing that I had truly always been an agnostic and that what had brought me in previous years to the synagogue was my inability to separate myself from my background, from my love of family and that whatever obsessional religious forms I carried out were just that they were obsessional. They were not real. They were not genuine, because I really had no belief.” Nuland concedes that his intelligence not only provided him a way out of his surroundings but was also a comfort while he was still in. “I was amazed by it. I could never figure it out. Of course, the Bronx was sort of a crucible for smart, hardworking kids in those days. I remember when I first started school, there were about five of us in class who seemed to be completely different from all the other kids. Eventually, we all skipped a grade. . . . My curiosity just seemed to be built in. But the realization that I had this ability to see things in certain ways that most other kids couldn’t was a real source of joy to me. It opened the world up. It made everything possible.” It eventually made possible Nuland’s acceptance into the Yale School of Medicine. The distance between New York and New Haven lessened the flash points between father and son. Meyer Nudelman spoke proudly to all who would listen about his son’s progress toward doctorhood. He doted on him, doing him small favors like preparing massive batches of chocolate pudding every time he returned home. For his part, Nuland visited his father dutifully during his increasingly long stays in the hospital, and rushed to his bedside to tell him in person when Yale awarded him the hotly competed for post of chief resident. As his father slowly absorbed the good news, Nuland writes, he saw in the old man’s face “something beyond pride. It was vindication; if was fulfillment; it was the love of a father for his son. . . . I threw my arms around Pop’s shoulders and made no attempt to disguise the tears.” After tackling deeply personal topics in Lost In America, Nuland turns in his next book, nearly completed, to a more detached subject the life of the 19th-century obstetrician Ignatz Semmelweis. Edward Morris is a freelance writer in Nashville.

Sherwin Nuland recalls his "ambivalent heritage" Throughout his childhood in the 1930s and '40s, Sherwin Nuland viewed his immigrant father through a prism of fear and embarrassment. Meyer Nudelman was never a violent man, according to his son, but he did have an unpredictable and…
History

Secrets hidden under the sea

Review by bookpagedev

At least 23 of the 118 sailors who died aboard the Kursk survived the internal explosions that sent the nuclear submarine to the bottom of Arctic waters in August 2000. That was confirmed by the contents of a note found on one of the bodies. What we don’t know is whether or not the Russian regime preferred these men dead. That’s the main question addressed by author Robert Moore in A Time to Die: The Untold Story of the Kursk Tragedy. With cool dispassion, Moore dissects every element of the nightmare both inside and outside the stricken vessel that gripped the world for nine agonizing days. And in the process, he demonstrates that the Russian government’s Communist mentality and its military culture have survived the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Twice the size of a jumbo jet and longer than two football fields, the Kursk provided a clear example of the sea adage that a submarine has room for everything except a mistake. Moore examines what the international community has deemed errors, among which were a 48-hour cover-up, falsified reports blaming the West, the impoverished Russian Navy’s failure to maintain adequate rescue equipment, and the government’s reluctance to ask for outside assistance. All these factors contribute to the notion that the Kremlin in Moscow, where a tram driver is paid as much as a nuclear submarine commander, valued machines more than men.

Combining forensic evidence with the laws of physics, Moore masterfully re-creates the doomed sailors’ final hours. And, thanks to a tape recorder hidden under the coat of a journalist, we are able to eavesdrop on a raucous meeting unthinkable in the old Russia between the outraged families of the dead sailors and President Vladimir Putin, who was still on vacation in the sunny Crimea five days after the accident. As Moore, chief U.S. correspondent for the British news agency ITN, skillfully reconstructs the hour-by-hour sequence leading to the divers’ excruciating approach to the sunken submarine, readers might find themselves ignoring what they already know about the outcome and hoping against hope that some of the trapped sailors will be found alive. Alan Prince of Deerfield Beach, Florida, lectures at the University of Miami.

At least 23 of the 118 sailors who died aboard the Kursk survived the internal explosions that sent the nuclear submarine to the bottom of Arctic waters in August 2000. That was confirmed by the contents of a note found on one of the bodies.…
Self-HelpLifestyles

The flame of change

Review by bookpagedev

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you’ve hidden so well, you can’t remember where you put it, let along find the chutzpah to chase after it? If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, a little getting to know thyself and doing something with your newfound knowledge may be in order. Whether you need a few simple ingredients for a spicier life, or some in-depth analysis, we’ve identified a few of the best in new personal-growth books to guide you on your way and help ignite that internal flame of change.

