God bless you!—and this thoroughly delightful compendium of facts, fiction, and down-to-earth advice about the pesky viruses (200 and counting) that knock you down and drag you out two to four times a year. Ackerman (Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body) parses the variety and durability of the cold, its well-known miseries, paradoxes (a highly active immune system may actually make you sicker with a cold), and myriad mysteries (why do poorer people get more colds? what roles do stress and sleep play? is our clean obsession making us more susceptible to sickness?) with the thoroughness of a scientist, the doggedness of a journalist, and the verve of a thriller writer. Look for debunking of modern snake oils like echinacea and vitamin C and some rock-solid advice: wash your hands regularly, and keep them out of your eyes and mouth. And at the very least, Ackerman argues, enjoy the forced break a cold mandates. There's a nifty collection of comforting recipes as well, including a nonalcoholic hot toddy (and a delicious sounding boozy one, too), banana pudding, and yes, chicken soup. Gesundheit! (Sept. 2)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Journalist Olmstead and independent researcher Blaxill enter the fray of the autism controversy, arguing that, just as mercury's toxic effects in treating syphilis and teething pain were long ignored, the same type of denial is happening now with respect to autism and other illnesses the authors say are linked to mercury exposure in the environment and in childhood vaccines. But other than providing information on mercury exposure in seven of the 11 individuals first diagnosed with autism, they offer little new material. Second, they uncritically present the opinions of those who assert the autism-vaccine link while virtually ignoring contrary scientific views (e.g., the World Health Organization has repudiated any such link). Third, they stake out new ground by accusing scientists and government agencies of creating a conspiracy to defend vaccines as safe. They state, without supporting evidence: "Much of what the medical industry and public health community has produced on the question of autism and vaccines has been propaganda masquerading as science." Readers looking for an unbiased examination of whether there is a link between vaccines and autism will not find enlightenment here. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

These mercurial occasional pieces crackle in their soulful brevity. Kundera's (Immortality) unexpected insights into surrealism (especially the poets), the darkly grotesque, the nonconformist temperament will be familiar to readers immersed in this author's fictions. Although a number of the essays date to the early and mid-1990s, there is a refreshing cohesion to this collection. Of specific interest are chapters comparing Francis Bacon to Samuel Beckett; Kundera's devilish mixing up of Roland Barthes with the dour theologian Karl Barth in a chance conversation; several discussions on the virtues of Rabelais as well as a restoration to prominence of Anatole France, who had been given the French intellectualist bum's rush; a powerful coupling of the bright birth of film with the sad death of Fellini; a scholar's relishing of Bertolt Brecht's body odor; the music of his fellow Czech Leos Janácek. Like the proverbial meal at the Chinese restaurant, the delicious musings of this book are filling at first. Two hours later, one craves more. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Author of the disarmingly witty The Fat Girl's Guide to Life, Shanker returns with her trademark generous self-criticism to chronicle some serious health problems that struck her at age 27, in 1999. A busy New York TV producer and writer (for the Oxygen channel), Shanker finally consulted an ear, nose, and throat specialist for her chronic sinus infection and learned that she was afflicted with a rare autoimmune disease, Wegener's granulomatosis, characterized by inflammation of the tissues, especially in the respiratory tract and joints. Prescribed a corticosteroid (prednisone), which made her already troublesome weight balloon, she endured excruciating joint pain, gout, and perforation of her septum; over time she had to undergo chemotherapy in the form of Cytoxan, which made her hair fall out, killed her taste buds, and gave her terrible headaches. Meanwhile, she also took a shot at alternative treatments, including stays at the Ayurvedic Institute in New Mexico, yoga, acupuncture, even astrology and craniosacral therapy, and in a fit of despair and self-empowerment, inspired by her longtime hero Madonna ("Go ahead. Be brilliant"), quits taking all drugs because, she declares, "I'm the expert on me." In frank, vigorous prose, Shanker has redirected her grief at losing her mother early and her guilt for being overweight and ill to rediscover herself in momentous ways. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Stempel, an associate professor of music at Fordham University, was a member of Lehman Engel's BMI Musical Theater Workshop in the late 1970s, where he first set out on his 25 years of research to compile this comprehensive survey of Broadway musicals. Spanning more than 150 years, the hefty history is divided into three sections: "Out of the 19th Century," "Into the 20th Century," and "Toward the New Millennium." He opens with the 1853 musical adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin and the aerial ballerinas of The Black Crook (1867), followed by the Gilded Age, with its minstrels, vaudeville, and comic operas. As George M. Cohan expanded his skits into "plays with music," writing 500 songs, the turn-of-the-century rise of Tin Pan Alley coincided with the relocation of New York's entertainment district to Times Square, placing Al Jolson at center stage. Covering musical milestones from Irving Berlin and Florenz Ziegfeld to Oklahoma!, Sondheim, and Fosse, Stempel shows how generic songs could be "shoehorned into a story" and details the antagonistic tensions that arose between performers, lyricists, and librettists. Throughout, as Stempel traces the evolution with exhaustive archival research, he offers a penetrating and illuminating analysis of various musical forms and influences. Many of the 105 carefully selected b&w illustrations are surprising and revelatory. Theater buffs will be delighted to find that this scholarly, definitive work is also a hugely entertaining read. 16 color pages. (Sept. 6)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

