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LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

If he won’t stop and ask for directions, he probably won’t read this book but she will. When the Man You Love Won’t Take Care of His Health by Ken Goldberg is a helpful guide for women, who are more likely to be the caretakers in a relationship. Goldberg covers everything they need to know to help the men in their lives stay healthy, including the most common male health issues. He explains simple self-exams for the most common forms of male cancer, starting and maintaining an exercise program, male nutrition and weight loss, coping with prostate problems, stress, depression, impotence, STDs, and the biggest mystery of all why men don’t take care of themselves.

If he won't stop and ask for directions, he probably won't read this book but she will. When the Man You Love Won't Take Care of His Health by Ken Goldberg is a helpful guide for women, who are more likely to be the caretakers…

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

It probably won’t come as a surprise that the market for alternative medicine therapies has grown into a 14 billion dollar industry or that one-third of all Americans used such services last year. If you were one of those users, you’ll be interested in Energy Medicine by Donna Eden. Practitioners of T’ai Chi Ch’uan and other martial arts know the secrets of the body’s energy flow and how to control it, but now, Eden offers the everyday consumer a practical guide for managing these energies. For 22 years, she has studied the subtle energies that underlie the body’s health and shown how certain therapies work with the body as an energy system. Her case studies, recent supportive research, and program for personal self-care warrant a closer look.

It probably won't come as a surprise that the market for alternative medicine therapies has grown into a 14 billion dollar industry or that one-third of all Americans used such services last year. If you were one of those users, you'll be interested in Energy…

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

It’s no secret that Americans are known for the large portions of everything they can pile on a plate. Using American know-how, Carrie Latt Wiatt approaches weight gain from a different angle portion sizes. In her book, Portion Savvy: The 30-Day Smart Plan for Eating Well, Wiatt maps out an eating plan that satisfies the palate and reduces the weight. Her program matches intake to energy needs and includes perforated illustrations of right-size portions which pop out for easy reference. Wiatt’s unique informational snippets, kitchen savvy, and scientifically proven program make recipes like Chocolate-Orange Biscotti and Pizza with Shrimp, Mushrooms, and Red Pepper a weight watchers delight.

It's no secret that Americans are known for the large portions of everything they can pile on a plate. Using American know-how, Carrie Latt Wiatt approaches weight gain from a different angle portion sizes. In her book, Portion Savvy: The 30-Day Smart Plan for Eating…

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Personal trainer Kathy Kaehler believes in keeping exercise simple, especially if you spend most of your time working. She stresses that the average person doesn’t need to spend money on personal trainers, expensive equipment, or gym memberships to get fit. Her book, Real-World Fitness is designed to offer effective exercises that can be squeezed into everyone’s busy day. Kaehler also includes her 8 Weeks to a Show-Off Body, a program she developed for the Today Show, where she is a monthly contributor. Helpful photos demonstrate exercises, and the appendix suggests books, videos, Internet sites, and academic journals to take you further along the fitness path.

Personal trainer Kathy Kaehler believes in keeping exercise simple, especially if you spend most of your time working. She stresses that the average person doesn't need to spend money on personal trainers, expensive equipment, or gym memberships to get fit. Her book, Real-World Fitness is…

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Review

Review by bookpagedev

The Women’s Complete Wellness Book is a weighty tome that focuses on women’s wellness, instead of illness. Its message is rooted in prevention, taking women from puberty to pregnancy and on to menopause. It is an excellent resource for topics that are essential to women’s health, yet focuses on the key elements of wellness: becoming an informed consumer regarding health care providers, charting a family health history, mastering lifestyle choices such as proper diet, exercise, and stress reduction, and examining the body for early detection of various illnesses. Edited by doctors Debra Judelson and Diana Dell, the book is fully illustrated an indispensable resource for young and old.

