effect

If you missed Gary Soto's short stories the first time around, here's your chance to enjoy a great collection of his older pieces along with some new ones. While Soto makes it look easy, his series of generally two- to three-page recollections are a primer on how to see the things people walk past, overlook or forget, the things right in front of you. From stories pulled straight from his childhood in Fresno and reflections on growing up to the present, Soto's gift is evoking what he's seen and felt and combining it all in honest, vivid prose. In The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy you will find writing that is sad, funny and sadly funny. It contains insights that are both personal and universal. Soto is not only a teriffic "Chicano writer," but, a teriffic writer without any categorical qualifier.

Essayist and poet Soto provides a series of sketches and vignettes In The Effects Of Knut Hamsun On A Fresno Boy which includes the contents of two previous works in addition to five recent essays published in different journals. The result is a smorgasbord of images and reflections on social issues, growing up in California, and moments of Soto's Latino youth.

Deborah Cadbury has managed to convey an incredible amount of information in a useful, logical way. Pesticides, toxins, estrogens, and many chemicals used in every day products like food containers are tied to reproductive disorders like endometriosis, uterine cancer, testicular cancer, breast cancer, and infertility. I could not stop reading this book. Many of the points made are so obvious that I have often wondered who is hiding the information form society linking the source of toxins to the health effects. Why is it that government and industry value money over human life? I assume that most people are too ignorant or complacent to act to protect their health by not driving cars (or limiting use), eating organic foods, demanding more wildlife areas, conserving energy and using renewable sources instead of building more power plants, and being informed as to health risks and causes. The only thing I would have liked to see in this book is detailed resource information. Specifically, what companies use these chemicals, where they are known to be in the environment and at what levels, cancer rates by area, etc. - where do we go to get this information.

This is a very important book. It is based on an 'Emmy' award winning BBC TV programme. Scientists around the world are finding alarming changes in human reproduction and health. There is strong evidence that sperm counts have fallen dramatically. Testicular, prostate, and breast cancer are on the rise. Different animal species are even showing signs of 'feminization' or 'changing sex,' the males actually producing eggs like females. According to scientific evidence compiled worldwide, the prime suspect in these worrying findings is the increased exposure to chemicals that can mimic the female hormone estrogen and other hormones. Indeed, man-made chemicals like DDT, PCB and other hormone disrupters have become soaked into our environment from their use in countless modern products, from plastics to pesticides. Only now is the full impact of their extensive use coming to light. Believed responsible for genital abnormalities and cancers across a wide range of species, these hormone disrupting chemicals may pose a threat not only to our human potential, but to our very survival. Through extensive interviews with fertility experts and scientists world wide as well as members of the chemical industry, Deborah Cadbury provides a balanced, cogent, compelling argument that propels us toward a disturbing conclusion. In the spirit of Rachel Carson's groundbreaking work, Silent Spring, Cadbury's well researched, even handed analysis of these findings is a startling wake-up call to the far reaching consequences of widespread environmental pollution.

Dr. Zechner's book on the economic impact of free trade agreements contains a very valuable in-depth analysis of the issues, very helpful for international trade policy advisors, economists, government officials, globalisation activists, students and everyone interested to learn more about trade economics.

The author analyses the advantages of elimination of trade barriers between a developed and developing country and discusses the potential negative impacts and pertinent mitigation strategies. One very important, yet often overlooked area, namely environmental issues, is discussed in detail in a separate chapter dedicated to labor and environment. The book contains an analysis of the Chilean economy and the country's past and present economic policies that opened the way to free trade agreements.

It is well organized and for the busy reader, the very well written introduction provides an excellent guide to the contents of each major section of the book. It also presents, in 10 well organized appendices, a wealth of historical and economics based technical information that will help the non-specialists understand the relevant issues.

Dr. Zechner does an excellent job in explaining the complex economic issues around a free trade agreement. It should be read by everyone who always wanted to understand the benefits and costs of free trade as discussed in trade rounds at Doha and Cancun.

Dr. Zechner does an excellent job of describing NAFTA's
possibilities. Although it is not inevitable, NAFTA may
expand and this text is essential reading for policy
makers considering the implications of a free trade zone
extending into South America.

