5 comments about Married to a Bedouin.

1. This New Zealand-born woman with her Dutch ancestry talks about how she wasn't brave or didn't do anything extraordinary: she merely fell in love with a wonderful, decent, funny, charming and intelligent guy -- who happened to be Bedouin and live in a cave in Petra. I met them in the teahouse across from the amphitheater in the spring of 1989 when Salwa was a little girl and the boys were toddlers. Marg and Mo became our lifeline there and secured one of the new government houses in Umm Sehun for us to rent -- with a hot shower and all. We returned in the fall for three more months, learning so much from Marguerite: how to weave a tent from goat hair, to make margluba in one pot and attend a wedding. Each year for the next 10 years (until 2000), we remet and rekindled our friendship, having incredible fun with my own bint (daughter). Now, reading her book, I cherish each page, understanding even more about their special lives and what it means to be part of a Beduoin family.
   It is a book that is so pertinent today in understanding another culture and how our American government is clueless about that part of the world and the vastly different outlook, superstitions, meanings, approach to everyday living that the local people have. Bravo Marguerite.



2. Read this book right after touring Petra. It enhanced my feelings and memories if the place immensely. Well written. It gives a very good sense of what life was like in a Petra cave and being married to a very creative Bedouin man and his very large extended clan. Recommended highly, although I'm not sure how much I would have comprehended without having been there myself.



3. If you want to understand Arab culture no better place than to start here. You get a two for one. Petra is one of the great places on the globe and the people there are very special. Marguerite writes a cogent and charming account of her life from New Zealand to Jordan and her family in Petra.



4. Having been to Jordan several times and hoping to go back (I am totally in love with the country) I picked up this book at the airport for an in-flight reading.
   
   I thought it would be just another account of a western person whining about the ''wrongs'' of Muslim life but I was so pleasantly surprised that I couldn't put this book down.
   
   Margaruite's story is a matter of fact account and no preaching. She writes it as she experienced it and offers us facts which we can then make into whatever we want. She offers no criticism of the lifestyle nor does she compare it to the western lifestyle as many of the similar accounts are written nowadays. She also isn't a ''hippie gone native'' as she says many people used to see her as.:)) She simply fell in love with a man and adapted to live her life in his culture. You will enjoy the funny details, and I especially liked her account of the trip back to New Zealand with her Bedouin Husband.
   
   I admire her story, not just for the story itself but for the way it was written.
   Although I have been to Petra several times, after having read this book I went again to experience it in a totally different way, not stopping to admire the ancient Nabataean city but the people who live there and around at the moment. And the experience was unforgettable. We do tend to forget observing the people when doing the ''touristy'' thing at the historical sites. And ashamed, I must admit that the first couple of times around I was annoyed by the ''Bedouins'' trying to get me to buy the ''ancient'' items - but this time around I had a wonderful experience enjoying their spirit.
   
   I don't want to give away too much.
   Read the book. You will not regret it!
   
   Hope it will get you to plan your next holiday to Jordan!



5. I've only heard rave reviews of this book and was strongly encouraged to read it since I would be spending an extended period in Jordan. I think my expectations were too great. I had hoped to learn more about Bedouin traditions and culture and how a Westerner became a part of the society. I'm not a scholar of the Middle East, Arab, or Bedouin historty/tradition, but there was little information that was new for me. I found the book to be poorly organized, lacking of structure, and repetitive. Except for a few "chapters" when the author truly opened up to the reader, I felt as if I were reading a list of items from a day planner. From the anecdotes, it's clear Ms. Van Geldermalsen (Umm Salwa wa Umm Raami) led a rich life and experienced much that most of us will never know. I simply wish she had a better editor.

5 comments about The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery.

1. Wendy Moore's history of John Hunter, the almost cult figure who was, quite simply, a full advocate of the scientific method and thus not only the grandfather of modern surgical techniques but also an early proponent of evolution, almost a hundred years before Darwin, is a fascinating and enlightening read.
   