As former BBC Middle East correspondent Llewellyn observes, Lebanese politics can seem so bewildering to outsiders "that the media practically ceased trying to report [on] Lebanon's plight." His smart if unbalanced mélange of reportage and oral history makes a fine attempt at redressing the omission. Llewellyn creates affectionate and well-rounded portraits of individuals and communities—offering, for instance, a much more sympathetic view of Hezbollah than most Western writers could achieve, even while acknowledging that organization's more unsavory characteristics. "In his position," Llewellyn writes of an interview subject, "I too would support Hezbollah." The author doesn't extend such humanity to Israel, but reduces the Jewish state to an aggressor. In this Llewellyn provides an excellent example of his own maxim that in wartime there's a tendency "to see the point of view of the man or woman in the ditch next to you," rather than attempt a nuanced view of historical struggle. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 09/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Masson (When Elephants Weep) explores the unique bond between humans and dogs in a humdrum and highly repetitive book that is illuminated at points by the author's odes to his own companion, Benjy, a failed guide dog with an unrestrained capacity to love people. Masson ruminates on the mutual interdependence between the two species—a love affair going back at least 15,000 years—and examines ancient myths and new research that suggest how man and dog have evolved together. He juxtaposes our emotional similarities to dogs and to our other domesticated animals, including cats, horses, parrots, and pigs. Even if the material seems stretched and familiar—fans of the genre will likely have encountered many of Masson's observations in Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin and Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz—Masson is at his most personal and appealing in this book, especially when he writes about Benjy. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 10/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

Kaplan (Balkan Ghosts), correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, inculcates a paradigm shift when he suggests that the site of 21st-century geopolitical significance will be the Indian Ocean, not the northern Atlantic. The major powers of the future—India and China—fringe the ocean along with a host of other players—"the emerging and volatile democracies of East Africa," Indonesia, Oman, "anarchic" Somalia, placid Singapore, and Burma. These sea trade routes have historically borne commerce, colonialism, and faith, and Kaplan examines the nexuses of power, goods, and ideologies making their way across those waters today. Even if the writing on culture—especially India's—can devolve into cliché, the book's political and economic focus and forecasts are smart and brim with aperçus on the intersection of power, politics, and resource consumption (especially water), and give full weight to the impact of colonialism. An ambitious and prescient study equally at ease analyzing the work of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, the finer points of the Indian state of Gujarat's flirtation with fascism, and the economic impact of the Asian tsunami on Indonesia. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 10/01/2010 | Details & Permalink

In his latest book, Davies, author of Cracking the Genome and editor-in-chief of the journal Bio-IT World, plunges head-first into the brave new world promised by the increasing affordability of obtaining one's personal genetic code. Davies's book is an attempt to understand how this will affect our individual and collective futures. At its simplest, he sees the $1,000 genome as a harbinger of legal, ethical, and personal disputations, such as how to deal with learning one's risk of an incurable disease. Can states require a doctor's approval before people order their genetic code from a company like 23andMe? Davies doesn't attempt to prescribe answers, but rather to provide readers with enough expert opinions to make their own decisions. Like its subject matter, this book is both abstruse and deeply relevant. The writing is professional although in-depth passages on sequencing technology may challenge the average reader. Still, readers will appreciate meeting the brilliant minds and personalities engaged in blueprinting the future of global medicine as well as examining the challenges and potential benefits that will accrue from knowledge of human genomes. (Sept.)

Kevin Davies
Reviewed on 07/05/2010 |

Maisano, founder of the No Surrender Breast Cancer Foundation, examines the delicate personal side of reconnecting after the trauma of breast cancer. Writing in a straightforward, conversational style, Maisano leverages her hard-won firsthand knowledge to create an informative and supportive guide for women in the process of reclaiming their sexuality, post-treatment. Presented in two parts, the book begins with issues related to healing the body and mind. As cancer survivors shift from fighting for their lives to planning for the future, Maisano illustrates the pros and cons of treatment options. A two-time breast cancer survivor herself, she assembles personal stories and explains complex procedures with welcome frankness and humor: "All this will mean a farewell to the ovaries and a baptism by hot flash into the world of sudden menopause." In Part Two, the author takes a close look at sexuality and intimacy after treatment, offering up-to-date information, nonjudgmental support, and healing exercises for women as they recover in their own unique ways and face individual challenges on the road to health. This book will be vital to women who find themselves in the process of healing, and to all the people who care for them. (Jun.)

Reviewed on 07/05/2010 | Release date: 05/01/2010 | Details & Permalink