The Book Babes

WHAT THIS SAYS ABOUT YOU, MOM

ELLEN SAYS: Thanks to Minnesota Public Radio for having me as a guest to talk about memoirs today! The Babes congratulate MPR fand host Kerri Miller or believing that a discussion about books can attract listeners -- and money -- during a pledge drive.

Here's a nod to the nearest holiday: What mom doesn't want to be remembered with a book?  Well, an illiterate one, perhaps, but that demographic  is probably not dialing up this blog. So here are a few suggestions for the mother who reads, thinks and without hesitation would throw herself under a bus on your behalf. (Not that you owe her a gift, but think about it.)

We've coupled each book below with its most appropriate type of recipient. However, given the likelihood that YOUR mom contains multitudes, maybe you should present all four in a beach bag. Then throw in a ticket to Hawaii...

FREUDIAN FANNY: "The Story of a Marriage," by Andrew Sean Greer. So you thought the '50s consisted of sitcoms and backyard barbecues? There was so much more, Greer tells us, in this story of one Bay area couple whose life together portends the civil rights battles to come. Lovely writing. Wife Pearlie is a dear, but, well, get a clue, honey.       

REAL-LIFE RITA: "How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed," by Theo Pauline Nestor. Breaking up is hard to do. But Nestor's story of how her marriage imploded and, better yet, how she survived, marks the steps of denial, grief and acceptance that go with having a man flake out on you. Oprah watchers, this one's for you.       

POLITIC POLLY: "Writing in an Age of Silence," by Sara Paretsky. It's a presidential election year, and the media are going wild. If your mom is a political junkie with progressive tendencies, this memoir should suit her fine: Here the writer known for her crime novels traces her path to becoming a writer through a consciousness alert to injustice and the misuse of power.

SASSY SALLY: "The Late Bloomer's Revolution," by Amy Cohen. You don't have to be thirtysomething or unmarried, like the author, to laugh out loud at Cohen's search for herself and a man. (Trust me: I'm neither young nor single, and I burbled like a maniac.)  But you do need a keen sense of irony about love and life. "Seinfield" fans, unite. Bonus: Cohen's mother is a dream, always seeing the bright side when her daughter can't: "Who else but you can get away with wearing a pillowcase as a headdress? How fun!"

CRITICS AND THE FEMALE FREY

THE WORD FROM ELLEN: Okay, I admit I was suckered in, too. Reading "Love and Consequences," the newly published memoir about growing up in South-Central L.A. by Margaret B. Jones, I accepted the idea that the young child Jones was so attached to her natural mother that she would rather stay with her than admit that she was being sexually molested. Here, I thought, is a graphic example of how kids gravitate to bad mothers and would rather stay with their own kin, even when they might be safer with unrelated adults. Wow, this is SOME story.

But that was last week. Now we know that Jones made the whole thing up, a revelation that follows on the heels of the similar discovery that "Misha," a Holocaust "memoir," is also pure fiction. It's James Frey and "A Million Little Pieces" all over again.

And here's how it looks from one critic's point of view:

1. Unbelievably, the book publishing industry is still having a hard time with fact-checking. This, after the public humiliation of the Frey affair and its denouement -- all caught on Oprah, with a doyenne of New York publishing, Nan Talese, made to look like she has spent too much time in Manhattan and not enough in the Real World. That event should have scared the pants off of any sober agent or editor repping anyone who claims his or her book is their story. But apparently, no.

Jones's bubble was burst with a phone call from an obviously estranged sister. In no longer than it took someone to dial a number starting with 212, a THREE-YEAR project built on a lie came to a sudden, gut-dropping halt, with the revelation that Margaret B. Jones was actually Margaret Seltzer, product of a private Episcopal school, not the gritty drug deals portrayed in her book. A deal "for less than $100,000" -- that's big money in my book -- had been allocated to an unworthy cause that could have had its cover blown with a few spot checks. Simply verifying where the author went to high school and college would have upset Jones/Seltzer's apple cart before it started rolling. It might also have given her the chance to recast her book as fiction. But that, of course, presents its own problems, such as how to market a gritty book about home boys when the author's background looks a lot like mine --white-bread, sheltered, not the kind of person who necessarily sounds convincing when she says she understands life on the streets.    