   I picked up this book because I have an almost obsessive fixation with the ways of ancient medicine--bloodletting and such. Moore's book fully explores the techniques of the time that John Hunter worked against, not so much out of pure rebelliousness but through a simple desire to provide his patients the best care he could manage and take the time to study the human body and related organisms to find how anatomy worked. The methodology of the 18th century was almost empericial in nature--doctors studied their patients from afar and usually prescribed treatment to barbers, who did all the nasty work. In fact, doctors weren't even expected to know anatomy and sometimes followed texts written by ancient Greeks when it came to medical knowledge. Moore is fair not to paint EVERY practitioner that way (for others, like John Hunter's own brother William seemed to have a vested interest in exploring the mysteries of the human body), for John Hunter did not have to work totally alone and in the dark, but this book details well the lengths John Hunter went through to learn about human anatomy and how nature works--endless hours of study dissecting human and animal subjects to form himself a menagerie of preserved anatomies and thorough documentation of his findings, which kept him busy almost seventeen hours a day easily.
   
   And, Moore of course details the lengths John Hunter went through to get his case studies. Hunter did nothing short of grave robbing and human experimentation in his studies, receiving cadavers through a back door of his lab like some Dr. Frankenstein, or paying the poor for their use in experiments of his own. It is even related in one chapter that Hunter even possibly experimented on himself when trying to determine whether syphilis and gonorrhea were the same virus or two different diseases altogether.
   
   Hunter's conclusions were not always accurate (or correct), and though he had found many techniques that became the basis for a lot of modern surgical practice, he didn't know all that much about sterilization, so many of his ideas were hindered by poor practice.
   
   But this book is a wonderful study of a scientific mind, one that worked off of evidence and study rather than accepting knowledge without criticism from up on high. He proposed that monkey skulls and human skulls were quite similar and most likely formed from the same stem. Of course, Hunter had his critics in his time and his naysayers, but Moore gets quite deeply into the life and studies of this genius to whom we owe great debts. The book is also a great reminder that ideas don't come out of nowhere but are often developed over time--centuries, even. Was Hunter the true author of evolution and natural selection? No, for Darwin was the one who found the mechanism of evolution, so this book makes a great case for the evolution of ideas as well as the evolution of surgery. And along the way, many notables of history step in to make stage appearances--certainly, following the life of John Hunter is also following the story of 18th century thought and art.
   
   Moore is a little too thrilled at times with the depth of her research, and some chapters become a little distracting for its weight of detail, but overall this is a great read, full of surprising and weighty information, and most of all the presentation of a thoughtful, rational mind--something that we don't really praise nowadays.



2. This is an absolutely wonderful book. Not only is it about an explorer of genius, but it portrays an entire historical epoch - a crucial phase in the late Enlightenment - when practical achievements were being worked out, when what we call the modern era was being born. At the center of it is John Hunter, an irascible man of extraordinary energy and will, on a quest that would forever change the practice of surgery. But before his career as a surgeon, he was a comparative anatomist, fascinated with the variations of life.
   
   Hunter was the perfect Enlightenment man: rather than trust to ancient texts and their faulty though time-honored prescriptions, he developed his own method: he observed, experimented, and recorded the results. While this may sound like a no-brainer today, it was far from what surgeons were doing at that time. His boldness and compulsion to seek his own truth alienated many of his colleagues, who preferred to follow procedures used for millennia, such as blood-letting and the immediate removal of limbs and diseased organs by the crudest methods. All of their assumptions are wonderfully explained in historical context. Thus, you can see an illustration of what was changing during that period, with the establishment of methods for truly scientific medicine.
   
   Hunter worked 19 hours per day, seeing patients and then spending late hours dissecting and recording his observations. The amount of knowledge that Hunter generated, often stolen by others to advance their careers, is truly astonishing. He proved, for example, that embryos are not fully formed at conception, but that they develop through phases that virtually all animal species share. He noted anatomical similarities across species and even families, things that no one had observed because of the biases they learned in ancient texts, including the Bible. The lengths to which he went were incredible, including perhaps inflecting himself with deadly diseases (e.g. STDs) to study their effects. It is truly awe-inspiring. And all of it wound up in the museum he was creating, which displayed the best collection of comparative anatomy in the world at that time.
   
   In addition, his life held great drama. Starting from a poverty stricken background and without much formal schooling, he rose to the top of his profession with only a little help. From the start, due to a shortage of bodies to dissect, Hunter developed a network of grave robbers (and which may have actually inspired the Jekyll/Hyde story - the author does not shy from questioning his ethics!). He fought the establishment and gained a devoted following, perhaps his greatest achievement as his 200+ students went on to disseminate his ideas (and skepticism) into medical education as well as surgical practices. He fell out with his older brother, whom he surpassed as a scientist but not as a professional operator. Finally, he had a happy and unusual marriage with a poet, whose circle included Haydn, Johnson, and Hume (a close relative).
   
