PT Bookshelf

Getting Personal By Phillip Lopate (Basic Books) Boyhood memories:
Brooklyn, cafeteria tomato soup, a tough family life. Young man’s
memories: lechery, artistic torment, movies as cinema. Grown man’s
thoughts about work, history, politics. This collection of essays covers
familiar territory, but few can do it with as much poignancy and humor as
master essayist Lopate.

Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion By Brian Alexander
(Basic Books) A tale of two cultures: the menagerie of
“transhumanists,” Leary followers and Bay Area roustabouts
who believe technology will stop aging, and the hard-nosed, arrogant
biotech elite who are making regenerative medicine a reality.
Alexander’s writing is breathless and herky-jerky, but his history
is well-reported and dense with insight.

The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals
By Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (Ballantine Books) Do pigs dream? Do ducks
pine for lost love? Through interviews and anecdotes collected in 10
countries, Masson argues that farm animals are more like us than we may
care to recognize. Sympathetic ears may heed his call to veganism;
critical thinkers may be put off by his lack of scientific rigor.

Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood By Julie
Gregory (Bantam) Gregory was in a college psychology class when her
childhood finally made sense. The professor described Munchausen by
Proxy, an illness in which parents convince their children they are
sick—or actually make them ill. Bolstered by photos and actual
medical records, Gregory’s story is both riveting and
unbearable.

Life Like Dolls: The Collector Doll Phenomenon and the Lives of the
Women Who Love Them By A.F. Robertson (Routledge) A fascinating
subject—compulsive collectors of porcelain dolls—rendered a
bit dry. Anthropologist Robertson, cautious not to stigmatize his
subjects, pulls his analysis up short, quoting copiously from ad copy.
Yet this subculture is engrossing enough to make this scholarly book a
pretty good read.

The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse
By Gregg Easterbrook (Random House) Hard-won blessings of the 21st
century—prosperity, medicine, greater justice, nice
stuff—have turned us into griping malcontents, Easterbrook argues.
What’s our problem? Our lives are disconnected and meaningless.
This lively treatise recommends old-fashioned solutions: global altruism,
gratitude and forgiveness.

The Pursuit of Perfection By David and Sheila Rothman (Pantheon
Books) In the medical world, cure and self-improvement have often been
confused. Take, for example, hormonal research being turned into a
“cure” for shortness. Or the evolution of hormone-replacement
therapy as a way to treat hot flashes. Sheila and David Rothman look into
medical history to see what happens as science, profit and medicine
collide.

How Not To Be My Patient: A Physician’s Secrets for Staying
Healthy and Surviving Any Diagnosis By Edward Creagan with Sandra Wendel
(Health Communications) Sure, there are already plenty of books on health
and illness. But this one, written by a Mayo Clinic cancer doc, combines
conventional medicine with not-so-common advice on spirituality, staying
connected, and how to deal with doctors, hospitals and treatment
options.