A Whole Week To Read
It's spring break for me this week, and instead of heading down to cancun and flashing my boobies, I splurged on some books.
101 Diseases You Don't Want To Get
"Every illness you've ever shuddered at is here in this handy pocket guide, from African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) to zoonoses, all charmingly illustrated. Find out what the symptoms are (you probably have one or more of them already), what your prognosis is (probably not good), where you caught it, and how it can be treated-if it can. And, of course, there are illustrations to let you know what you're going to end up looking like at the end of the whole sorry story."
A Midwife's Tale - The Life of Martha Ballard
"This book is a model of social history at its best. An exegesis of Ballard's diary, it recounts the life and times of this obscure Maine housewife and midwife. Using passages from the diary as a starting point for each chapter division, Ulrich, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, demonstrates how the seemingly trivial details of Ballard's daily life reflect and relate to prominent themes in the history of the early republic: the role of women in the economic life of the community, the nature of marriage and sexual relations, the scope of medical knowledge and practice. Speculating on why Ballard kept the diary as well as why her family saved it, Ulrich highlights the document's usefulness for historians."
* My interest in this one was piqued after I read a biography of the author, Laura Thatcher Ulrich, who is a Harvard professor, mormon, and author of the phrase, "well-behaved women seldom make history." She is a fascinating person. The book won a pulitzer prize.
Shadow Syndromes
Freud once said that nobody is "normal," and after reading Shadow Syndromes, you may well be convinced of that. While more than 50 million Americans suffer from full-fledged mental illnesses such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder, millions more suffer from milder forms--yet they likely don't realize it. From chronic sadness to low self-esteem to shopping addiction to intermittent rage disorder, compassionate authors John J. Ratey, M.D. and Catherine Johnson, Ph.D. chronicle the often-undiagnosed (yet definitely insidious) "shadow" disorders. One of the most eye-opening points the authors make is that men who "can't commit" to a relationship may in fact be suffering from an unrecognized adult form of attention deficit disorder.
This is going to be FUN!
101 Diseases You Don't Want To Get
"Every illness you've ever shuddered at is here in this handy pocket guide, from African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) to zoonoses, all charmingly illustrated. Find out what the symptoms are (you probably have one or more of them already), what your prognosis is (probably not good), where you caught it, and how it can be treated-if it can. And, of course, there are illustrations to let you know what you're going to end up looking like at the end of the whole sorry story."
A Midwife's Tale - The Life of Martha Ballard
"This book is a model of social history at its best. An exegesis of Ballard's diary, it recounts the life and times of this obscure Maine housewife and midwife. Using passages from the diary as a starting point for each chapter division, Ulrich, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, demonstrates how the seemingly trivial details of Ballard's daily life reflect and relate to prominent themes in the history of the early republic: the role of women in the economic life of the community, the nature of marriage and sexual relations, the scope of medical knowledge and practice. Speculating on why Ballard kept the diary as well as why her family saved it, Ulrich highlights the document's usefulness for historians."
* My interest in this one was piqued after I read a biography of the author, Laura Thatcher Ulrich, who is a Harvard professor, mormon, and author of the phrase, "well-behaved women seldom make history." She is a fascinating person. The book won a pulitzer prize.
Shadow Syndromes
Freud once said that nobody is "normal," and after reading Shadow Syndromes, you may well be convinced of that. While more than 50 million Americans suffer from full-fledged mental illnesses such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder, millions more suffer from milder forms--yet they likely don't realize it. From chronic sadness to low self-esteem to shopping addiction to intermittent rage disorder, compassionate authors John J. Ratey, M.D. and Catherine Johnson, Ph.D. chronicle the often-undiagnosed (yet definitely insidious) "shadow" disorders. One of the most eye-opening points the authors make is that men who "can't commit" to a relationship may in fact be suffering from an unrecognized adult form of attention deficit disorder.
This is going to be FUN!