   For me, this was the ideal vacation book: I was utterly engrossed by it as the writing style is compulsively readable, the narrative brisk, and the ideas fascinating. It is rare that I find such a first-rate historical and scientific narrative and I can only hope that the author produces more. This book is a gem, a masterpiece, and I will offer it as a gift to many people. Warmly recommended.



3. When I began reading this book, I wasn't expecting a page turner. How wrong I was! Whether your interest is the biography of an uncoventional man, the history of medicine, insight into the stratified society of Edwardian England, or you are simply fascinated by eccentric bits of information, this is a book you'll have trouble putting down. Wendy Moore's prose is crisp and clear, and she makes it easy (and enjoyable) for her reader to discover the implications of John Hunter's obessions and his ground-breaking work.
   
   Although it is never deliberately torrid or sensational, this *is* a book about the beginnings of modern surgery. It is not for the squeamish. The book's quirky and intriging chapter titles only begin to suggest the broad range of Hunter's scientific interests--The Chimney Sweep's Teeth, The Surgeon's Penis, The Lizard's Tail, The Pregnant Woman's Womb, The Debutante's Spots. Hunter's insatiable curiousity about the workings of nature and, especially, the human body were unfettered by modern (or even conventional Edwardian) sensibilities or ethics. His brilliant techniques for dissecting corpses and preparing specimens are descibed in graphic detail, as are the revolutionary medical procedures he pioneered while treating living patients. As with many scientists of his era, Hunter had few scruples about animal experimentation--despite the author's understated language, Hunter's enquiries into the workings of the lymphatic system, cryogenics, and organ transplantation were particularly difficult to stomach.



4. I found the book immediately tedious and repetitive, a seemingly endless series of similar case histories of operations by the great John Hunter, in squalid conditions as he was reviled and admired. The book needed much stronger editing. The prose reminds me a little of articles in Readers Digest. There doesn't seem to be much drama or unpredictability here, the whole book's course is immediately plain. I guess if you like to know how modern operations originated this is the book for you, but it lacked something like vitality and sophistication to keep my interest. A real disappointment.



5. Funny how I'd always confused John Hunter with his brother William whose reputation as a prig more concerned with titles and position than with surgery filtered down to me through histories of science and the times that I'd read. And of course I'd come across the Hunter name in connection with lurid tales of body snatching and the gut-dabbling "Jack Tearguts" of Blake's "An Island In The Moon," which gives us the verbal equivalent of a Gillray print. Now Wendy Moore has brought clarity to this subject, and I now see that John Hunter was indeed on the cutting edge (forgive the pun!) of his profession! Moore takes us through the streets of Johnsonian London, complete with pavements slick with chamber pot slops, poor children willing to sell healthy teeth and mangle their smiles forever so that the smiles of the elite could be temporarily refurbished for tremendous sums, and every kind of illness ready to hurry man, woman and child to an early end and task their brief existences with gleets, tumors, stones, tremors, rots and imposthumes before they expired. Through it all stalked keen-witted John ("Jack") Hunter, skilled in teasing apart the threads and fibers of nerves and separating the anatomical processes for preparations that are still pointed to for the genius they display, and unafraid to spend long hours in the presence of the dead when the Ghost of Cock Lane made headlines in the daily papers. Like William Blake, Hunter was a plain speaker, totally sure of his abilities, and this of course brought him enemies by the dozens from among the tribe of doctors and surgeons who relied on reading "the Ancient Classics" on medicine and an old boy system to put them in positions of power. Hunter, on the other hand, was almost alone in his insistence on learning from close observation and trial and error. In an age when surgery was done with dirty fingernails and aprons stiff with dried blood, this system perhaps did not bring much visible change to the sad lives of those stricken by ill health, but it was the key to the invention of new techniques and the arrival of our modern understanding of the human body. But this is not all; Moore also shows us that this wide-ranging intellect was intent on understanding the well-springs of life and the "living principle" itself and fashioned an early form of evolutionary theory which he taught to his students. However, there is indeed an unsavory, and even a sinister side to this story. Hunter grows obsessed with obtaining the bones of a young Irish Giant, and he does so against the poor man's death bed wishes. The literary salon that Hunter's beautiful wife sponsors once a week takes place while Hunter and his crew of helpers and students unload bodies delivered by the resurrectionists to the basement door. We can only imagine the occasional smell of decay wafting up the stairs while Horace Walpole holds forth in powdered wig on the superiority of English literature. The surgeon grows more and more eccentric, because perhaps his mid-life experiment involving syphilitic self-innoculation was having unexpected ramifications. Moore also tells us about Hunter's menagerie and his practice of wide-awake, bug-eyed, howling vivisection-unto-death, which would horrify animal rights activists today. Still and all, the Jack Hunter of Wendy Moore's book is a real hero.
   
