Nightstand (August 2013)

After writing last month’s Nightstand lamenting how few books I’m reading these days, I promptly finished Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes the next day. Hooray! My spirits were lifted and I am optimistic again.

That Daniel drove the entire way to Wisconsin and back gave me plenty of time to do additional reading, so this month is looking pretty good.

This month, I read:

• The Fertility Diet by Jorge Chavarro and Walter C. Willett with Patrick J. Skerrett
  No, I am not trying to get pregnant. But seriously, when a dietitian sees a title like this from McGraw-Hill and Harvard Medical Press she just has to take a look. It turned out to be an intriguing look at what the Nurse’s Health Study reveals about diet and ovulatory infertility. Certain parts (the recommendation to eat full-fat dairy, in particular) may be a bit controversial, but the recommendations are generally science-based (although cohort studies are necessarily difficult at establishing causation) and probably useful for anyone struggling with ovulatory infertility. Because many of the recommendations work through managing insulin and adrogen production, this general diet may also be useful for women struggling with the effects of PCOS. I’d love to see some prospective studies using this diet for the treatment of infertility.
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  This was our second book club read. I put the title in the hat after reading Heather’s review and was a little surprised that we ended up drawing it. This book, about a mentally handicapped man who was chosen for an experiment to “make him smart”, turned out to be an excellent choice with plenty of opportunity for discussion. Read Heather’s review for the caveat emptors, but I do still generally recommend it as a good and thought provoking book.
• The Longevity Project by Friedman and Martin
  I read this based on an article I read about it online. It follows an interesting prospective study of children from the twenties who were followed throughout their lives–and looks for predictors of long life. It looks like longevity isn’t quite so straightforward as we think–and there are multiple paths to long life. For instance, neurotic men don’t generally live a long time, but when wives die before their husbands, neurotic men are more likely to live longer than non-neurotic men. So you can’t necessarily say “neurotic is good” or “neurotic is bad”. The information was interesting, but the presentation was pretty dry. I don’t know that I’d recommend it for the casual reader.
• Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
  A look at what the science says about child-rearing (which isn’t always intuitive). I found this fascinating enough that I’m writing up notes on it for future reference (and, yes, you’ll probably be subjected to those notes in the form of blog posts–I apologize in advance.) Practically everyone read this before me and I know I saw it mentioned on half a dozen hundred blogs–but I can’t seem to find where I bookmarked any of them. So, if you reviewed this book you probably contributed to my reading of it. Please consider yourself thanked.
• The Thyroid Sourcebook for Women by Sara Rosenthal
  It was a decent coverage of thyroid disease, but not my favorite resource. Meh.
• The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet by Barbara Rolls
  I read this while I was an undergraduate (before it was “The Ultimate”) and loved the science-based recommendations. I use Volumetrics-type concepts daily in my counseling. This time, I spent a week following the Volumetrics recipes, to see how the official “diet” works on an every day level. The good news is that the recipes are varied and relatively easy to prepare. The bad news is, like my husband said, “They’re okay, but I like your cooking better.” I think the recipes suffer a bit taste-wise from being so low-fat. Adding in some good unsaturated fats in moderation will increase the caloric density of the foods (meaning that they won’t promote weight loss as quickly)–but will probably greatly contribute to the palatability of the recipes.
• Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes
  Someday I’m going to review this in full. For now, I’ll say that it has been a source of argument between me and my husband and has almost reduced both of us to tears. Taubes seems determined to keep nutrition professionals from taking him seriously (for the matter, determined to make nutrition professionals angry at him) in the first half of the book before getting to his actual thesis in the second half. After numerous starts and not a few angry rants, I finally got to the section including Taubes’ thesis and found that it is a reasonable hypothesis to explain excess adiposity (the deposition of excess body fat vs. lean tissue). That being said, don’t read until you’ve read my full review lest you learn from Taubes that you shouldn’t believe a word I say.

Also Reading this Month:

• Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
  I got it for the Reading to Know Bookclub. I read 1 chapter. I got busy with other things. Bleh! I still think I’ll plug through, but I’m bummed that I’m yet again slacking with the RTK club.
• Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther by Roland Bainton
  Continuing from previous months…this is a very interesting look at one of the leading Reformation figures.
• Kneeknock Rise by Natalie Babbit
  Just started and not far enough along to have an opinion. I generally like Babbitt, though, and Carrie recommended this highly.
• Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden
  This month’s book club pick; it tells the story of two college-educated society women of the 1910s who traveled to the “uncivilized” Western slope of the Rockies to teach school. It took a while to get into it (the author started telling backstory before I was invested in the characters, which was a bit distracting), but I’m enjoying it now–and need to finish it quickly to discuss on Thursday!

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!