In Defense of Food

by Michael Pollan

Pollan makes several statements in this book which should hit us all pretty hard. One rule to eating "right" would be "don't buy anything in the grocery store your great-grandmother would not recognize." His point is that the processing of food is what has led to a "western diet" and the ills associated with that diet. Nutrition science has stripped natural foods of the good stuff and replaced with synthetic, poor mimics of those nutrients. He mentions that usually the only area of a grocery store we should visit would be the area around the "edges." Think about that - I find that in the last few years, that is where I do 90% of my food shopping. This is a slow read, but it is full of "a-ha" moments. I will report more on this later.

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Reverend Guppy's Aquarium

by Philip Dodd This is a delightful book which gives us the origins of product names. One of my many "I heard it on NPR" books, this one has not disappointed this reader. I am halfway through the books and have loved learning the origin of the name "Jacuzzi" and "frisbee." Part of this is because I love WORDS and LANGUAGE. The other part is the beauty of invention. I'll have it for swap in October at our book swap session.

The Blooding

by Joseph Wambaugh While Wambaugh usually writes fiction, he broke from his mold and wrote this nonfiction book about DNA evidence. He wrote about the FIRST time DNA was used to exonerate a suspect, and also how DNA was used (in the same case) to convict a suspect. The book is a good tale of how the British government obtained blood from all men in a certain area of Britain (which would never happen in the USA) to use the new technology provided by Sir Alec John Jeffreys. Jeffreys's research had only been used once prior to this case, and that was to determine a citizenship issue. Being a police/crime writer, Wambaugh does get bogged down in the case work and the investigators, but read on - the science is good. I find copies of this book at every used book store I enter - and I buy them to place in the school library. And then read "Pointing from the Grave" by Samantha Weinberg - you'll be glad you did.

The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco

by Marilyn Chase A great story of how the Plague came to San Francisco in 1900 and how it was eventually eradicated. Dr. Rupert Blue shines as the hero in the second plague event. Blue promoted and preached sanitation to contain the disease, but it was only when he focused his attack on the newly discovered source of the plague - the infected rats and their fleas - that he finally eradicated it— one of the great, little known, triumphs in American public health history. We see the streets of San Francisco from a "rat" point of view, and how factors like earthquakes can dislodge the rats and bring about illnesses. Hmmmmm. Beth Dunigan at Mississippi College shared this read with me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't know how either of us stayed sane during the Ph. D. crisis, but we both read more than just research for the dissertations. Therein may lie the sanity.

Aleta's Book Report

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