   Though the writing in The Knife Man can sometimes be redundant, the style is good and the content compelling, if at times, a little grim. I recommend this book highly.

1 comments about The Making of a Nurse.

1. The Making of a Nurse is the true-life story of author Tilda Shalof, a caregiver all her life, and an Intensive Care Unit nurse with twenty-five years of experience in Israel, New York, and Canada. She tells stories of overprotective "helicopter parents", so named for their tendency to hover over their children; dealing with patients ranging from gracious to delusional or even violent; to the virtual war between the mother and a girlfriend of a dying hospital patient over his comatose form. An absorbing and revealing look into the day-to-day life of a nurse, as well as the personal travails - including a stint of life on the streets - that beset the author. Highly recommended.

5 comments about A Midwife's Story.

1. This book is wonderful. In the form of a story, without dogma or angry politics, this book opens the door to a way of life that is simple, natural, and harmonious. The emphasis is on birth. While I am not Amish and do not strive to be, I do belief birth is wonderful, natural, empowering, peaceful, and unique every time. This book is written with the same perspective on birth and nourished me in my pregnancy.
   I have recommended this book to many women navigating a first pregnancy. While they have made a wide range of choices regarding practitioners and birth locations, they all loved receiving what this book offers.



2. I liked this one overall; there were some good birth stories, and I learned more than I expected to about the Amish. There was also some good insight into the hospital birth system.
   
   However, I was left a bit disappointed because I didn't feel the book was well-written in general. The story was often jerky and disjointed. To offer one example, when Penny went to Scotland for her nurse midwifery training, I wasn't quite sure what was going on. Wasn't she American? Why did she go all the way to Scotland? What, what? Some events just felt... random and not properly introduced.
   
   There were also quite a few lulls in the story; about 3/4 of the way through, I got bored and started skimming. I was expecting more birth stories, but there weren't too many.
   
   I would recommend checking this out from the library. And if you're looking for more birth stories and drama surrounding midwifery in general, check out "Baby Catcher" by Peggy Vincent.



3. This is a great book that enters the world of both midwifery and the Amish. Actually, it's more about the Amish than midwifery so if you are looking for a book that is soley about birthing babies, than I would consider Baby Catcher or something similar.
   Really enjoyed this book.



4. I am a self proclaimed doula and accidental midwife. This book spoke to my heart what I know to be true about birth but had no words for. The journey that Penny went through finally ending at a healthy respect for life and death...it was just beautiful. I enjoyed the stories of the Amish people and their ways and am challenged to look at the way I live. Excellent!



5. Armstrong's and Feldman's book is outstanding. I would reccomend it to anyone thinking of having a baby. Listening to the stories about home birth in the Amish community will increase a woman's sense of confidence about her own body and give her faith in the natural process of birth. This is a classic. Every mother should own it.

5 comments about What I Learned in Medical School: Personal Stories of Young Doctors.

1. Not just for minorities or those who have faced hardships on the road to becoming a doctor, this book paints a very realistic and (often) terrifying tales of students' worst experiences in medical school.
   
   While it may seem intuitive that medical school is easier if you have financial support as well as a healthy personal and family life, not all of us are so lucky. This is a collection of stories from those who have found themselves in an unlucky position at one time or another. While most of them faced prejudices, the culture at medical schools has become more accepting; however, many challenges still remain. The most important part of the book is towards the end where a list of problems plaguing our medical school is outlined in a concise, clear manner. These issues are important whatever your race, creed or gender.
   
   The face of healthcare is changing and our medical schools must change with it. The obstacles created by academic beaurocracy and an unforgiving system apply to all of us. I would heavily recommend this to anyone apply for or already in medical school.



