Where Did I Leave My Glasses? A Book to Remember

Martha Weinman Lear's lamentations on memory failings - normal memory failings - are somewhat long-winded, but her conversational style is engaging and her book is packed with enough well-researched findings to make it worth the reading time.

On its surface, the 2008 release Where Did I Leave My Glasses? is reassuring. Most of the frustrations we experience are "normal." Nagging questions like,  what's his name, when did I find out about that, and where did I leave my glasses? are to be expected as we age.

Sorry, the truth hurts.

And (spoiler alert!) Lear includes no surefire remedies and frankly, her advice is anything but sexy: There's no magic bullet, not even Ginko biloba, and the best diet advice is this: A heart-healthy diet is also a brain-healthy diet." See? Ho-hum, boring stuff - we know that. (Why most of us eschew the advice is another matter.)

The bottom line: human memory is a strange and wondrous thing. Understanding the difference between procedural, semantic and episodic memory* and realizing most of your "where are my glasses" moments are episodic means you don't have much to worry about. Well, no more than the rest of us do.

Happy reading, whateveryournameis.
_ __ __ _ _ __ __ __ __ _ __
Memory primer: 

Procedural memory = remembering how to walk

Semantic memory = remembering what walking is

Episodic memory = who was I walking with, and what was her name? 

When Google's Doodle Informs My Reading Choices

Anyone else add Fools Crow to their reading list this morning? 

Thank you, Google, for mentioning it. I have to admit the company often slips me a history lesson, courtesy of the morning doodle. Today's doodle featured author James Welch, a Native American who wrote novels about, among other things, the loss of a culture. 

In a long quest to find and use natural remedies that work better than pharmaceuticals, or at least sans scary side effects, I have often lamented that we likely lost volumes of vital health information when we wiped out the Native American people. 



In a nutshell, Fools Crow is the title character, a young warrior and medicine man living in Montana with a small band of Blackfeet Indians. And, now, thanks to the Google doodle, it's on my (damn long) 2R list. 

Cheers. 

Image crecdit: Google, 11-18-2016

PS: In case you still question the value of having a blog, consider: Google has one.

January Reading & Help Wanted

What are you reading? I'm happy to announce that I made it through all of my National Geographic issues. From 2014. Here's the positive spin: I'll never run out of reading material. Yay!

Food for Thought

I've just begun reading Anticancer: A New Way of Life and I'm hooked! A smart friend who is a very selective reader recommended it highly (hi, Bekah!) and once again, she proves the master of understatement. "It's good," she said.

"It's awesome!" is more accurate, I say.

Author David Servan-Shreiber, MD, PhD, was a recognized and rising research physician when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. That's when he discovered how little he (and fellow medical professionals) knew about nutrition and its role in preventing and treating disease.

The book's website provides a nice example of how to provide credible information without giving too much away for free. In this case, the book is worth the price!

What the website doesn't say, at least not overtly, is that the book is positive - never preachy - and well-written. In short, it's a pleasure to read. If you've read it, and would like to offer a more thoughtful review of it, please let me know.

2016 Help Wanted

What are YOU reading? Anything you'd like to share? Guest bloggers are welcome! If you'd like to write a review to be published here, please (please!) contact me via my Dumb Facebook page or on Twitter.

Henrietta Lacks, Would that we'd known you when...

"No dead woman has done more for the living." -- from a review in The Guardian

And yet she was dead for 20+ years before we acknowledged her.

Without a doubt, this one will stick with me.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, is so good I'm not going to attempt a full review. (The New York Times actually did two, following up its original with a sequel.)

Look, this blog is intended to give advice about what to read, or not. My advice on this book is: READ IT.

And while I'm crazy about libraries, I recommend buying this one, because chances are very good you'll want to take your time with it - it's not hard to follow, but there's a great deal to the story, and you'll probably need some time to absorb it. When you finish it, I'll bet you'll want to share it with several friends and family members.

I hope you'll buy a copy for those you know who are interested in writing, science, medicine, or law. Like I said, there's a lot to the story.

Read it.

Update: In September 2015, somebody who almost certainly didn't read the book tried to ban it. Obviously, not gonna happen - the movie hits HBO on April 22, 2017. 


