Monday's Reviews Today: Gregory's Latest & Gupta's Cheating Death
-- Publishers Weekly, 6/25/2009 3:13:00 PM
Philippa Gregory's series-launching The White Queen focuses on the woman who helped launch the famous War of the Roses, Elizabeth Woodville Grey. Gregory, who wrote The Other Boleyn Girl and is the "queen of British historical fiction," adds "intimate relationships, political maneuvering and battlefield conflicts as well as some well-drawn supernatural elements" to Grey's life story. And in Sanjay Gupta's Cheating Death, Barack Obama's initial pick for surgeon general "rolls out extraordinarily harrowing and inspiring tales from the annals of they-ought-to-be-dead."
The White Queen
Philippa Gregory. Touchstone, $26.99 (448p) ISBN 978-1-4165-6368-6
The queen of British historical fiction (The Other Boleyn Girl) kicks off a new series with the story of Elizabeth Woodville Grey, whose shifting alliances helped the War of the Roses take root. The marriage of 22-year-old Yorkist King Edward IV to 27-year-old widow Elizabeth brings a sea change in loyalties: Elizabeth’s Lancastrian family becomes Edward’s strongest supporters, while Edward’s closest adviser, the ambitious earl of Warwick, joins with Edward’s brother George to steal the English crown. History buffs from Shakespeare on have speculated about this fateful period, especially the end of Edward and Elizabeth’s two sons, and Gregory invents plausible but provocative scenarios to explore those mysteries; she is especially poignant depicting Elizabeth in her later years, when her allegiance shifts toward Richard III (who may have killed her sons). Gregory earned her international reputation evoking sex, violence, love and betrayal among the Tudors; here she adds intimate relationships, political maneuvering and battlefield conflicts as well as some well-drawn supernatural elements. Gregory’s newest may not be as fresh as earlier efforts, but she captures vividly the terrible inertia of war. (Aug.)
Cheating Death: The Doctors and Medical Miracles That Are Saving Lives Against All Odds
Sanjay Gupta, M.D. Wellness Central, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-446-50887-2
High-profile physician-journalist Gupta—a medical reporter for CNN and columnist for Time who declined President Obama’s nomination to be surgeon general—knows a great story when he hears one, and in this collection he rolls out extraordinarily harrowing and inspiring tales from the annals of they-ought-to-be-dead. When there is an injury, a heart attack or any loss of oxygen to the brain, time is the essential factor in determining whether a patient will live. For instance, “therapeutic hypothermia,” by reducing the brain’s need for oxygen immediately after a trauma, allows more time for treatments to work. Gupta also notes that lives can be saved through incremental changes to current medical techniques rather than revolutionary breakthroughs. Eliminating the breathing component from CPR and concentrating only on chest compressions has been shown to raise heart attack survival rates to an unheard-of 20%. The achievements are stunning, though Gupta notes “none of the exciting medical changes that we’ve come across will eliminate the sense of awe and mystery that stalks our notions of death.” Yet it’s beyond comforting to know there are doctors who simply refuse to quit a brave but ultimately losing battle to wrestle control over death. (Oct. 12)