2. Not the best book I have read of this type, but interesting. Some of the writers come across as a little too self-involved (woe is me stories are not my favorite) and I skipped the poetry sections. Keven Takakuma's story made the whole purchase worth while, in my opinion.
   I imagine if you are a minority going into med school, you could relate very well to the stories of the struggles and concerns of these students.



3. I believe this was a great book. It was interesting and certain things they mention I can relate. My mentor let me borrow the book and it really motivated me to continue on the path of medicine.



4. A collection of touching and unforgettable true-life stories of a group of diverse individuals in pursuit of a career in medicine. Some of the stories are so intense that they leave you wanting more and wondering whether these people finally achieved their goals. This book proves that you can get accepted to medical school regardless of your ethnicity, religion, income, social status or sexual orientation.



5. There are many stories in here, but very few are about what anyone learned in medical school. In fact the first section is not about med school at all. One needs to understand before getting this book that it is really about Personal Stories, not about med school. These people could be in journalism school or on a cruise as far as the focus of the book. I did find in the middle of the book a few interesting descriptions of the experiences of medical school specific chapters, but not enough to make this worth the purchase if one is looking for what it is like to be in medical school. One of the things the authors avoid is the descriptions of middle of the road students and another which I find most dissapointing is the just how do medical students get through this huge work load that is there especially in the first two years. So, if you are looking for interesting personal experiences that have med school as the stage then maybe you will want this, but if you want to read about the everyday week in and out what are they experiencing and how are they doing it as med students in med school, well there is a little of that, but I think you will be dissapointed.

5 comments about All My Patients are Under the Bed.

1. I wish my cats had such a wonderful vet.
   
   Kind of like an "All Creatures Great and Small" about cats in the city.
   
   This collection of wonderful true stories written by a New York City Vet specializing in cats tells of his heartwarming and entertaining experiences with his patients and their owners.
   
   If you love cats, you will love this book.



2. A vet who specializes in house calls for cats from the 1940's through the 80's writes in a witting and engaging way, telling charming stories about the cats (and people) he treated over the years. A pleasant read.



3. I had heard about Louis J. Camuti through my membership in the Cornell Feline Health Center. This story about Dr. Camuti's experiences as a NYC vet providing house calls for his feline patients is thoroughly engaging. The stories have a timeless appeal to those of us who are 'owned' by our cats.



4. With a bit of pathos mixed in (the Missing Cat)
   
   I would have LOVED to make those rounds with him!!
   
   Dr Camuti was a doctor with a caring Heart and Soul and had a special bond with those animals he loved and cared for.
   
   A wonderful book!!



5. I hated to get to the last page of this book because I had become so very fond of the author. Some people might not like him. Some might say he seemed at times arrogant or haughty. He might have laughed at the accusation and even agreed as he did not consider himself to be charming. But most of us are charmed, none the less. I am an animal lover, but I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys making the acquantances of strong characters who are a just little bit different. And what would he say of us? Likely that all of his reviewers are normal, but some are more normal than others. Myself included.

5 comments about Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother.

1. This book was exactly what I needed to read after struggling with pregnancies and feeling pretty alone in that. It is an amazing story of hope and loss that will -- sorry for the cliche -- make you laugh and make you cry. I highly recommend it!



2. I REALLY enjoyed this book! It helped me to relax more as I went through my journey that lasted several years & I'm so proud to say has FINALLY come to an end! We're pregnant! Her writing is wonderful & the book took me to world's I'd never been to. It was so helpful to see how another woman had struggled with this awful disease & how she made it through with a happy ending...it gave me great hope & helped ease my tension considerably. I highly recommend this book to anyone struggling through Infertility or anyone who knows someone who's struggling. GREAT book...fantastic author with a big heart & a great sense of humor!



3. I'm in my 30's, but I'm not planning to have kids. I happened to have a chance to borrow this book, and I'm glad I did. Orenstein's writing style was so honest and engaging, I'm going to seek out more of her work.
   
   As others have noted, Orenstein shares everything about her fertility journey - especially the bad and the ugly. It was very brave of her, and I imagine it will be very useful to people trying to conceive. I found it refreshing to read about her ambivalence towards wanting children at all, and even now, towards how she arrived at parenthood at last and how it has affected her life. I particularly enjoyed the chapter about her Orthodox Jewish friend who had 15 children. That was a slice of life I wouldn't have gotten to learn about otherwise.
   