   
2. I believed, too. This concerns me. Of course, I had nothing to do with the deal. Nor did The New York Times. But, as a regular reader of said newspaper, I noted Michiko Kakutani's glowing review and for that reason set aside the book for special attention. (This is not an insignificant act when publishers send you far more  books than you can digest. It's up or out in this business.) I also read the article about Jones in the Times' weekly House & Home section closely enough to find out that Jones attended my alma mater, the University of Oregon. (False advertising, apparently. Well, "Go, Ducks," anyway.)  I even mentioned the book to two friends, describing Jones's sad depiction of the foster home experience.

My point (and I do have one) is this: Book critics are at the end of a long food chain that's built on confidence in the system. It's centered on the rather modest proposal that books are reasonably vetted before they hit the reviewer. Whether it's fiction or nonfiction, reviewers posit that the publisher treated the product with enough care and respect that we ought to, as well.

Should Kakutani have smelled a fraud? Perhaps, and the Times lamely suggests that she did, quoting her remark that "Love and Consequences" feels "self-consciously novelistic" at times. But it wasn't her job to stop the madness. She accepted the book on faith, and so it goes in book publishing: Like the financial markets, ours is a game built on trust. When and if we become cynical about the system -- when we not only suspect but believe that cynical considerations lilke sales potential trump truth-telling -- the gig is up.

Sure, "Love and Consequences" and the Holocaust fantasy "Misha" and Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" are only three books among -- how many? Thousands or tens of thousands, and that's just the memoir category. But you have to wonder how many more frauds have gone undetected, and about why agents and editors don't first beam a strong light on anyone who claims to have a compelling story to tell. Don't tell me these are isolated cases; that's not how the world works. Either publishers start sniffing out the rats first, or critics must play their role assuming there's one to smell.                      

MONEY TALKS -- TOO MUCH

ACCORDING TO ELLEN: Call it a publicity stunt, if you will. But Oprah's offer to let fans download Suze Orman's Book, "Women and Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny," netted 1.1 million takers -- and gave book publishers a persuasive test case to show that there's synergy between what they sell and the benefits of marketing via the Internet. Margo and I talk about the Orman offer on our latest radio program, to be found in the archives at WMNF.org, for two reasons -- first, we're fans of Orman and her call for financial prudence (Pay off those credit cards! Dump the geek who wants you to support him!); and second, once again Oprah finds the issue of the day: It's time for America get its fiscal house in order.

How the heck to do this? Well, I'm no economist, but I know how to read. Besides Orman's how-tos, there are plenty of books out there that can help you understand how we the people and you the consumer got into the mess we're in. Right now Margo and I are working this angle for our soon-to-be published book, "BETWEEN THE COVERS: The Book Babes' Guide to a Woman's Reading Pleasures." And rest assured, even if John Kenneth Galbraith doesn't sound like your kind of reading, Econ 101 isn't the only way to get a handle on the spending whirligig we've all been riding.

Example One: The Shopping Gene. Almost every woman has one, doesn't she? Partly because, for most of us, that's our job -- whether it's going to Costco for more toilet paper (I got a great sweater there on my last trip!), heading for the local nursery (time to fertilize!) or thinking about that perfect spring outfit (bell bottoms? Been there, done that)...

So, make a budget, sure, but also take a gander at the bigger forces that have made us a bunch of shopping fools. Check out Paco Underhill's "Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping," or Thomas Hine's "The Total Package: The Secret History and Hidden Meanings of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Other Persuasive Containers," or Winifred Gallagher's "It's in the Bag: What Purses Reveal and Conceal." Scope out books about lifestyle changes that show how bigger trends have invaded our personal space, such as Sara Bongiorni's "A Year Without 'Made in China': One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy." Individual change is good, but working together to understand why is even better.

THE BOOK BABES PROGRAM: WMNF-FM 88.5

Check out the next Book Babes radio show today (January 16) at 11:30 a.m., airing on WMNF-FM 88.5 in Tampa. The program also streams on the Internet at that time at www.wmnf.org.