Most of us are quite aware that a positive attitude helps us feel better but fewer people are aware of why. A positive attitude stimulates certain hormones and enzymes that strengthen our immune system and can give us an overall feeling of improved well being. In this book the reader will learn how stress, tension, anger, loneliness, depression and negative feelings in general can lead to a variety of physical ailments. It also shows how positive influences in our life can improve our health and contribute to a longer life. Music, biofeedback, prayer, meditation, happy fulfilling relationships, pets and basic responses, such as laughing or the feeling of a warm touch not only increase our emotional state of well being, but they can actually improve our physical state as well. Stress is a personal affair. Each one of us must discover what activities cause us stress and which ones help to relieve our stress and soothe away inner tensions.

As a counsellor, it has become apparent to me that many individuals often recognize when they are under stress, but most people are not able to determine for themselves the "degree" of stress that plaques them. A prime example of this is high blood pressure. One individual may have apparent symptoms while another may have no significant symptoms at all until a stroke or heart attack strikes. "Feeling Good Is Good For You" is an excellent book which helps the reader understand the connection between mind and body, and how, to a certain extent, we can control the state of our well being. There has obviously been an extensive amount of research undertaken in writing this book, and it is one well worth reading.

Those who enjoyed and learned from Dr. Dean Ornish's fine book, Love and Survival, will be glad they read Feeling Good Is Good for You. Drs. Charnetski and Brennan report on fascinating scientific research in human studies concerning the positive influence that various pleasurable experiences and influences can have on the body's immune system. "The human drive for pleasure, if satisfied in moderation, can assist us on the pathway to good health." The authors make it clear that pleasurable experiences and environments are not the only ways that the immune system can be supported.

The book provides a basic overview of how your immune system operates, and how various diseases are encouraged or repelled by strengthening or weakening immune responses.

The starting point for all kinds of mind-body research (psychoneuroimmunology or PNI, in this case) is the well-known placebo effect. Many people get better if they think they are receiving medications, even when they are not. The placebo effect works best when the evidence of receiving medication is strongest (such as through an IV in a hospital). This effect is a real one because the brain can calm stress-based hormonal and chemical turbulence, trigger feel-good chemicals, and cause chemicals to be released that stimulate the effectiveness of the immune system.

The book goes on to take a detailed look at how optimism versus pessimism, hostility, stress, music, friends, love, touching, pets, laughing, light, visualization, religious practices, eating and drinking habits, and the degrees of these factors influence specific parts of the immune system. At the end of each subject, you are given suggestions for ways to apply the lessons to your own life. In several sections (such as the one about stress on pages 76 and 77) you will find tests you can take to measure how this factor affects your life now.

The key lessons of these practices are summarized on page 181 as a 13 point pleasure formula.

One impressive part of the book was that the authors look at the implications of following these practices if these scientific studies are later overturned by newer research. Their argument that following this advice will do no harm seems persuasive.

Although I was aware of much of this kind of research from reading other books, I found many studies here that I had not read about before. Of particularly interest was the new research that the immune system can be conditioned to become stronger.

The big surprise for me was to see that one quiz showed my stress level to be apparently much greater than I would have subjectively described it as being. I wonder if you can build up an immunity to feeling stressed, even as potentially stress-inducing situations occur. Also, I wonder if different factors affect individuals differently. I find considerable pleasure in some of the "stressful" events on the list.

After you finish enjoying applying this book's "pleasure in moderation" lessons for a few days, I suggest that you think back to other things you have done in the past that have brought you stress reduction, contentment, moderate pleasure, or peace. How can you also incorporate those activities and elements into your life now?

Give a boost to the moderate enjoyment instincts of those you meet!

This delightful book, "Field Days," perfectly fits its title. As author Roger B. Swaim writes in the introduction, field days means not only "the sense of there being explorations and scientific investigations carried on outdoors," but also that it carries connotations of "the sense of unfettered activity, extreme pleasure, delight, and enthusiasm." In this work Swaim explores a number of biology and natural history issues in his native New England - and often of the world at large - ranging with pleasure and enthusiam from one topic to another almost as a butterfly flitting about a sunny meadow. Much in the spirit of his book, I provide a small review sample of some of the chapters of his book.

"Trackside" explores an unusual topic, railroad flora. He writes that trains are often excellent dispersers of seeds, often resulting in many exotic and unusual plants being found along railroads. From alianthus to onions, sesame to cucumbers, snapdragons to petunias, castor bean from Africa to Dallis grass from South America, pears to apricots, all have been found along railroads, places traditionally thought of of as waste places. Swaim explores how these plants arrive in such an odd location, how they survive, and just marvels at the wonder of it, of how nature always finds a way.