The Women's Complete Wellness Book is a weighty tome that focuses on women's wellness, instead of illness. Its message is rooted in prevention, taking women from puberty to pregnancy and on to menopause. It is an excellent resource for topics that are essential to women's…

Lifestyles

Review

Review by bookpagedev

The late Diana, Princess of Wales, is as irresistible a book subject as ever. A recent offering, Diana: Her Life in Fashion (Rizzoli, $40, 0847821374), is a tasteful, serious look at her transformation from innocent nanny to independent philanthropist as interpreted through her wardrobe. The author, fashion editor Georgina Howell, invited Diana’s fashion designers and personal contacts to reflect upon their roles in Diana’s evolving style and share special memories and insights. Fittingly, the book is liberally bedecked with gorgeous photographs and official portraits. All royalties from sales of this book go directly to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.

The late Diana, Princess of Wales, is as irresistible a book subject as ever. A recent offering, Diana: Her Life in Fashion (Rizzoli, $40, 0847821374), is a tasteful, serious look at her transformation from innocent nanny to independent philanthropist as interpreted through her wardrobe. The…

Self-HelpLifestyles

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Michelle Lovric has compiled another charming, illustrated anthology of letters that allows readers the frisson of peeking at other people’s mail. Woman to Woman: Letters to Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Friends is the result of five years of research into the correspondence of women of all ages, famous and obscure. Grouped by the roles of womanhood such as child, student, young lover, mother, mentor, etc. the letters reveal the common experiences of all women, from all epochs and cultures. Most enchanting are the three-dimensional facsimiles of real handwritten letters from Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Marie Antoinette, and others.

Michelle Lovric has compiled another charming, illustrated anthology of letters that allows readers the frisson of peeking at other people's mail. Woman to Woman: Letters to Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Friends is the result of five years of research into the correspondence of women of…

Lifestyles

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Cynthia Hart’s Scrapbook Workshop: A Complete Guide to Preserving Memories in Archival, Heirloom-Quality Books offers instruction and advice on preserving memories from childhood and beyond. Hart covers a lot of territory, offering suggestions on almost every occasion imaginable — holidays, baseball games, rollerblading excursions, to name a few. Surely these events are worth some sort of preservation, whether in a handmade frame, scrapbook, or collage. Perfect for the crafty/cluttery person in your life.

Cynthia Hart's Scrapbook Workshop: A Complete Guide to Preserving Memories in Archival, Heirloom-Quality Books offers instruction and advice on preserving memories from childhood and beyond. Hart covers a lot of territory, offering suggestions on almost every occasion imaginable -- holidays, baseball games, rollerblading excursions, to…

Lifestyles

Review

Review by bookpagedev

The crafty and creative among us like to express our sentiments with handmade tokens. 100 Ways to Say I Love You: Handmade Gifts and Heartfelt Expressions by Jane LaFerla contains 75 projects sure to win the affections of friends and family throughout the year. LaFerla also includes 25 ideas for heartfelt expressions for spouses, children, neighbors, teachers, and even pets. Full-color photos and easy-to-follow instructions accompany the delightful projects. From simple heart-adorned candles to complex needlepoint projects, perfect gifts for loved ones can be found in these pages.

The crafty and creative among us like to express our sentiments with handmade tokens. 100 Ways to Say I Love You: Handmade Gifts and Heartfelt Expressions by Jane LaFerla contains 75 projects sure to win the affections of friends and family throughout the year. LaFerla…

NonfictionLifestyles

Lifestyles: November 2021

Feature by Susannah Felts

★ Tarot for Change

Times being what they are, an uptick in conversation around self-care and coping with grief feels appropriate. We’re all, it seems, looking for ways to make sense of, or at least soften, our experience of the everyday, and in this climate, interest in the ancient practice of tarot is resurgent. I’m among the curious dabblers who are digging deeper, and I’m glad to learn from Jessica Dore’s Tarot for Change: Using the Cards for Self-Care, Acceptance, and Growth. Dore, a licensed social worker, roots her study of tarot in psychology, but she also pulls from folk traditions, personal anecdotes, mythology, literature and much more for a depth-charged exploration of the major and minor arcana. Tarot, her book suggests, deserves to be seen as a therapeutic modality like any other. “Efforts to boil the study of the soul down to a science have led to great strides in the treatment of mental illness,” she writes, “but have relegated mystery and magic to the edges.”