   As an adopted person (from outside the US, as it happens,) I was not offended by her reluctance to adopt, as some other readers were. The decision to adopt is very personal, and I thought Orenstein's misgivings were perfectly natural. Besides, they did try to adopt a little boy in the end, but one petty bureaucrat made it impossible for them to bring him home. After five years of trying to become parents, one couldn't blame Orenstein and her husband for cutting their losses at that point.
   
   I would recommend this book to anyone, whether they were trying to become parents or not.



4. I struggled with this book. How could someone go through all the procedures, expense, marital strife, and anxiety and NOT still be certain that they wanted to be a parent? Her descriptions of the escalating nature of infertility treatments were fascinating, but they could not overcome her descriptions regarding her ambivalence toward parenthood. I think her husband is a saint. I wonder what the people in Hiroshima think?



5. Peggy Orenstein's articulate prose is as "gorgeous" as her mucous:-). (She was frequently told by medical people that her cervical mucous was "gorgeous".) In this wry, intensely personal, beautifully told tale, she presents us with a cautionary tale of modern life that can be summed up as "Don't put off having children." I began to feel somewhat constrained as I turned the pages of her compelling story, thinking I had judged her too harshly in my review of her book "Flux"(available on my profile page, page 36 of reviews, dated December 6, 2000). In this current book, she writes briefly of her upbringing in a Conservative Jewish family, and of how she felt her mother's life was severely limited, strictly contained by old ideas of a woman's role. (I was born into a much freer, exuberant Scandinavian family full of educated, high achieving women who were also wise enough to know (1) they wanted children and (2) the time to have them was when they were young.)

5 comments about Recalled by Life.

1. As a newly diagnosed cancer patient, I found this book very honest, objective (believe it or not) and informative. I believe that Dr. Sattilaro's skepticism and his own critcism at times provides for an objective look at a Western doctor's experiment with Eastern philosophy. I understand first-hand many of the tests he underwent, even if the technology has changed somewhat, but what is most surprising is that Western medicine has not been able to make that much improvement in the last quarter century since this book was written. If we look at cancer as an immune deficiency and where cells go into overdrive, isn't it even conceivable that balancing your system could be of some benefit and that strengthening the system with good nutrition and exercise is better than weakening it with toxic chemicals? It's food for thought (pun intended).



2. I just want to point out that, yes, Dr. Sattilaro died in 1989, as one of the reviewers points out. However, Dr. Sattilaro died of pneumonia, not prostate cancer. I also met him in person about a year before his death. He had by then stopped following the recommendations he describes in his book and he was very weak. I'm not rating this book [...]because I don't want to influence anyone. Read the book and make up your own mind.



3. I have memories of my grandfather dying of cancer, so when I saw this book I immediately read it. This book is very inspirational and the author's story of surviving cancer holds your attention throughout. I like the fact that he didn't just talk about diet, but also mentioned how his faith helped him through. However I am not entirely sure if macrobiotics (the diet mentioned in this book) is the way to go for cancer patients. It is worth noting that Aveline Kushi (who authored a popular cookbook on macrobiotics) died in 2001 from cancer. While I do believe that diet is very important in the battle against cancer, I am unsure about the effectiveness of macrobiotics.



4. I knew Dr. Sattilaro personally from my days as a reporter in New York. I interviewed him when the book was published. He had the typical western skepticism and scientific approach and this was an asset in analyzing macrobiotics. His body was riddled with cancer, he was in excruciating pain and his own medical colleagues (he was president of the hospital) had given him up for dead. His adoption of an extremely low protein and no-sugar diet (and by that is meant no fruit juice, no honey, so sweets period, not just sugar) gave him relief from the pain and sent him into remission. He wanted it emphasized that he had also undergone western treatments including surgery and felt that helped too. The macrobiotic diet is not infallible. Disease is partly a matter of genes, diet and perhaps above all, the hidden thoughts, motivations and desires within our own psyche. But in my opinion, cancer cells need protein and sweets in order to grow, and they recede when denied those things. This book is a superb introduction to the subject. I give it five stars. Also recommended: "Healing Miracles from Macrobiotics" by Jean Kohler.



5. Dr. Sattilaro's book it well written, seems honest and is informative. However, the plural of anecdote is not data. For the sake of full disclosure, I have eaten a mostly vegetarian diet (no red meat or poultry with some fish) for 38 years. The simple diet at the core of macrobiotics makes good general health sense. It is not the prescription rather the fanaticism of the prescribers that I question. I have known very few people who make more absolute claims with less data than those who push macrobiotics. In my experience, their zeal fits them with religious fanatics of all flavors. but, like all doctors (and all witch-doctors), they bury their mistakes.
   