If you miss the live show, no worries. All the programs are now being archived on the WMNF site as -- although it's still a bit of a slog to find them (we're working on that): Click On Demand at the left of the Home Page, then Archives, then Public Affairs (just below Alan Watts on the schedule grid) then The Book Babes and finally scroll down to the archives. Thanks for being patient!

On the January 16 program, The Book Babes discuss the news of Tom Wolfe's latest book and give some juicy book recommendations: "The Sound of Language: A Novel" by Amulya Malladi, an original trade paperback from Ballantine (Margo's pick) and "Once Upon a Quinceanera," by Julia Alvarez, out from Viking (Ellen's pick).

In the show's final segment, Margo talks to Ellen when she's in San Francisco participating in the first ever West Coast board meeting of the National Book Critics Circle (first ever out-side-of-New-York board meeting, in fact). The NBCC board gathered to pick the finalists for its annual awards. Ellen, chair of the Autobiography committee, talks about two books -- two very different diaries -- she was backing in that category: "The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982," by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco) and "Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin's Russia," Anna Politkovskaya (Random House). As you can see below, both made the final cut. So did Alvarez's "Once Upon a Quinceanera." So, Ellen was three for three.

Here is the complete list of the NBCC finalists:

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Joshua Clark: "Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone" (Free Press)
Edwidge Danticat: "Brother, I'm Dying" (Knopf)
Joyce Carol Oates: "The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982" (Ecco)
Sara Paretsky: "Writing in an Age of Silence" (Verso)
Anna Politkovskaya: "Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin's Russia" (Random House)

NONFICTION

Philip Gura: "American Transcendentalism" (Hill & Wang)
Daniel Walker Howe: "What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848" (Oxford University Press)
Harriet Washington: "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present" (Doubleday)
Tim Weiner: "Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA" (Doubleday)
Alan Weisman: "The World Without Us" (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s)

FICTION

Vikram Chandra: "Sacred Games" (HarperCollins)
Junot Diaz: "The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao" (Riverhead)
Hisham Matar: "In The Country of Men (Dial Press)
Joyce Carol Oates: "The Gravediggers Daughter" (Ecco)
Marianne Wiggins: "The Shadow Catcher" (Simon & Schuster)

BIOGRAPHY

Tim Jeal, Stanley: "The Impossible Life Of Africa’s Greatest Explorer" (Yale University Press)
Hermione Lee: "Edith Wharton" (Knopf)
Arnold Rampersad: "Ralph Ellison" (Knopf)
John Richardson: "The Life Of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932" (Knopf)
Claire Tomalin: "Thomas Hardy" (Penguin Press)

POETRY

Mary Jo Bang: "Elegy" (Graywolf)
Matthea Harvey: "Modern Life" (Graywolf)
Michael O'Brien: "Sleeping and Waking" (Flood)
Tom Pickard: "The Ballad of Jamie Allan" (Flood)
Tadeusz Rozewicz: "New Poems" (Archipelago)

CRITICISM

Acocella, Joan: "Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints" (Pantheon)
Alvarez, Julia: "Once Upon a Quniceanera" (Viking)
Faludi, Susan: "The Terror Dream" (Metropolitan/Holt)
Ratliff, Ben: "Coltrane: The Story of a Sound" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Ross, Alex: "The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS START BETWEEN TWO COVERS

The Book Babes salute 2008 with a full agenda and terrific news: Da Capo Press will publish our book, "Between the Covers: The Book Babes' Guide to a Woman's Reading Pleasures," in time for next year's holiday gift-giving. (Get those orders in early.) In the meantime, we'll continue to recommend great book at this blog and through our radio show, which is heard on WMNF 88.5 FM radio in Tampa. And our New Year's salute starts with three favorite new books for body and spirit: 

1. "You -- Staying Young: The Owner's Manual for Extending Your Warranty," by Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz (Free Press) -- These two docs  have established a bestselling franchise with sensible advice about taking care of yourself so that they won't have to. New forms of health care coverage are probably on the horizon, given the strain that medical care costs are putting on our economy. So the pressure is on to shape up. This book underlines what we've already been told by other experts: that the soreness and slowing down tonce considered an inevitable part of aging is as much the result of bad habits as it is the passage of time. There's a lot of "research shows" factoids here that may or may not mean a wit in the long run. But what makes this series hold together is how it explains thoroughly and in plain English why the basic maintenance recipe still holds up: Eat less, move more, floss daily.