Maybe your life needs no more than a little spark to rekindle your sense of adventure. Chucking your job and backpacking in the Himalayas isn’t the only way to rediscover the joy and wonder of daily existence. A New Adventure Every Day: 541 Ways to Live With Pizzazz (Sourcebooks, $12.95, 384 pages, ISBN 1570719462) by David Silberkleit is chock-full of ideas to jump-start your joie de vivre. With 540 ideas to choose from, under categories ranging from home life to relationships to the office, you’re bound to find a personal ice-breaker in its pages to fit almost any situation, temperament or degree of daring. If No. 503 (“Dance with a tree in the wind”) is too outlandish for you or your neighbors (should they be watching), there are more conservative exercises like No. 408 (“Explore a debt-free lifestyle. Strive to pay off everything so that money loses its hold over you”).

On the other hand, maybe happiness and success haven’t eluded you at all. In fact, maybe you have a great, lucrative career and are deliriously giddy with fame and fortune. And yet. And yet. Something’s missing. You know what the rest of the world can’t see. You aren’t being something you know you were meant to be. (Hello, Nashville! Is that a song lyric?) If you’re searching for something more, read Po Bronson’s, What Should I Do With My Life? (Random House, $24.95, 400 pages, ISBN 0375507493). Bronson makes a great case for turning your back on the almighty buck and following your star. In fact, he talks about the bad side of success, the temptations of money and an idea so scandalous it could rock the world. But here it is: “Productivity explodes when people love what they do.” Hey, he said it, not me.

The Traveler’s Gift: Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success (Thomas Nelson, $19.99, 224 pages, ISBN 0785264280) by Andy Andrews is an unpretentious little work of fiction that picks up where the Capra heart- warmer It’s A Wonderful Life leaves off. Like George Bailey, Andrews’ modern-day protagonist, David Ponder, is at a crisis point in his life. Bailey, (c’mon, you know, James Stewart in the Christmas classic) miraculously gets a chance to see what the world would be like without him in it, discovering that his life is not only a precious gift to him, but to countless others as well. Ponder gets a different gift he gets to travel through time, gathering the wisdom of such notable figures as Abraham Lincoln and Anne Frank but his catharsis comes in discovering the power of a single, heartfelt decision. “There is a thin thread,” one of his messengers proclaims, “that weaves only from you to hundreds of thousands of lives. Your example, your actions, and yes, even one decision can literally change the world.” That’s a lot of pressure! But like Ponder, by the end of this inspirational tale, having learned the “Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success,” you will be better equipped to make choices with kindness, confidence and wisdom. This is a wonderful book to put into the hands of some promising young man or woman struggling with the inevitable incongruities, ambiguities and loneliness of modern day life.

From the best-selling author of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series, comes What About the BIG Stuff? (Hyperion, $19.95, 294 pages, ISBN 0786868848), in which Richard Carlson addresses how to handle major life dilemmas like an impending divorce or the loss of a loved one without totally coming apart at the seams. Carlson contends that human beings have essentially two modes or mind-sets, and that one of them is “healthy” and one “reactive.” “In our healthiest state of mind,” he writes, “we dance’ with life. We’re patient, wise, thoughtful and kind. We make good, sound decisions.” But we have a flip side. In our reactive mode “we are less patient . . . we struggle and churn. . . . We are frustrated and hard on ourselves and others. Our problem solving skills are limited.” The good news here is that knowing we have the capacity for both states of mind, we can begin to nurture one and let go of the other. “By acknowledging the existence of a healthy state of mind you can learn to trust it,” Carlson assures us, “and access it, more often.” Not that doing so is an easy task. As psychologist Gary Buffone points out in The Myth of Tomorrow: Seven Essential Keys for Living the Life You Want Today (McGraw-Hill, $16.95, 288 pages, ISBN 0071389172), “Unlike physical aging, spiritual and emotional maturity do not develop automatically; they exist only as a possibility. They must be intentionally and consistently pursued via commitment, effort, and struggle.” Using the experiences of patients who have faced life-threatening situations, Buffone offers guidance on how to break out of a “holding pattern” and start reinventing your life today. “Spirituality,” he explains, “is about developing the ability to see the sacred in our daily lives and opening the door to a life filled with passion and depth.” Finally, The Art of Serenity: The Path to a Joyful Life in the Best and Worst of Times offers a more literary and philosophical slant, an “intellectual bridge” as it were, to get from wanting to knowing a life of passion and depth. Chapter titles alone (“The Love of Others,” “The Love of Work,” “The Love of Belonging”) if simply read and contemplated upon, might lead to higher thought. But the book is full of philosophical and spiritual quotations. “No seed ever sees the flower.” Zen saying. Wow. Think about that. Not that a book alone can teach you how to put into practice and live a life full of meaning, purpose and depth. That is something each of us must struggle and churn out for ourselves. But these books can help to ignite the flame. Linda Stankard makes her New Year’s resolutions at her home in upstate New York.