   As Mark Twain wrote long ago: "Be careful when you read health books; you might die of a misprint." I believe that resistance to absolutism and fundamentalism is a quality of life issue. As a general observation, fanaticism lowers the quality of life for the fanatics and for those around them. After I watched my dear friend, Bill Neal (a world-class macrobiotic fanatic), die of aggressive cancer complicated by macrobiotic-faith-healer misdiagnosis, I became more vocal in asserting that no approach to medicine can claim to have all the answers... especially those practices with almost none of the data.
   
   My dad's mother had 13 children. My grandmother died of a heart attack after carrying a big vacuum-cleaner up three flights of stairs at the age of 85. She said something I've never forgotten: "This world would be a far better place if people paid as much attention to what comes out of their mouths as they do to what they put in'em." There's more to good health than good eating. Believing that you have all the answers while possessing almost none of the research is bad mental hygiene that leads to lousy medicine.
   
   "Recalled By Life," is a good book. If you have cancer, or worry about getting it, certainly look at improving your diet, but don't fire your doctor; find a holistic healer, who did not skip medical school.
   
   Joey Tranchina, M.A.
   ... Lest anyone take this as professional medical advice, my Master's Degree is in poetry.
   
   
   PS. The title quote: "Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime..." from Reinhold Niebuhr's 'Irony of American History," is very beautiful.

5 comments about Cancer Vixen: A True Story.

1. A breast cancer comic book? YES. Ms. Marchetto has given us all the gift of the story of her experience in a very accessible form.
   
   One thing that stands out: the poignant interactions with her fellow cancer patients nearly brought me to tears.
   
   Thanks for writing such a great book.



2. I have purchased this book 3 times, 1 for myself and 2 as gifts. I don't even know how to describe how great this book is. Not only is it an amazing story of survival, but it has a lot of great information in it. Highly Reccomended!



3. I found this book incredibly entertaining ...simply a great read! It rocked my emotions from sadness, to laughter, to disbelief and made me feel extremely fortunate by the end. The cartoons are creative and oh, so humorous. The comedic relief was provided by Mom who could be my own. The story is a triumph over breast cancer and sends a powerful message to all women and families.A must-read, whether you are afflicted with breast cancer or not. You won't be able to put it down.
   Barb



4. This book is truly excellent. I laughed and I cried. If you enjoy comics, intelligent ones, this is a gem. Will Eisner in heels. A fantastic book. I loved this work.



5. I loved this book! Have been waiting for M.A. book since read "Who the hellis SHE anyway?!"
   My mom survived ovarian Ca and also could appreciate this book. Saw her tear up and laugh all within a couple of pages. I work in Women's health and have shared this with many intrepid women and they say it has helped too.
   Now want to try the restaurant...
   Thank You M. A. M.!

3 comments about Change in the Weather: Life After Stroke.

1. I found Mark's book very informative. I am living with a father that had a stroke last year and it was interesting to compare the stroke and recovery process. The major differences between the stories is that my father is 81 and I found him within five minutes of the stroke so he was able to benefit from the clot busting medication. Many of the rehab exercises for my father are similar to Mark's. Until I read this book I had not been able to get this information from someone that had experienced stroke or was caregiver for a stroke patient. All too often when I spoke to someone that had a loved one suffer a stroke their story usually ended with a death shortly after the stroke. I'm thankful I found him so quickly and that he survived the clot busting medicine. They let you know when you sign the consent that your loved one might not survive it. That is an awesome responsibility for anyone. I've encouraged everyone I know to talk to their loved ones so they will know how you feel should they every have to make that decision for you.



2. 
   
   MarkMcEwen has written an excellent book for those who have had a stroke or are caring for someone who has had one. His positive message is one of hope for all.



3. CHANGE IN THE WEATHER: LIFE AFTER STROKE tells of a news anchorman at the peak of his life - and enjoying it - when he suffered a stroke. Mistreatment and misdiagnosis nearly cost him his life - and this memoir documents these issues, also following his rehabilitation from a massive stroke in which he lost some of his greatest gifts. A powerful account of triumph over harrowing physical issues evolves.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch