August Book Finds

Yesterday I went to Value Village and perused the book aisles. Their books cost more money than those I find at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store, but I generally can find some books that I would really like to own. Here is a partial list of what I found:

The Heart's Code by Dr. Paul Pearsall. If you are interested in the discipline of psychoneuroimmunology , or how the emotional/psychological aspect of human life can influence the health and function of the body, then this is one book you will want to read. It contains an authoritative and comprehensive summary of some of the important scientific findings related to the emotions and cellular memory. I read this book a few years ago and it contains stories about heart transplant recipients who took on some of the traits and preferences of their heart's donor. Most people don't realize this, but their hearts have a "brain" in them that has something in the order of 80 million neurons which is as much as some parts of the cerebral brain contains. This brain in the heart is capable of storing information as well as transmitting it to the head and in some experiments has even over-ridden the head's instructions. Ever have the experience of knowing something "in your heart?" It kind of sheds an interesting light on some of the Scriptural instructions to guard our hearts, etc., at least for me.

The G-Index Diet by Richard N. Podell, M.D., F.A.C.P This is a "diet" book based on the use of the glycemic index, which is an approach to eating that I advocate and need to implement more consistently. I am going to be using this approach and starting back to the gym tout de suite et maintenant, s'il vous plait! If you don't know about the glycemic index, this is an index that tells you how fast a particular food breaks down into blood sugar. The lower on the index something is, the slower it breaks down to sugar and the slower and less of a rise in insulin levels your body experiences. Since you are producing less levels of insulin, you are also giving your body less of a signal to store food energy as fat instead of burning it for energy. Get it?

How to Have a Smarter Baby: The Infant Stimulation Program for Enhancing Your Baby's Natural Development by Dr. Susan Ludington-Hoe. This isn't so much for Sweet Baby James as it is for my own information and use with children I see in my practice. But if James benefits, so much the better. I would get this book and read it even if I didn't have James because it contains information in an area I am really interested in -- how to stimulate brain growth. Some of this information may still be applicable to older children and even adults, given the plastic nature of the brain.

The Experience of Childbirth by Sheila Kitzinger Anything by Sheila Kitzinger on the topic of childbirth is worth reading and should be read by expectant parents. It is sad the way that birth has been medicalized in North America into a disaster just waiting to happen and has been co-opted by a system concerned primarily with disease and things that go wrong. Sheila helps you to see things the way they should be. I am collecting her books when I find them to pass on to my daughters.

More Alike Than Different by Lee Bussard This book was written by a man who is disabled and I picked it up because I am appalling ignorant about the lives of disabled people and want to know more.

A Treasury of Handmade Gifts by Kate Yeates I always have this dream of sitting down and doing some arts and crafts with my girls. Maybe this book will help me to actually do it.

Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne This is a read aloud for Garnet and Elodie.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.

Harvard Classics -- These are some of those nicely bound hard covers of classic authors that are dark green in color and embossed with gold. I picked up one which contained works by Bunyan, Izaak, and Walton and another with works by Ben Franklin, Woolman and Penn.

There were a few others, but this is all I feel like commenting on for now.