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you've hidden…
Self-HelpLifestyles

The flame of change

Review by bookpagedev

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you’ve hidden so well, you can’t remember where you put it, let along find the chutzpah to chase after it? If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, a little getting to know thyself and doing something with your newfound knowledge may be in order. Whether you need a few simple ingredients for a spicier life, or some in-depth analysis, we’ve identified a few of the best in new personal-growth books to guide you on your way and help ignite that internal flame of change.

Maybe your life needs no more than a little spark to rekindle your sense of adventure. Chucking your job and backpacking in the Himalayas isn’t the only way to rediscover the joy and wonder of daily existence. A New Adventure Every Day: 541 Ways to Live With Pizzazz (Sourcebooks, $12.95, 384 pages, ISBN 1570719462) by David Silberkleit is chock-full of ideas to jump-start your joie de vivre. With 540 ideas to choose from, under categories ranging from home life to relationships to the office, you’re bound to find a personal ice-breaker in its pages to fit almost any situation, temperament or degree of daring. If No. 503 (“Dance with a tree in the wind”) is too outlandish for you or your neighbors (should they be watching), there are more conservative exercises like No. 408 (“Explore a debt-free lifestyle. Strive to pay off everything so that money loses its hold over you”).

On the other hand, maybe happiness and success haven’t eluded you at all. In fact, maybe you have a great, lucrative career and are deliriously giddy with fame and fortune. And yet. And yet. Something’s missing. You know what the rest of the world can’t see. You aren’t being something you know you were meant to be. (Hello, Nashville! Is that a song lyric?) If you’re searching for something more, read Po Bronson’s, What Should I Do With My Life? (Random House, $24.95, 400 pages, ISBN 0375507493). Bronson makes a great case for turning your back on the almighty buck and following your star. In fact, he talks about the bad side of success, the temptations of money and an idea so scandalous it could rock the world. But here it is: “Productivity explodes when people love what they do.” Hey, he said it, not me.

The Traveler’s Gift: Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success (Thomas Nelson, $19.99, 224 pages, ISBN 0785264280) by Andy Andrews is an unpretentious little work of fiction that picks up where the Capra heart- warmer It’s A Wonderful Life leaves off. Like George Bailey, Andrews’ modern-day protagonist, David Ponder, is at a crisis point in his life. Bailey, (c’mon, you know, James Stewart in the Christmas classic) miraculously gets a chance to see what the world would be like without him in it, discovering that his life is not only a precious gift to him, but to countless others as well. Ponder gets a different gift he gets to travel through time, gathering the wisdom of such notable figures as Abraham Lincoln and Anne Frank but his catharsis comes in discovering the power of a single, heartfelt decision. “There is a thin thread,” one of his messengers proclaims, “that weaves only from you to hundreds of thousands of lives. Your example, your actions, and yes, even one decision can literally change the world.” That’s a lot of pressure! But like Ponder, by the end of this inspirational tale, having learned the “Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success,” you will be better equipped to make choices with kindness, confidence and wisdom. This is a wonderful book to put into the hands of some promising young man or woman struggling with the inevitable incongruities, ambiguities and loneliness of modern day life.