Edible Flowers

I knew one could make jelly from violets and sprinkle nasturtiums into salad, but I had no idea just how many flowers were safe to consume until I cracked open Edible Flowers: How, Why, and When We Eat Flowers, which showcases more than 100 nourishing blossoms—and that’s counting only specimens from North America and Europe. But let’s not get hung up on stats. The key word for this gorgeous book is, as author Monica Nelson puts it, immersive. Color photographs by Adrianna Glaviano capture the striking presence and ephemerality of each bloom, and along with enticing recipes and historical and cultural context (“In Ancient Egypt, [calendula] was considered the ‘poor man’s saffron,’” for example), there are short essays by contemporary writers, summoning the reader deeper into the flower-eating experience. Even the petite trim size is by design, “allowing the book itself to also be lived with.” This one is a true sensual experience between two covers.

The Cocktail Workshop

Many boozy-beverage books have come this column’s way in recent years, but the clarity and spiffy organization of The Cocktail Workshop caught my attention and didn’t let it go. I’m an amateur when it comes to mixology, so the “first, the basics” approach holds appeal. Yes, please do give me the how-to (and nerdy details!) of classics like the Manhattan, margarita and Negroni. Not that connoisseurs won’t also find much to love here: The recipes grow far more complex with spirit-swapping, homemade tinctures and flaming garnishes. For each of 20 stable “banger” drinks, you’ll learn three spinoffs, plus a “workshop” recipe for the extra-ambitious. Mix a perfect martini, say, then try a vesper or a bijou before graduating to brewing your own vermouth. Or just, you know, splash some bubbly, seltzer and Aperol in a glass and call it a spritz.

Tarot cards, check. Flower-garnished salad, check. Negronis, check. This month’s lifestyles column has all the ingredients for a lavish night in.
Self-HelpLifestyles

Your chance to be a ‘Don’t Sweat’ author!

Behind the Book by Richard Carlson

One day about six years ago I was driving across the San Francisco Bay Bridge with my then three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Kenna. She was looking out the window when she asked me, in a curious yet serious tone, "Daddy, why is everyone so angry?" 

Coming from my own child, it was, at the same moment, one of the cutest and most powerful questions I had ever been asked. I stumbled for an answer but nothing came out. As I looked out at the other drivers, Kenna's observations appeared quite accurate. Almost without exception, the other drivers appeared frustrated, agitated, nervous or angry. A minute or so later I admitted to Kenna, "I'm not really sure."

The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed. After all, the tens of thousands of drivers on the road that morning were all seated in reasonably comfortable automobiles. We were all getting where we needed to be, albeit slowly. I'm guessing that most drivers probably had a cell phone and/or a radio to keep them occupied. Many were sipping coffee or talking to the person next to them.

It was one of those moments that I realized that many of the things we sweat really aren't that big a deal. It's not that anyone would actually like traffic, but then again, while all of us are subject to big and painful events in life, a traffic jam, like so many other day-to-day things, isn't one of them; it's not life and death.

Both before and after that day in traffic, there have been other moments and experiences in my life that have reinforced a similar message, moments of clarity that have reminded me of the relative importance of things. I've come to realize that life is far too important, short and magical to spend it sweating the little things.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (and it's all small stuff )was the first in a series of Don't Sweat books all designed to help foster this more accepting and peaceful attitude toward life. The latest in the series, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Men (out this month), attempts to guide men in the same direction. But now, it's your turn to be the author! My publisher (Hyperion) and I decided it would be both fun and useful to others to publish an entire book filled with stories from my readers' perspectives. Many people have moments of insight in their lives, similar in some ways to my traffic story above. These are moments that remind us, or teach us, to not sweat the small stuff. At times, these insights come about from a touching or funny experience. Other times, it's a moment of tragedy or a near-miss of some kind. A friend of mine, for example, had a life-changing moment as the small plane he was traveling aboard was about to crash. Another friend was neurotic about keeping her house perfectly clean. Then she traveled to a country where the poverty broke her heart. Her perspective shifted, and she had a change of heart. When she returned, her home seemed like such a gift the mess and chaos less relevant. It's not that keeping her house clean was no longer important just that it was no longer an emergency!