  Update, 2017... And now it's a movie! 

So many books! (How many is too many?)

Last week I drafted a post about reading too many books at once. (I was reading seven, at the time.) But I procrastinated, over-thought it, and now ... I'm reading more. DOH!

Bookmarks. Don't judge me.

How many books are too many to have "open" or bookmarked at one time? (Um, you remember bookmarks, right? the ones you can touch, feel, and ... oh never mind. You either do or you you don't, and if you're reading this, I'll assume you do.) 

Here's my RIP* list - share yours?

• Checklist Manifesto (almost done!)
• Your Negro Tour Guide (most likely to quit before I finish; just not as captivating as the title)
• The Photoshop Elements 9 Book for Digital Photographers
• POP!
• Chiropractic First
• The Tower, The Zoo, and the Tortoise
• The Paris Wife
• How to Read Literature Like a Professor
• Who Am I?
• White Water (ok, I finished it - all 32 pages! - but must re-read before reviewing it)
• The Sword Thief/39 Clues series (with my 8yo- this counts, right?)
• The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog (most likely to land on top of the pile - it's Dave Barry!)

*Reading in Progress

Reader beware

 Have you read about the possible/probable link between sweetened carbonated beverages and pancreatic cancer? Will you?  Probably not.

If you do read about it in a consumer magazine, however, you probably won't recognize it. The study, conducted in Singapore on more than 60,000 people over 14 years, found that those who drink more than two cans of carbonated sweetened beverages (pop) each week are more than 87% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than those who drink less.

Unfortunately, about all you're likely to see in a glossy monthly or your local newspaper is this: "Researchers in Singapore say there may be a connection between sweetened carbonated beverages and an increased likelihood of pancreatic cancer." Worse, you might see the results twisted into a PR campaign touting the virtues of drinking diet (artificially sweetened) pop.

Readers, please beware.

Golf is Bad 4 U, Fixing the Root of the Problem, and Other Interesting Topics

Alas, a new year dawned on my old pile of magazines, finding it nearly as deep as ever. I'm still wading through...and I've learned:

Golfing can make you deaf. (Discover Magazine January 2009)

The hottest treatment for heart attacks is hypothermia. (This link to NYT article dated December 4, 2008; a longer article in Popular Science is quite good.)

The stem cell answer may lie within. (Discover Magazine January 2009) ...

...and I have too many $#%& magazines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't Start Smoking, but....

You might want to check out this article in Discover Magazine, A Nicotine Pill Could Help Dementia Patients. I think it's scary and awesome, the lengths to which we'll go to develop a pill... studies have suggested rats can concentrate better after they've been injected with nicotine. But of course, many of nicotine's other side effects are bad.

Naysayers are suggesting we could all avoid dementia by eating whole foods and generally having a better diet. Which is a great idea. Next time I'm at the library, remind me to visit the cooking section. I don't think hot dogs fall under the "whole foods" category.

Read that Rx

I've been sick lately and of course, I read the (rather lengthy) material that came with my prescriptions. I had to call the pharmacy, anyway, because while it was clear I was to take a series of six pills, then five, then four (you get the idea) each day until there were no more, it was not clear if I was to take the lot at once, or spaced throughout the day.

I got my answer but the experience made me, even in a weakened state, rise up on my soapbox. (Yes, there are several soapboxes. In this case, it was the be-careful-what-you-write soapbox.)

Speaking about prescriptions, I was really taken by an AP article that ran in my local paper today: Thou shalt see a doctor. Reportedly, last month the Rev. Keith Troy made every man in church stand up and agree to go to the doctor in the next three months. Rev. Troy had had a rough week, having seen four of his parishioners die. And he knows many more will follow soon if they don't start taking care of themselves. According to CDC statistics, Black and Hispanic men are the least likely to see a doctor regularly, and not because their health is especially good.

Rev. Troy had the good judgment to make the men in his congregation not only stand up publicly - he also had them write down their name and phone number so the church could follow up with them, and help get them to an appointment if necessary.

Amen to that - and praise be the power of words.

Here's to your (and their) health!