From the best-selling author of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series, comes What About the BIG Stuff? (Hyperion, $19.95, 294 pages, ISBN 0786868848), in which Richard Carlson addresses how to handle major life dilemmas like an impending divorce or the loss of a loved one without totally coming apart at the seams. Carlson contends that human beings have essentially two modes or mind-sets, and that one of them is “healthy” and one “reactive.” “In our healthiest state of mind,” he writes, “we dance’ with life. We’re patient, wise, thoughtful and kind. We make good, sound decisions.” But we have a flip side. In our reactive mode “we are less patient . . . we struggle and churn. . . . We are frustrated and hard on ourselves and others. Our problem solving skills are limited.” The good news here is that knowing we have the capacity for both states of mind, we can begin to nurture one and let go of the other. “By acknowledging the existence of a healthy state of mind you can learn to trust it,” Carlson assures us, “and access it, more often.” Not that doing so is an easy task. As psychologist Gary Buffone points out in The Myth of Tomorrow: Seven Essential Keys for Living the Life You Want Today, “Unlike physical aging, spiritual and emotional maturity do not develop automatically; they exist only as a possibility. They must be intentionally and consistently pursued via commitment, effort, and struggle.” Using the experiences of patients who have faced life-threatening situations, Buffone offers guidance on how to break out of a “holding pattern” and start reinventing your life today. “Spirituality,” he explains, “is about developing the ability to see the sacred in our daily lives and opening the door to a life filled with passion and depth.” Finally, The Art of Serenity: The Path to a Joyful Life in the Best and Worst of Times, by T. Byram Karusu, M.D., (Simon ∧ Schuster, $24, 256 pages, ISBN 0743228316) offers a more literary and philosophical slant, an “intellectual bridge” as it were, to get from wanting to knowing a life of passion and depth. Chapter titles alone (“The Love of Others,” “The Love of Work,” “The Love of Belonging”) if simply read and contemplated upon, might lead to higher thought. But the book is full of philosophical and spiritual quotations. “No seed ever sees the flower.” Zen saying. Wow. Think about that. Not that a book alone can teach you how to put into practice and live a life full of meaning, purpose and depth. That is something each of us must struggle and churn out for ourselves. But these books can help to ignite the flame. Linda Stankard makes her New Year’s resolutions at her home in upstate New York.

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you've hidden…
Self-HelpLifestyles

The flame of change

Review by bookpagedev

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you’ve hidden so well, you can’t remember where you put it, let along find the chutzpah to chase after it? If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, a little getting to know thyself and doing something with your newfound knowledge may be in order. Whether you need a few simple ingredients for a spicier life, or some in-depth analysis, we’ve identified a few of the best in new personal-growth books to guide you on your way and help ignite that internal flame of change.

Maybe your life needs no more than a little spark to rekindle your sense of adventure. Chucking your job and backpacking in the Himalayas isn’t the only way to rediscover the joy and wonder of daily existence. A New Adventure Every Day: 541 Ways to Live With Pizzazz (Sourcebooks, $12.95, 384 pages, ISBN 1570719462) by David Silberkleit is chock-full of ideas to jump-start your joie de vivre. With 540 ideas to choose from, under categories ranging from home life to relationships to the office, you’re bound to find a personal ice-breaker in its pages to fit almost any situation, temperament or degree of daring. If No. 503 (“Dance with a tree in the wind”) is too outlandish for you or your neighbors (should they be watching), there are more conservative exercises like No. 408 (“Explore a debt-free lifestyle. Strive to pay off everything so that money loses its hold over you”).

On the other hand, maybe happiness and success haven’t eluded you at all. In fact, maybe you have a great, lucrative career and are deliriously giddy with fame and fortune. And yet. And yet. Something’s missing. You know what the rest of the world can’t see. You aren’t being something you know you were meant to be. (Hello, Nashville! Is that a song lyric?) If you’re searching for something more, read Po Bronson’s, What Should I Do With My Life? (Random House, $24.95, 400 pages, ISBN 0375507493). Bronson makes a great case for turning your back on the almighty buck and following your star. In fact, he talks about the bad side of success, the temptations of money and an idea so scandalous it could rock the world. But here it is: “Productivity explodes when people love what they do.” Hey, he said it, not me.