2. "Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body," by Jennifer Ackerman (Houghton Mifflin) -- Speaking of bodily functions, this book covers that topic in a more entertaining way than any book we can remember. Starting with the wake-up call and ending when you turn out the light, it shows what dynamic creatures we really are. Our body rhythms, much less our body temperatures, ebb and flow to match the content of our days. Who knew that cognitive function is so compromised for the first 10 minutes after waking that it's the equivalent of being legally drunk?  Or that congestive heart failure, gastric ulcers and sudden infant death syndrome are most likely to kick in between 3 and 4 a.m.? No prescriptions here, but info worth extrapolating: For instance, because dairy cows make more milk while listening to Beethoven, figure that listening to classical music will make your body work better, too.   

3. "The Book of Psalms," a translation with commentary by Robert Alter (Norton) -- We believe in holistic medicine. So the final recommendation here deals with the spirit, and we can't resist mentioning one of Ellen's favorite for holiday giving. This is an ecumenical offering for anyone who loves the sound of the  psalms in the Hebrew Bible but doesn't necessarily know what they're trying to say. Alter's revisions from the King James version may be small, as in the opening lines of the most famous psalm, the 23rd: "The Lord is my shepherd,/ I shall not want./ In grass meadows He makes me lie down,/ by quiet waters guides me./ My life he brings back./ He leads me on pathways of justice/ for His name's sake."  But each passage is annotated to help explain any alterations and the psalm's literary and historical meaning. You don't have to be a religious person to draw solace from these poetic gems.                  

HOLIDAY HOTTIES

It's gift-giving season again, and The Book Babes are cruising the shelves in search of just the right book for each person on their lists. Here are the ones they mention on this month's radio show, which airs from Tampa on WMNF Radio (88.5 FM) at 11:30 a.m. EST on Wednesday, December 19:

MARGO'S PICKS:
"Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Wine," edited by David Remnick -- This compilation of food writing from past issues of The New Yorker belongs next to the recipe file in the home of two of my favorite cooks. What foodie wouldn't love Calvin Trillin?
"Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain," by Oliver Sacks -- Neurologist Sacks is back with another book about some of his most remarkable patients. These are some whose brain injuries profoundly affect their response to music, offering some clues about how tunes play in our heads. Perfect for my younger sister, a music teacher in Maryland.
"Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing," by Elmore Leonard -- Who better than the bestselling author of "Get Shorty" to cut to the chase and deliver ten commandments for the aspiring writer. This is perfect for a friend who's struggling to finish her novel.

ELLEN'S PICKS:
"I Am America (And So Can You!)," by Stephen Colbert -- At risk of being a shill for a guy who doesn't need me to sell his book, I'm mentioning this because 1) my nephew Billy, a middle schooler who gets the joke, asked for it, and 2) I'm a Colbert fan, too. In his mock political commentator fashion, Colbert hits all the "right" buttons. But unlike those he imitates, he knows that he's ridiculous.
"The Book of Psalms," a new translation by Robert Alter -- My sister has already received her copy of this handsome new translation, which brings the economy of the Hebrew language and valuable footnotes to biblical verse. (SERVE YOURSELF FIRST: I bought myself a copy, too.)
"Cheating at Canasta," by William Trevor -- This new short story collection shows the Anglo-Irish writer still has the right stuff after all these years. Like Alice Munro, he turns the commonplace into a study of relationships and life's fleeting beauty. My California sister-in-law, who just started seminary, gets this one.

MOMMIE DEAREST, PLEASE NOTE

FROM ELLEN: Here's a stat for you: According to Ann Hulbert in her book "Raising America," in 1997 there were five times as many books about parenting being published than were published in 1975. If true, this seems to cut a couple of ways: Assuming that these books address a real need, either kids are more out of control, parents are more insecure, or that fragile unit we call the family has come under siege. I'd guess it's a mixture of all three.

As a veteran of the child-raising wars, I can attest to the one thing you learn from the experience: humility. That's not the driving force behind "The Seventeen Traditions," Ralph Nader's reminiscence about his parents and how they raised him, but it's easy to see why: Nader has never faced the awesome task of raising children himself. Still, the book is a classic for anyone pondering how to raise their child or children with the drive, discipline and compassion that is a Triple Crown formula for a successful life in the largest sense. (I notice in Robert Alter's new translation "The Book of Psalms," he makes the point that "the good life was imagined not in terms of wealth, but of sufficiency -- a man's enjoying the fruit of his own labor." I think Jesus followed up on this with something about the eye of a camel...)

It's hard to take the larger view of parenting when you're down in the trenches. This is why books like Nader's are important antidotes to our sped-up, consumerist culture, and another one that I've been reading is "The Mystery of the Child," by religion scholar Martin E. Marty. If you've got an allergy to footnotes, this may not be the book for you. And if religion turns you off, Marty may not be your cup of tea, either.

But, even when it's couched in a Christian context, the message is easy to understand and has universal application: Quit focusing on the ways to keep a child from running off the rails, he says. Think in terms of guiding rather than controlling. In Marty's view, having a "childlike mind" is a good thing, and the pity is that so few of us retain our "childish" sense of wonder when we become adults. Amen to that!

GRIPE OF THE MONTH

Listeners to our radio show may have noticed a new feature that suits the Book Babes' agenda of digging around behind the scenes of publishing and the world of the literati. We call it "Gripe of the Month," a.k.a., "What People Talk About When They Talk About Books, Authors, Editors, Publishers, Agents and the Inadequate Media Coverage of All Forementioned." We inaugurated this feature with a gripe Ellen picked up from West Coast author Lisa See during her media tour for her latest novel, "Peony in Love." Having logged more than a few thousand miles promoting the book, Lisa remarked on the great turnouts she received in the Heartland, but how much more impressed her publisher was with the audiences who attended her book signings around New York. To so many in the book publishing biz, she remarked, if it doesn't happen in Manhattan, it doesn't happen. See's plaint had to do with how West Coast writers (and, by implication, other regional wordsmiths) are slogging uphill to prove themselves to the New York crowd. Of course, this is not new -- Wallace Stegner made the same point decades ago while he was teachiing at some obscure Bay area university called Stanford.

Times have changed, and there's more recognition for all the good things going on in the hinterlands. But book publishing is still a New York-centric enterprise. So God bless the National Book Critics Circle: in a bid to bust out as a truly national organization, the group is holding a board meeting outside New York for the first time since it was formed more than 30 years ago. The NBCC will be holding public events January 10 and 11 (and, we assume, leaving a piece of its heart) in San Francisco.

But there are so many more gripes to be heard. The Book Babes would love to hear yours -- if, of course, it has anything to do with the subject at hand -- so please write us here with your ideas.

Meanwhile, the next Gripe of the Month can be heard on the Book Babes radio show during Thanksgiving week: This month the Babes address recent remarks by Scottish author Daniel Kalder, rapping the knuckles of our very own Book TV. Patriotic Americans -- not to mention everyone else who cares about books and literature! -- please join us for our response at wmnf.org, starting at 11:30 a.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 21.

THE WRITE STUFF

Margo: Have you noticed the avalanche of books coming
out this fall about writing? One of the more clever
among them imagines what a writing workshop led by
Virginia Woolf would look like ("The Virginia Woolf
Writers' Workshop: Seven Lessons to Inspire Great
Writing," by Danell Jones, due out next month from
Bantam). Isn't it ironic that just when we are getting
such dire news about the drop in the number of people
who read that there would be so many books teaching
people to write?

Ellen: Ironic? No, I think it's inevitable! We have
an aging population with stories to tell, and an entire generation of
young people who were raised in an educational system that separated reading
from writing -- a big mistake, it turns out. As educators now realize, the facility for writing grows
out of reading, of gaining vocabulary and a knowledge of syntax by seeing words and sentences in a larger
context.

Margo: Yup, we may soon see a world where everyone
writes a book, but no one is left to read them! At
least Jones' book may lead some people back to books
by Woolf.

