Tuesday, October 25, 2011

BRAIN BUSTERS


These days books about the gray matter are anything but gray. Every move we make – not to mention mood disorders and  addiction problems – has a connection to the brain, and of particular interest to neuroscience these days is the chemical bath we receive from Mother Nature or our own pill-popping selves and how they alter how we behave.

I like the premise of David Eagleman's "Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain." Here we're not talking about the subconscious wounds from childhood, but the fact that your nervous system takes in so dang much material that you can't handle it all. So your conscious awareness amounts to a fraction of the intake. A good layman's intro to the lay of the land inside our heads.

Also a great read: “An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and the Miracle Drug Cocaine,” by Howard Markel. The author, a doctor himself, creates a highly readable tale about drug use before there was such a thing as “controlled substances.” With opiates as available as aspirin, addiction problems were abundant, and Freud’s research with cocaine was inspired by the effort to use it as an antidote to get a friend off morphine. In the process, both Freud and Halsted, a renowned American surgeon, got hooked themselves.

And speaking of drug addiction:  If you want to get freaked out about the extent of the problem now, read Robert Whitaker's “Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America.” Whitaker, long a critic of the medical establishment, takes on the mental health profession in a book that sees a collaboration between psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical companies who offer a pill for every problem mentioned in the ever-expanding diagnostic manual of mental illness. He notes that a half century ago mental problems were almost exclusively the preserve of small group of middle-aged adults or the elderly. Now they're calculated to affect one out of ten Americans, including vast numbers of children, every year. How did the goalposts change, and whose interests were served by changing them? he asks.

Finally, I appreciate the premise of “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined,” by the prolific Steven Pinker. A psychology professor at Harvard, in his latest book he argues that society has become less violent over time and tries to determine why our dualistic natures have turned to the light. The printing press, more rights for women, diplomatic options for settling conflict: These are among the reasons, he says. Yes, but: In a book that acknowledges the Muslim world (a mere 2 billion souls) has not participated in this advance... and in a book that says one-to-one homicides actually declined in Nazi Germany (the genocide part doesn't count?)... I was, sadly, left less than convinced that the better angels are winning the fight.

--Ellen






Friday, May 27, 2011

WHAT ARE THE BOOK BABES UP TO THESE DAYS?


      Would you like to have the Book Babes – together or solo – speak at your event? Don’t hesitate to contact us at thebookbabes@yahoo.com. Here are our latest endeavors:

ELLEN

     Book Reviews: Watch for my upcoming book reviews in The Seattle Times: Lisa See’s “Dreams of Joy”  in May and Ann Patchett's "State of Wonder" in June.
     Both Patchett and See are bestselling novelists who have won critical acclaim for their work -- in Patchett's case, a small pile of literary prizes. Her latest book takes readers into the Amazon for a battle of the wills between a pair of women scientists.
     See's "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan" has been made into a film that will be released in July (with bulging-bicep Hugh Jackman, no less). In her latest book, she continues to tell the story of women's lives in the context of Chinese history. "Dreams of Joy" is set against the backdrop of the disastrous Great Leap Forward, which attempted to increase farm output in the late 1950s and led to the deaths of 20 million from starvation.
   
         Novel research: I'm juggling my "new book" reading with some old books, often really old. I'm studying the period of Pacific Northwest history that started with the "Boom of the Eighties" -- that's the 1880s, folks, when the abundance of natural resources brought a bunch of settlers to the land of Ken Kesey (and long before "Sometimes a Great Notion" -- imagine that).  I am following the peaks and valleys to the Depression, when the economy for timber and just about everything else tanked. 

MARGO

     Book reviews: My review of “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” by Manning Marable can be found at http://postgazette.com/pg/11142/1147807-148-0.stm?cmpid=newspanel0 on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website.
     Manning worked 20 years on this massive biography of one of the most fascinating figures in American history. He died just a few days before its publication. 
   
    TV appearance: This month C-SPAN came to the Tampa Bay area and interviewed a slew of people involved in the book world, including yours truly. Our interviews will be aired on C-SPAN’s Book TV May 28-29 and will be made available on the C-SPAN website.

     Creative Late Bloomers book project & blog: I’m still at work on a book about creative late bloomers. The tentative title is “Never Too Late: Secrets Behind Creative Second Acts.” Meanwhile, I’m blogging about the subject at creativelatebloomers.blogspot.com.

  
   

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

IN PRAISE OF THE DOORSTOPPER

Ken Follett's "Fall of Giants" takes me back to my roots: the small-town girl with book in hand, preferably a really big book. Taylor Caldwell and James Michener were my kind of authors, writing truly voluminous works of fiction that kept me occupied for hours, of which I had plenty to spare. In spite of the heaviness in both the size and writing of Dreiser's "An American Tragedy," I slogged through because of the terrific plot line (he stole it from real life). I read "Gone With the Wind" four times -- although on every repeat Scarlett misbehaved and Rhett didn't give a damn, and I cried as if I thought this time things might be different.

At nearly 1,000 pages, "Fall of Giants" fits nicely into this bigger-is-better formula. But the novel reads quickly because it's less about savoring the style than the story. Yes, dear readers, I felt an "ouch" when I hit a wooden cliche, and his characters are more or less plucked from central casting. But big friggin' deal. Follett's gifts as a yarn spinner turn these faults into mere quibbles. Experts may contest his point of view, but it seems consistent with my understanding of the period, and he gives a terrific feel for the broad sweep of history and massive economic and cultural changes that were occurring.

In this, the first of three novels on the century just past, he builds an upstairs-downstairs view of European society and the catalysts for change, World War I and the Bolshevik revolution. Here's the Twitter version of the book: Hierarchy is out, workers' and women's rights are in. But consider the cost: slaughter in the trenches that broke the spirit of a generation and a continent while setting the stage for another conflagration.

The starvation and bloodshed in Russia may have started in 1917 but continued on through Stalin, with a trickle-down effect that became the Cold War. The self-destructive tendencies in Europe give America an opening to become the leading world power, with all the prosperity that allows but also a steep price (in lives and dollars) that we're still paying today in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

But I shouldn't get ahead of Follett's tale. He may see it differently. So bring on those big, fat sequels.  



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Monday, January 24, 2011

E-books, iPad, Egads! The Book Babes' Guide to Reading and Publishing Kicks Off the Fox Cities Book Festival in April

The Book Babes have been invited to kick off this year's Fox Cities Book Festival in Appleton, Wisconsin. In addition to presenting their book, Between the Covers: The Book Babes' Guide to a Woman's Reading Pleasures, the duo will be speaking on the changing world of book writing and publishing:

                                   E-books, iPad, Egads!:
                The Book Babes' Guide to Reading and Publishing
                                    Monday, April 11, 2011
                                               7 p.m.
                                    Menasha Public Library
                                          440 1st Street
                                      Appleton, Wisconsin

Check out the festival site:  http://www.foxcitiesbookfestival.org/author/2011/book-babes