I'd like to invite you to share your story with us. Although we won't be able to print them all, we will certainly learn from each of them. If your story is selected, we'd love to publish it in a book of Don't Sweat Stories so that others can learn from your experience. If you'd like to participate, please send us your one or two page story along with your address, phone number and e-mail address. If your story is selected, we will let you know. Please send your story by October 1, 2001, to Lary Rosenblatt, Creative Media, Inc. 1720 Post Road East, Westport, CT 06880. Or e-mail to larycma@aol.com It has been such a joy to write the Don't Sweat books. I hope you join me in this life-affirming adventure in sharing with others how we have learned to not sweat the small stuff.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Men, is the latest entry in Richard Carlson's best-selling series of books on dealing with the day-to-day challenges of living in a stressful world. A psychologist, he lives with his family in northern California.

Winning combination for reducing stress

Women lead incredibly full lives these days, wrestling with responsibilities at work and at home. So BookPage and Hyperion, which publishes the Don't Sweat series, recently sponsored a De-stress Contest, asking women to share their ideas for reducing stress in their lives. The winning entry came from Jeanne Leffers of Richmond, Indiana, who will receive an autographed first edition of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Women and a beauty gift basket to pamper herself with. Here are Jeanne's winning recommendations:

1. Downsize Look at every thing you have from space to shoes and try to downsize. Examine all of it and consider yourself, not friends, relatives or advertising. If you downsize you will find time to smell the roses, relax, put your feet up and enjoy a good book. Your number one priority should be getting rid of the over-abundance.

2. Find humor Read the funnies, learn to tell a joke, read books cataloged under humor , and when you see a cartoon that makes you laugh out loud, cut it out and post it where you can continue to enjoy it. Share kid's jokes with the children you meet. A famous person wrote a book about how he cured his serious disease by watching comic movies. Find a Charlie Chaplin movie and enjoy a belly laugh.

3. Forgive and forget To maintain and cherish your relationships, learn to forgive others' transgressions, overlook their foibles and mistakes, and forget about the time your sister-in-law threw the mustard dish at you. (And if you have been saving the stained outfit all these years, throw it away!)

4. Prioritize Every time there is competition for your attention, stop to consider which is more important. Try to go with your heart just as often as you follow your head. If you have children at home, remind yourself frequently that they are there temporarily and many years of their absence will follow their presence. Make lists of perceived jobs; it is easier to see which must really get done and which can be ignored. When the jobs are completed, cross them off with a red pen; it is very satisfying!

5. Exercise If you can downsize and prioritize you will be able to find time to exercise. It may be the most important activity of your day. A favorite for me is an early morning power walk with a bit of jogging (I call it running!) included. If you have been a couch potato, start your exercise program slowly and work toward a goal slowly.
 

One day about six years ago I was driving across the San Francisco Bay Bridge with my then three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Kenna. She was looking out the window when she asked me, in a curious yet serious tone, "Daddy, why is everyone so angry?" 

Coming from…

Lifestyles

Ooo-la-la! Author finds her inner French girl

Behind the Book by Debra Ollivier

I've never been a Francophile. As a student I spent a long, painfully boring year at the Sorbonne, spoke French well enough to fool the natives (you are from Belgium, non?), and smoked Gauloises in countless cafes, pondering the dismal continental weather with great heaps of fashionable young ennui. But when I moved back to California craving sunshine, I was ready to put away my Gallic existence and get on with real life. Real life happened in France, anyhow. Back in Los Angeles, I met a French man and (begrudgingly at first) followed him back to Paris. I got married, had two kids and settled once again into life with the irascible and inscrutable French. In the blink of an eye, 10 years passed.

Perhaps Charles de Gaulle summed it up best. "How can one be expected to govern a country with 246 cheeses?" he lamented. Indeed, despite the prevailing stereotype of the French woman (you know her: the svelte Euro goddess in high heels, equal parts Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot and Madame de Pompadour), the reality is that French women are as diverse as Bries and Camemberts. They come in different sizes, shapes and tastes. They're complex, elusive, a composite of delicious paradoxes. Who they are has little to do with their shoes, their lipstick or their lingerie. Which is why nothing irked me more than articles trumpeting the virtues of the mythical stereotype of the French woman and how to become her. So you wanna be a French girl? Wear haute couture! Eat haute cuisine! Strike a pose! The material was always thick on clichés, thin on essential insight. Lots of Ooo-la-la. Very little Aha!

In writing Entre Nous: A Woman's Guide to Finding Her Inner French Girl, I wanted not only a place where the diversity of French women could emerge (a place, for example, where my friend Nadine, a plump yet ravishing seductress with a modest home in the countryside, could co-exist beside Frederique, a wiry career woman who lives in the heart of Paris). I wanted, more specifically, to describe the collective values and mindset that unite them that way-of-being or essence that defines not the stereotypical French woman, but the archetypal one: Her incredible sense of self-possession. The sensual satisfaction and tactile pleasure she experiences in the seemingly mundane. Her discretion. Her languorous relationship to time. Her focus on quality, not quantity. Her preference for authenticity, not imitation. Her ability to have a life, not just make a living.

I wrote Entre Nous only months after returning to the States. I've been back for two years now. In France, I felt American. Back in America, I feel French. "That's called expatriatis," an American friend once told me. (She'd been living overseas for decades.) That said, I'm happy to be at least back in California and I relish the friendships I have with American women. Many of these friendships bloomed in an almost instantaneous and inspired burst of sisterhood. My French friendships, on the other hand, took years to develop. You'll find the words "maternity" and "fraternity" in the French vocabulary, but not the word "sisterhood." It actually doesn't exist. It takes time (lots of it) to know a French woman. If Entre Nous can help speed up the process (an American imperative, to be sure), so be it. But if it suggests what we, with our particular Anglo-Saxon baggage, might cull from more intangible but far more real aspects of the archetypal French woman, all the better. A lofty ambition perhaps, but pourquoi pas?

A veteran writer and contributor to such publications as Harper's, Salon and Le Monde, Debra Ollivier recently moved back to Los Angeles with her French husband and Franco-American children after living in Paris for 10 years.

I've never been a Francophile. As a student I spent a long, painfully boring year at the Sorbonne, spoke French well enough to fool the natives (you are from Belgium, non?), and smoked Gauloises in countless cafes, pondering the dismal continental weather with great heaps…

LifestylesHealth & Fitness

Let’s get physical

Behind the Book by James McManus

My new book, Physical: An American Checkup, probably sprang from an Abe Lincoln quote I first came across many years ago: I must study the plain, physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right. And from crazier notions I came up with on my own, such as: The truth is, I don’t think I’m going to die. Not today, not tomorrow, not in 2067. Not me.

As I reached my late 40s, I thought things like that more and more often. In April 2002, a stitch along the left side of my abdomen suddenly graduated into an aching throb. I’d turned 51 in late March and was just beginning to get my feet underneath me again after the death of my son James from a drug overdose. I had tenure as a lit and writing professor, my second marriage was flourishing, and my book about poker (Positively Fifth Street) was scheduled to be published the following March. I felt pretty good about things, as long as you didn’t count the abscess in my soul where my son lived. But within a couple of days the thorn in my side, as I thought of it, had me walking hunched over like a little old man with bad knees and end-stage cirrhosis, not exactly the image I like to project to the world. As the throbbing intensified, I gulped down more Advil and worried.

I’d been taking Zocor to lower my cholesterol for almost two years, this while neglecting to get my liver function tested. Lynn Martin, my primary care physician, had told me to have it checked after three months because the possible side effects of the medicine included nephritis and liver damage, but I somehow forgot. I knew I’d been dosing myself far too liberally with Advil for headaches and hangovers, so my self-diagnosis was liver failure, though the phrase I used with my wife, Jennifer, was some liver thing. It was only at Jennifer’s insistence that I finally made an appointment to have my liver enzymes tested. I also stopped drinking and, in spite of the crippling pain, as I phrased it to myself, stopped taking Advil, even though I understood the damage was already done. Oh, and another thing, Braino, Jennifer said after wishing me luck and dropping me off at the lab. Your liver’s on your right side, not on your left.

The first appointment I could get was with Dr. Martin’s partner, Dennis Hughes. Tallish, maybe 40, all business, Hughes glanced at the blood test results, felt around where I’d told him it hurt, asked a few questions, then told me I probably had diverticulitis. Your liver’s functioning perfectly. Hughes e-mailed scrips for painkillers and antibiotics to my Walgreen’s and recommended a CT scan of my abdomen, which would confirm his diagnosis. The colonoscopy two weeks later will confirm that it’s all healed up nicely. I nodded. Had I missed something? The practice had just been computerized, and Hughes was happy to demonstrate how my records, medications, etc., were all in the system. The referrals for your scan and colonoscopy are already at Evanston Hospital. Terrific. The antibiotics killed the infection, or at least the symptoms, in a couple of days, so I was able to squirrel the unused painkillers into my party stash. When I called to report the good news, a nurse reminded me I still needed to get a colonoscopy. I’ll make the appointment as soon as I hang up, I told her, then sat down to breakfast, all better.

Days went by. Maybe a week. The pain was long gone, and I’d heard all about colonoscopies. You fasted for two or three days while slurping battery acid; step two involved a fully articulated four-foot-long aluminum bullwhip with a search light, a video camera and a lasso at the tip getting launched a few feet up into your large intestine. Not to worry, however. They used really super-duper lubrication. While discussing some unrelated business with Lewis Lapham, the editor of Harper’s, I happened to mention my gastrointestinal adventure. Next thing I knew, Lewis was proposing that I go to the Mayo Clinic for what he called their executive physical, then write a big story about it. Now, this was a guy who had already changed my life by sending me to cover the 2000 World Series of Poker, so I had every reason to trust him. Yet the Mayo proposal triggered a whirlwind of panic. Accepting this plummy assignment would more or less guarantee I’d be told things I did not want to hear. The good news, Mr. McManus, is you’ve got almost five weeks to live. The bad news is, we started counting over a month ago. What if the Mayo clinicians discovered a tumor the size of a Titleist wedged inoperably between my pons and my creative left hemisphere? What if as they certainly would they made me swear off alcohol, tasty food and my nightly postprandial Parliament Light? It wasn’t that I didn’t understand how lucky I was to be offered a free Mayo Clinic physical, I just had too many other things on my plate turf and surf, garlic mashed potatoes, baked ziti, the take-out Mekong Fried Pork from the Phat Phuc Noodle Bar. But no! Not only would I have to drink gallons of icky stuff before I got reamed, they’d make me give up all the good stuff! To say nothing of my terror that the verdict might not be all that rosy.

Bottom line? I couldn’t get more medical treatment unless I followed up like I’d promised: my referral was already in the system, gosh darn it unless I got a colonoscopy as part of the Mayo thing. That way I could get everything checked in 72 hours, all under one roof, by the best of the best of the best. It was time to cowboy up and take my medicine.

Poker columnist for the New York Times and author of the bestseller Positively Fifth Street (2003), James McManus has also written four novels. He teaches writing and literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

My new book, Physical: An American Checkup, probably sprang from an Abe Lincoln quote I first came across many years ago: I must study the plain, physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible, and learn what appears to be wise and right. And…

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