When bad news comes
How to deal with a devastating diagnosis
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
BY MEG NUGENT
Star-Ledger Staff
"THIS IS A book about what you must do to take care of yourself while your heart is breaking."
That's how author and social psychologist Jessie Gruman introduces the difficult topic of handling bad health news in her new book, "AfterShock: What to Do When the Doctor Gives You -- or Someone You Love -- a Devastating Diagnosis" (Walker & Company, $16.95).
Fowl play at the country club
REVIEW BY KRISTY KIERNAN
JoeAnn Hart takes on the New England social set in her clever debut novel, Addled. When geese descend upon the carefully manicured golf course of Eden Rock Country Club, changes are set in motion that bedevil both blue bloods and employees alike.
After bond trader Charles Lambert brains a goose with a sliced golf ball, the club's already tenuous hold on the traditions and rituals that provide structure to an ever-weakening elitist system is shaken. As Charles' guilt over the dead bird drives him to find his true calling, he distances himself from his wife Madeline, and finds a new respect for his animal rights activist daughter, who sets her sights on turning Eden Rock vegan.
Poor beleaguered Madeline must not only try to figure out a new relationship with her husband and daughter, but also withstand the attentions of a studly young lifeguard who runs the risk of appearing in the club's secret book of lovers (and therefore possible fathers of club children who must, in turn, never marry their unknown relatives), a corpulent gourmand whose probing questions are as far-reaching as his appetite, and the increasing suspicions of fellow members who've taken note of Charles' apparent break with their reality.
But the geese don't cause problems for Eden Rock members alone. The employees gather their fair share of heartache and hilarity when otherwise competent general manager Gerard can't control his staff, including the food-obsessed chef, Vita, who sets her sights on a succulent resolution to the goose problem, and greens manager, Barry, who adopts an orphaned gosling as well as a new, organic view on golf course management.
When the members take things into their own hands—employing alcohol-fueled, shotgun-toting midnight raids—the feathers fly, and carefully guarded secrets and social boundaries fall like geese from blue skies during hunting season. Addled sings with carefully observed satirical wit and is pure, laugh-out-loud funny. Hart knows her subject as well as she knows her audience, and this accomplished debut makes for a perfect summer read.
BOOSTER SHOTS
Hug a microbe today
By Rosie Mestel
Bacteria, viruses and fungi cause of all kinds of major and minor plagues and pestilences: bird flu, Ebola, smallpox, athlete's foot. We blast the critters with antimicrobials and recoil in horror should a cookie we're about to eat fall on the ground. (Unless there's no one watching — in which case many folks, we suspect, eat the cookie.)
As for worms: Well, think tapeworm. And cringe.
But there is another way to think about microbes and worms — as entities that have lovingly helped shape the human form. Such is the viewpoint of evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk of UC Riverside, author of "Riddled With Life: Friendly Worms, Ladybug Sex, and the Parasites That Make Us Who We Are."
The upside of disease
By Anna Mundow
April 8, 2007
The titles of Marlene Zuk's thought-provoking and sublimely witty books tell readers what to expect: "Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can't Learn About Sex From Animals" and now "Riddled With Life: Friendly Worms, Ladybug Sex, and the Parasites That Make Us Who We Are." In "Riddled With Life," Zuk challenges us to consider disease not as an enemy to be eradicated by applying anti bacterial wipes to every surface of our lives, but as an essential part of every living entity's development and survival. Zuk spoke from the University of California, Riverside, where she is a professor of biology.
Q. Why do you call for "disease appreciation " ?
A. The world is full of books that I summarize as "Ebola's Coming : We're All Going to Die." But there's another side to this. Disease has been incredibly important in shaping everything about us. There has been no stage of life in which living things have not had to interact with parasites and pathogens. In fact there's a reasonably well - supported theory that our cells initially evolved with tiny parasites that eventually became the organs inside those cells.
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