"Gypsy Moths" explores one of the most hated denizens of the eastern United States, insect invaders that spread like a plague ever year to the chagrin of local residents, "horrified by the thousands of dark, hairy caterpillars with their blue and red warts, horrified by the incessant leaf chewing, and revolted by the steady drizzle of caterpillar droppings from the branches overhead." Swaim explores the biology of these insects, their history in the United States, their effects on the local ecology, and of humanity's war against them. Even with these much maligned organisms Swaim finds interesting and enlightened things to say.

"Guests at Work" explores one of those uniquely New England pasttimes; making maple syrup. If you never knew how it was made and wanted to know this chapter is a treat, showing how even small residential plots have yielded rich syrup, from light amber Grade A syrup to molasses-dark Grade C.

Showing his enthusiasm for the natural world world knows no bounds, in "The Ungracious Host" Swaim explores a subject I don't see often discussed at least in my readings in popular natural history writings; lice. Exploring their biology, the different types of lice that afflict people, their interaction with humans, and how people combat them, Swaim provided me with information I never knew!

There are of course many other subjects discussed in "Field Days," from fungus to growing and harvesting cranberries to evergreens to pollen (and hay fever) to how animals and plants deal with the arrival of spring to issues of lake water quality...so many topics are discussed with humor, authority, and enthusiasm that there is something for everyone.

Roger Swain not only writes of the garden: how and when to "let nature take its course;" photosynthesis and evergreen leaves; future, scientific uses for cranberry juice beyond asking a bartender for a more sophisticated drink than ginger ale; bee venom as a treatment for arthritis---he also makes all of his extaordinary thoughts interesting and entertaining.

This is a book for people who realize that our actions have effects on our world. and, perhaps more importantly, it should be read by those people, including politicians, who do not.

Swain is the science editor of "Horticulture" magazine. He writes gracefully (i.e. in his "Fair Days For Vegetables" he tells us that "For many, just the subject of tomatoes is enough to leave a good taste in their mouths.") and his essays can be read and re-read. My personal favorite, which I've read three different times, is about the declining quality of our water: "A Drink You Can Swim In." Swain writes of the popularity of bottled waters and cleverly quotes Samuel Clemens: "To increase something's popularity you have only to increase the price...." RECOMMENDED

With Bush touring the West talking about logging as the solution to preventing ever larger forest fires, this book provides ample documentation that FIRE SUPRESSION and MONOCULTURE REPLANTING are the real causes of the current explosive environment.

I first saw this book at the top of Mt. Harkness. The fire watchman there pointed it out to me, as we both struggled to peer at Mt. Shasta through the smoky haze created by the Biscuit and Fremont fires.

The differences in the trees and ground cover between now and the last century is striking. Most of the photos taken in the late 1800's show trees devoid of branches below 20 feet, and very little ground cover. Photos of the same area taken recently show thickly limbed trees down to ground level, with dense underbrush. Without hundreds of little fires to regularly clear out the low limbs and undergrowth, the forests become dense tinderboxes. When a fire finally breaks through fire suppression, it kills the trees instead of burning their limbs.

This unusual photographic interpretation of ecological changes brought about by forest fires in the Sierra Nevada since 1849 will provide a guide which should intrigue both California residents and any interested in forestry issues, park management or ecosystems. Chapters use historical photographs to document changes which have taken place over the past 150 years, from early settlements to modern times. Fire In Sierra Nevada Forests will add fuel to debates over prescribed fires and logging issues.

Excellent book that provides a thorough grounding to the field. Keep the updated editions coming every few years and it will continue to stay at the top.

Free radical biology has become a big research area. This text is definitely a helpful tool for students and professionals alike. Halliwell and Gutteridge are both the "authorities" in free radical research. The book contains the basic concepts of metabolism, metal interactions, free radical formation, and antioxidation. The book then relates these processes (that is, oxidative and nitorsative stresses) to pathological events using various disease paradigms. The text contains good illustrations. It is an excellent reference material for everyone who is entering the field of free radical biology and medicine.

This is an absolutely outstanding book which gives in depth insight into the mind set of an anorexic, how they became so and how they can be treated. I am a 25 yr old female and 9 months ago suffered a horribly severe relapse of anorexia. A literally starving skeleton I ended up in therapy. I had no idea WHY I was this and my therapist suggested a long reading list. An avid reader I began devouring these books and it was "The Golden Cage" that had my soul reeling in agony. My husband of 8 yrs. read it, as well as his parents. This book was about me. Word for word, I was a text book case. Hilde Bruch unveils the truths behind the eating disorder in an easy to read as well as sensitive manner. A little out-dated in some respects (such as insinuating that any girl who exercises for fun must have something wrong with her!) as it was written I believe in the 70's, it is still valid as to the How's and Why's behind the disorder. Believe me, in order for a beautifull, healthy young woman to put herself through starvation, obsess with food every second of the day and become a neurotic, hyper-sensitive beast, there must be something deep inside that went severly wrong. This book tells us why, as well as how we / they can be helped. If you are a parent, PLEASE, read this with an open mind and heart and above all, DO NOT BECOME ANGRY!! Most importantly, seek help not only for your child, but for yourself as well. The road to recovery is tough for everyone.

A remarkable description of the basic personality and family mechanisms involved in teenage mental disorders and their anorectic expression.

The Hades Moon is a "must read" book for anybody with Moon-Pluto aspects in their chart. You will never think of this aspect in the same way again. With its fascinating case studies ( the Kennedy family, John Lennon, the Bronte family and more) it is a compelling read.It is a very profound book that delves into the depths of the plutonian experience,revealing not only the darkness and pain of Moon -Pluto but all its phenomenal pontential. I loved it and it changed me deeply.

This book is incredibly well written and well researched. It deals with those of us who have the planet Pluto in aspect to our moons. As a person who has Pluto opposing my moon, Pluto ascending and venus in scorpio, this book helped me understand that I am sane, after all! You will have a rich reading experience if you have intermediate astrological knowledge, but even a beginner will really enjoy the explainations in this book. Ms. Hall is an easy to read, poetic writer. I highly recommend this for your Astro-bookshelf.

The author is the student who excelled at the University of Toronto, where Thomas F. Homer-Dixon is a professor (and himself author of "Environment, Scarcity, and Violence"), and is now a professor at the University of Southern Florida.

Although the Central Intelligence Agency got this right in the 1970's, clearly warning U.S. policymakers that AIDS and related diseases were "the" catastrophic threat to national security and regional stability in the closing quarter of the 20th century, and although the United Nations and its various agencies have clearly understood the relationship between disease, environmental degradation, and instability--with all that instability brings in terms of crime, forced migration, and so on, the author gets five stars for doing an absolutely brilliant job of putting all of this knowledge--and his own original contributions--into a readable volume that can be understood by the most loosely-educated policymakers we have, as well as the voting public.

The author does a superb job of both crediting others (e.g. Laurie Garrett, whose stunning book "BETRAYAL OF TRUST: The Collapse of Global Public Health" we reviewed last year) while weaving his own insights into the story. ERIDs are "emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases." They matter more now because, as the author summarizes it, modern man is in a very different situation today: "individuals can travel around the world rapidly by airplane, and overpopulation and the growth of megacities have created entirely new 'disease pools' that will allow new pathogens to emerge and flourish."

The author has done a fine job of documenting how "human-induced worldwide environmental destruction" is both releasing pathogens from their hiding places in rain forests, launching new microbes that wreak havoc on aquatic life, and proliferating resistant strains of micobial terrorists we do not understand. Bacteria, in brief, are a thousand to a million times more deadly that any terrorist gang, and we would be wise to get our priorities straight as we set about pretending to govern.

As a general statement, the author appears to have done very very well as identifying intervening variables that could be analyzed, and his conclusions on what needs to be done are "President ready." He not only makes his case, he ends by calling for a massive increase in "health intelligence," and thereby demonstrates a wit lacking in most academics.

The notes are excellent, there is no bibliography, and the index is so mediocre it might as well not have been included--there is also no biography of this talented author, a grevious lack. The book should be reissued with this deficiencies being corrected.

For vexing reasons, political scientists have long neglected the role of health in understanding societal stability and regime transitions. Price-Smith begins to fill this void by offering this excellent genesis for the field of health security. Using some of the models developed by Thomas Homer-Dixon regarding nonrationality and complex causality, Price-Smith critically examines how HIV, malaria and TB, among other, could have potentially devastating consequences--for the developing and the developed world.

What makes this book all the more useful is that Price-Smith goes beyond the anecdotal or journalistic accounts that have dominated our understanding of public health's relationship to politics. He provides both rigorous statistical analysis and compelling case studies to prove his points. His writing style is clear and unassuming, a welcome approach for those without an extensive public health/biology background.