Ellen: I'm charmed by "The Virginia Woolf Writers'
Workshop." However, Jones isn't the first to take
cues from the woman who brought us "A Room of One's
Own": On my shelf of writing books sits "Virginia
Woolf: Women and Writing," edited by Michele Barrett
and published in 1979. Of course, Barrett's book is more a collection of Woolf's writing and Jones' is trying to do something different.

Margo: Well, never let it be said that the publishing
world never repeats itself -- but, yes, Jones is trying something unique: She doesn't
just talk about Woolf's ideas about writing. She
actually imagines a workshop setting with Woolf as the
teacher. But if you don't like that, here's another interesting twist on a book about
writing: "Ron Carlson Writes a
Story," just out from Graywolf Press. Carlson, the
author of eight books of fiction and a master of the
short story ("Do yourself a favor and read Ron
Carlson," says Stephen King), gives a blow by blow
account of how he wrote a short story called "The
Governor's Ball" (which, of course, is included at the
end). I can guarantee you that it's far more informative than watching
Robert Owen Butler writing online (yes, Mr. Butler
once actually put a camcorder in his office and
recorded himself at his desk writing). Never let it be said
writers have no ego.

FAT CHANCE: The Latest Book on Diets

ELLEN: The new book Good Calories, Bad Calories:
Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight
Control and Disease by Gay Taubes (Knopf) is a fat
little sucker in its own right. It makes a good
argument for the theory that refined carbs are
responsible for the obesity epidemic. Publishers
Weekly gave it a starred review. I don't think
there's a more serious or pervasive health problem
right now that this one.

MARGO: Oh please. I'm a skeptic when it comes to such
anti-pasta talk. Doesn't it seem odd that Italians
in Milan don't have the same obesity problem as
Americans in Muncie, Indiana do? Could our excess
poundage be caused by our sedentary ways and our
penchant for overeating and not by spaghetti alfredo?
I think Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don't Get
Fat) and Naomi Moriyama (Japanese Women Don't Get
Fat or Old) got it right. French women eat for
pleasure not for comfort and therefore they don't
binge. Japanese women have the lowest obesity rate on
the planet (3 percent) and they eat rice at almost
every meal, but their meals, which also usually
include vegetables and fruit, are never huge ones.
Supersizing Americans do nothing in moderation.

ELLEN: Based on my experience, I'd agree with you. An
au pair from Denmark who lived with us 20 years ago told me she
was amazed at how Americans snacked all the time, and
I suspect what you're talking about --lifestyle
habits -- are a big factor in our ever-expanding
waistlines. But Taubes says it's primarily because we're on a sugar
high. He's not the first one to associate weight gain
and the diabetes epidemic with the enormous amount of
sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup in our diets.
But he explains why, refuting the accepted wisdom of a
low-fat diet and exercise as keys to good health.

MARGO: Don't get me wrong. I do think that the rise in
diabetes and obesity in this country comes from our
dependence on corn syrup. Anyone who's read Michael
Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A History of Four
Meals will be convinced of that (his riveting account
of where our meals really come from by the way is just
out in paperback from Penguin, so if you haven't read
it, now's the time). But anyone who thinks he can eat
his way to health without getting up off the couch is
nuts. We need to get moving. I know you like yoga as
much as I do, so I recommmend Yoga As Medicine: The
Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing by Timothy
McCall (Bantam). Its a book geared to old ages and to people in
all states of wellness. An M.D., medical editor of
Yoga Journal and a longtime yoga practioner, McCall
combines Western medicine with the ancient discipline
of yoga and provides some practical ways to stretch
and breathe your way to feeling better, addressing
specific ailments such as back pain, arthritis, asthma
and even cancer. He doesn't over cures, but here's
what he says about yoga's effect on diabetes: "Because
high levels of stress hormones like adrenaline and
cortisol raise blood suar levels, and high cortisol
levels also tend to promote both overeating and the
accumulation of intra-abdonminal fat, which
contributes to insulin resistance, as well as to the
risk of having a heart attack, yoga's impact on stress
can ultimately do a lot to promote health and prevent,
delay, or minimize the effects of the disease."