The Traveler’s Gift: Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success (Thomas Nelson, $19.99, 224 pages, ISBN 0785264280) by Andy Andrews is an unpretentious little work of fiction that picks up where the Capra heart- warmer It’s A Wonderful Life leaves off. Like George Bailey, Andrews’ modern-day protagonist, David Ponder, is at a crisis point in his life. Bailey, (c’mon, you know, James Stewart in the Christmas classic) miraculously gets a chance to see what the world would be like without him in it, discovering that his life is not only a precious gift to him, but to countless others as well. Ponder gets a different gift he gets to travel through time, gathering the wisdom of such notable figures as Abraham Lincoln and Anne Frank but his catharsis comes in discovering the power of a single, heartfelt decision. “There is a thin thread,” one of his messengers proclaims, “that weaves only from you to hundreds of thousands of lives. Your example, your actions, and yes, even one decision can literally change the world.” That’s a lot of pressure! But like Ponder, by the end of this inspirational tale, having learned the “Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success,” you will be better equipped to make choices with kindness, confidence and wisdom. This is a wonderful book to put into the hands of some promising young man or woman struggling with the inevitable incongruities, ambiguities and loneliness of modern day life.

From the best-selling author of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series, comes What About the BIG Stuff?, in which Richard Carlson addresses how to handle major life dilemmas like an impending divorce or the loss of a loved one without totally coming apart at the seams. Carlson contends that human beings have essentially two modes or mind-sets, and that one of them is “healthy” and one “reactive.” “In our healthiest state of mind,” he writes, “we dance’ with life. We’re patient, wise, thoughtful and kind. We make good, sound decisions.” But we have a flip side. In our reactive mode “we are less patient . . . we struggle and churn. . . . We are frustrated and hard on ourselves and others. Our problem solving skills are limited.” The good news here is that knowing we have the capacity for both states of mind, we can begin to nurture one and let go of the other. “By acknowledging the existence of a healthy state of mind you can learn to trust it,” Carlson assures us, “and access it, more often.” Not that doing so is an easy task. As psychologist Gary Buffone points out in The Myth of Tomorrow: Seven Essential Keys for Living the Life You Want Today (McGraw-Hill, $16.95, 288 pages, ISBN 0071389172), “Unlike physical aging, spiritual and emotional maturity do not develop automatically; they exist only as a possibility. They must be intentionally and consistently pursued via commitment, effort, and struggle.” Using the experiences of patients who have faced life-threatening situations, Buffone offers guidance on how to break out of a “holding pattern” and start reinventing your life today. “Spirituality,” he explains, “is about developing the ability to see the sacred in our daily lives and opening the door to a life filled with passion and depth.” Finally, The Art of Serenity: The Path to a Joyful Life in the Best and Worst of Times, by T. Byram Karusu, M.D., (Simon ∧ Schuster, $24, 256 pages, ISBN 0743228316) offers a more literary and philosophical slant, an “intellectual bridge” as it were, to get from wanting to knowing a life of passion and depth. Chapter titles alone (“The Love of Others,” “The Love of Work,” “The Love of Belonging”) if simply read and contemplated upon, might lead to higher thought. But the book is full of philosophical and spiritual quotations. “No seed ever sees the flower.” Zen saying. Wow. Think about that. Not that a book alone can teach you how to put into practice and live a life full of meaning, purpose and depth. That is something each of us must struggle and churn out for ourselves. But these books can help to ignite the flame. Linda Stankard makes her New Year’s resolutions at her home in upstate New York.

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you've hidden…
Self-HelpLifestyles

The flame of change

Review by bookpagedev

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you’ve hidden so well, you can’t remember where you put it, let along find the chutzpah to chase after it? If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, a little getting to know thyself and doing something with your newfound knowledge may be in order. Whether you need a few simple ingredients for a spicier life, or some in-depth analysis, we’ve identified a few of the best in new personal-growth books to guide you on your way and help ignite that internal flame of change.

Maybe your life needs no more than a little spark to rekindle your sense of adventure. Chucking your job and backpacking in the Himalayas isn’t the only way to rediscover the joy and wonder of daily existence. A New Adventure Every Day: 541 Ways to Live With Pizzazz (Sourcebooks, $12.95, 384 pages, ISBN 1570719462) by David Silberkleit is chock-full of ideas to jump-start your joie de vivre. With 540 ideas to choose from, under categories ranging from home life to relationships to the office, you’re bound to find a personal ice-breaker in its pages to fit almost any situation, temperament or degree of daring. If No. 503 (“Dance with a tree in the wind”) is too outlandish for you or your neighbors (should they be watching), there are more conservative exercises like No. 408 (“Explore a debt-free lifestyle. Strive to pay off everything so that money loses its hold over you”).

On the other hand, maybe happiness and success haven’t eluded you at all. In fact, maybe you have a great, lucrative career and are deliriously giddy with fame and fortune. And yet. And yet. Something’s missing. You know what the rest of the world can’t see. You aren’t being something you know you were meant to be. (Hello, Nashville! Is that a song lyric?) If you’re searching for something more, read Po Bronson’s, What Should I Do With My Life? (Random House, $24.95, 400 pages, ISBN 0375507493). Bronson makes a great case for turning your back on the almighty buck and following your star. In fact, he talks about the bad side of success, the temptations of money and an idea so scandalous it could rock the world. But here it is: “Productivity explodes when people love what they do.” Hey, he said it, not me.

The Traveler’s Gift: Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success by Andy Andrews is an unpretentious little work of fiction that picks up where the Capra heart- warmer It’s A Wonderful Life leaves off. Like George Bailey, Andrews’ modern-day protagonist, David Ponder, is at a crisis point in his life. Bailey, (c’mon, you know, James Stewart in the Christmas classic) miraculously gets a chance to see what the world would be like without him in it, discovering that his life is not only a precious gift to him, but to countless others as well. Ponder gets a different gift he gets to travel through time, gathering the wisdom of such notable figures as Abraham Lincoln and Anne Frank but his catharsis comes in discovering the power of a single, heartfelt decision. “There is a thin thread,” one of his messengers proclaims, “that weaves only from you to hundreds of thousands of lives. Your example, your actions, and yes, even one decision can literally change the world.” That’s a lot of pressure! But like Ponder, by the end of this inspirational tale, having learned the “Seven Decisions That Determine Personal Success,” you will be better equipped to make choices with kindness, confidence and wisdom. This is a wonderful book to put into the hands of some promising young man or woman struggling with the inevitable incongruities, ambiguities and loneliness of modern day life.

From the best-selling author of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series, comes What About the BIG Stuff? (Hyperion, $19.95, 294 pages, ISBN 0786868848), in which Richard Carlson addresses how to handle major life dilemmas like an impending divorce or the loss of a loved one without totally coming apart at the seams. Carlson contends that human beings have essentially two modes or mind-sets, and that one of them is “healthy” and one “reactive.” “In our healthiest state of mind,” he writes, “we Ôdance’ with life. We’re patient, wise, thoughtful and kind. We make good, sound decisions.” But we have a flip side. In our reactive mode “we are less patient . . . we struggle and churn. . . . We are frustrated and hard on ourselves and others. Our problem solving skills are limited.” The good news here is that knowing we have the capacity for both states of mind, we can begin to nurture one and let go of the other. “By acknowledging the existence of a healthy state of mind you can learn to trust it,” Carlson assures us, “and access it, more often.” Not that doing so is an easy task. As psychologist Gary Buffone points out in The Myth of Tomorrow: Seven Essential Keys for Living the Life You Want Today (McGraw-Hill, $16.95, 288 pages, ISBN 0071389172), “Unlike physical aging, spiritual and emotional maturity do not develop automatically; they exist only as a possibility. They must be intentionally and consistently pursued via commitment, effort, and struggle.” Using the experiences of patients who have faced life-threatening situations, Buffone offers guidance on how to break out of a “holding pattern” and start reinventing your life today. “Spirituality,” he explains, “is about developing the ability to see the sacred in our daily lives and opening the door to a life filled with passion and depth.” Finally, The Art of Serenity: The Path to a Joyful Life in the Best and Worst of Times, by T. Byram Karusu, M.D., (Simon &and Schuster, $24, 256 pages, ISBN 0743228316) offers a more literary and philosophical slant, an “intellectual bridge” as it were, to get from wanting to knowing a life of passion and depth. Chapter titles alone (“The Love of Others,” “The Love of Work,” “The Love of Belonging”) if simply read and contemplated upon, might lead to higher thought. But the book is full of philosophical and spiritual quotations. “No seed ever sees the flower.” Zen saying. Wow. Think about that. Not that a book alone can teach you how to put into practice and live a life full of meaning, purpose and depth. That is something each of us must struggle and churn out for ourselves. But these books can help to ignite the flame. Linda Stankard makes her New Year’s resolutions at her home in upstate New York.

Books to light your path to personal growth Is your life like a three-dollar bottle of champagne gone flat? Would you like to expand your sense of personal choice and freedom? Are you unhappy? Unmotivated? Unfulfilled? Do you have a hidden dream that you've hidden…

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Trending Features

All Features