When faced with medical advice questions, such as “who do you trust?”, librarians are taught to offer this advice: look at reliable sources. What is a reliable source? Ideal sources include published sources like medical journals, recognized textbooks written by experts in the field or medical guidelines produced by nationally or internationally reputable experts. One other important factor when reading medical information: make sure it’s current, in some cases not older than one year.

If vaccines are a subject matter you would like additional information on, here are a few current selections from Stillwater Public Library. Vaccine: the controversial story of medicine’s greatest lifesaver by Arthur Allen. “An account of vaccination’s miraculous, inflammatory past and its uncertain future”.  Deadly choices :how the anti-vaccine movement threatens us all by Paul A. Offit. “The story of anti-vaccine activity in America, its origins, leaders, influences, and impact”.    The vaccine book : making the right decision for your child by Robert W. Sears. “Dr. Bob Sears provides an in-depth look at each disease/vaccine pair and covers everything you need to know”. Sexually transmitted diseases . Lauri S. Friedman and Jennifer L. Skancke, book editors. “Introducing issues with opposing viewpoints”.  The great influenza :the epic story of the deadliest plague in history by John M. Barry. “This crisis provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon.”.

Started reading this book, because it was on the Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century. It’s a personal goal to read these books. But, I did not finish the book. Picked it up again because it was a book club book, and finished. It was not a popular book among our book club participants, but I feel a since of accomplishment for reading Joyce, as it was a difficult book to get through. What a person receives from reading books like this is not really measurable, only our perceptions change about people and life.

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Who do you list as your friends?  Do you still have friends from grade school or high school?  Do you keep in touch with you best friend from college, or have you moved on as life took you in a different direction?

The answers to those questions are more important than you might realize. According to Jeffrey Zaslow, author of THE GIRLS FROM AMES: A STORY OF WOMEN AND A FORTY-YEAR FRIENDSHIP, women between the ages of twenty-five and forty are most at risk for losing long term friendships and the many benefits that come with them.   Caught up in the joys and demands of marriage, children, and careers, many women in this age group lose touch with each other. Making time for friendship in an already busy schedule can seem like a low priority. However, as Zaslow points out,  “Having a close group of friends helps people sleep better, improve their immune systems, boost their self-esteem, stave of dementia and live longer.”

But how does that happen? How does the person you met in preschool become your best friend in grade school, your long distance confidant  in college,  and the person who flies in from four states away to attend your mother’s funeral?  The girls from Ames, Iowa might not be able to answer those questions directly, but they have lived the answers. While taking a year off from his job as a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Zaslow spent a year getting to know these amazing and wonderfully ordinary women. Reading his book, you will feel like you know them too.  Getting together once a year, rehashing stories, confronting current issues in their lives, these women have a remarkable story of friendship.  Friendship that has thrived across the years, the miles, and varieties of life experiences because, as Zaslow and the women themselves put it , they “had raised some expectations and lowered others. They had come to expect loyalty and good wishes from each other, but not constant attention.”

Looking into an imaginary crystal ball one night when the girls were still young,  the insurance executive father of one of the girls told her, “Odds are likely that in fifteen years, one of you girls will be estranged from the group.  Two of you will be divorced.  One of you will still be single.  One of you may be dead.  That’s how life works.”  Some of those predictions came true, but he was wrong about the estrangement. Death had indeed taken one of the girls, but the others were still together, separated by circumstance but bound together in the same loving friendship that had carried them through so many of life’s big transitions. 

At the end of his introduction, Jeffrey Zaslow writes, “Theirs is the story of eleven little girls and the women they become. I feel privileged to have this oppurtunity to tell it.”

 One of my favorite spiced tea recipes can be found in SUPERLATIVES…THE BEST OF OKLAHOMA by The Junior League of Oklahoma City. To make the mix, combine 3 oz. lemonade mix, 2 cups Tang, 2 cups sugar, ¾ cup instant tea, ½ tsp. cloves and ½ tsp. cinnamon. Add three to four heaping teaspoons to one cup of boiling water and enjoy. THE OPRAH MAGAZINE COOKBOOK offers a soothing Fresh Lime and Honey Tea:  squeeze 3 limes; add the juice, ½ cup honey, 3 Tbls. Black tea or 4 tea bags and 4 cups of boiling water.  Steep for 3 min

  Mariel Hemingway offers fresh, organic suggestions in MARIEL’S KITCHEN.   Her Hot Apple Cider mixes 5 cups unfiltered apple juice, 1 ½ cups fresh squeezed orange juice, 6 cinnamon sticks and 12 whole cloves. Bring ingredients to a boil and simmer for 15-20 min.  Remove from heat and steep for 20 min.  Strain and serve. 

 SMOOTHIES AND JUICES by Ed Marquand has several warm drink suggestions.   For a great flavor combination, combine a medium apple, one pear, and a pinch each of nutmeg and cinnamon.  Remove seeds, stem and peel if desired, process with a juicer or blender, mix and warm.  Or, try the Warmed Mandarin Orange, Ginger and Honey beverage: juice 6 mandarin oranges; add 1 tsp. grated ginger, and 1 tsp. honey.  Warm to desired temperature.  For a different kind of heat, add Tabasco sauce to tomato based drinks as suggested with Tomato, Cucumber, Tabasco smoothie.  To make this unusual treat, process in blender, 2 medium tomatoes, 1 cucumber, chopped and 1 squirt Tabasco sauce. These recipes are just a small sampling of delicious hot drinks that can be found in the recipe books your local ibrary.

Recomendations for 2009 include:

The Worst Hard Times by Timothy Egan.   A National Book Award Winner, WHT follows the stories of those who inhabited the great southern plains.  Immigration of settlers in 1887 into ‘No-Man’s-Land began with pioneer dreams of earning a living on their own piece of land.  Others followed because of speculative newspaper ads picturing beautifu,l established towns when in reality the purchasers would find nothing but a rough and tumble upstart establishment. Living in dug outs, sod homes, rough wood shacks or better built homes in town, common companions were dust, dirt, rodents and bugs. Respiratory illness, death by dust pneumonia and losing one’s mind because of the constant buildup of dirt and dust inside and outside the living quarters claimed almost all families. Egan describes this ecological and economic disaster with vivid, unforgetable descriptions using diaries, newpaper accounts  and oral histories.

 Letters from the Dust Bowl by Caroline Henderson.    Caroline Henderson 1877-1966, moved to the panhandle in 1907 to teach school and settle land through homesteading.  She met and fell in love with Will Henderson after hiring him to dig her well.  Together they built a home, had one daughter, who became a physician and farmer.  Caroline was an educated woman, who loved the land, God and her counrty and submitted articles to various publications before WWI and to Atlantic Monthly during the dust bowl and depression.  She wrote intellegently about the joys and pains of farming, finding a suitable church that did not offend her sensebilities, the ravages of the dust bowl on the land and people and the local and national degredation during the 1930-1940 drepression.

 Up from Slavery by Booker T. Wahsington.   A first hand description in an autobiography, detailing the pitifully hard life of African Americans and the actions people took immediately after the Civil War, as free people. Bit by bit, hard scrabbling Washington accomplishes his goals, eventually establishing Tuskegee Normal School in Tuskegee Alabama. One of the Modern Library Best 100 Nonfiction Books of the 20th century, this was a marvelously good book to read. I enjoyed the fascinating accounts and was inspired by Booker T. Washington’s life.

 Memory of Running by Ron McLarty 9-2009  Sedated into meaningless day to day existence brought on by hurtful circumstances in his life, forty-something Vietnam vet Smithson “Smithy” Ide drinks and eats himself into oblivion every night and supervises the placement of arms and legs at an action figure toy factory during the day.  In a drunken act, an obese Smithy begins to ride an old Raleigh bicycle toward California to claim his beloved sister’s remains.  Hate, fear, prejudice and sickness are encountered on his quest, as well as help and kindness that lead the reader to empathize and root for this bumbling troubled man.

 The Tailgater’s Cookbook by David Joachim

Joachim has a tailgater’s big checklist to help you think of what you might need at the tailgate party.  Chapters include, In the Cooler, On the Grill, Out of the Pot, From the Thermos , and In the Bag with “before you go” and “when you get there” instructions for each recipe.

 What can I bring? Cookbook by Anne Byrn

According to the front cover, this book contains over 200 great-tasting, easy-to-tote dishes for parties, picnics, potlucks, backyard barbecues and any get-together.  The recipes come with Tote Notes (how best to transport the dish), Plan Ahead (how far ahead the dish can be prepared) Big Batch (how to multiply the dish), and When You Arrive (how to put the finishing touches on the dish). Plus, there are super-quick recipes called “Grab and Go” for each section.

 Other books with outdoor cooking themes or tailgating recipes include:

The Complete Hamburger: The History of America’s Favorite Sandwich by Ronald L McDonald, Grilling for Dummies by Marie Rama, Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library Outdoor Cooking by John Carroll, Born to Grill by James Beard, The Big Book of Outdoor Cooking and Entertaining by Cheryl Jamison, Ina Garten Barefoot Contessa Parties by Ina Garten, and John Hadamuscin Special Occasions by John Hadamuscin

Smithy’s life is turned upside down when his loving and caring mother and father are killed in an automobile accident and upon opening some mail at their home, discovers that his long lost mentally ill sister, Bethany, remains are being held in California awaiting family retrieval.

In a drunken act, an obese Smithy begins to ride an old Raleigh bicycle he had as a teenager toward a fishing hole he frequented as a youth and then passes out on a grassy knoll. The next day, in almost a mindless state, as if being programmed to ride, this very sore muscled over-weight man continues to bicycle town to town, state to state toward California to claim his beloved sister’s remains.

Akin to Forest Gump who decides to run across American for his own reasons and grow his hair and beard, Smithy Ide to most people appears to be a homeless bum on a bicycle. Hate, fear, prejudice and sickness are encountered on his quest, as well as help and kindness from strangers and a wheelchair bound neighbor, Norma, who has always been in love with Smithy since they were children.

Smithy’s story unfolds from his point of view in simple thoughts and words. In many tangled situations, when an explanation composed of sentences would have helped him out, silence or one or two word responses seem to be his only means of communication leading the reader to empathize and root for this bumbling troubled man.

The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty was an easy read, finishing it quickly in a week. Read it for a book club and enjoyed the story.

 A lot of us have an understanding of life for the white race after the civil war, easily attainable with media saturation through books and movies.  Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, and  North and South by John Jakes are a few books made into movies about this time period.  Then there was The Civil War by Ken Burns produced by PBS television, with many descriptions of life before, during and after the Civil War.  In Up from Slavery, Washington gives a unique first hand written description in an autobiography, detailing the pitiful hard life of African Americans and the actions people took immediately after the war, as free people.   

 As a very young child, Washington remembers the strong desire he had to learn to read. He recounts as well the memory of always working, doing some type of manual labor.  Bit by bit, hard scrabbling he accomplishes his goals; learning the alphabet and reading, studying his numbers, adding and subtracting.  The descriptions of life are hard, just barely above the captive farm animals.  The diet, living conditions, two tablespoons of molasses on Sunday for the slave children, and tiring work are all described in detail. 

All fascinating accounts, Washington’s writing is excellent and feels like you are sitting with a friend who is telling you a personal story. The explanation of how and why men and women who were formally owned created their new first and last names with “entitals” are stories I have heard about but never read. 

 Booker T. Washington became a great student, orator, and friend to man.  Establishing Tuskegee Normal School in Tuskegee Alabama, to train and educate the former slaves,  men and women, in the trade arts, wishing to use the newest scientific and best practices methods available. 

 One of the Modern Library Best 100 Nonfiction Books of the 20th century, this was a marvelously good book to read and I enjoyed the fascinating accounts and was inspired by Booker T. Washington’s life. Other African American recollections about slavery and racism during this time period include works by Frederick Douglass, Escape from Slavery: The Boyhood of Frederick Douglass in His Own Hands, Charlotte L. Forten,  The Journal of Charlotte L. Forten: A Free Negro in the Slave Era,  Mattie Griffith,  Autobiography of a female slave,  Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the life of a slave girl,  and Moses Roper, Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery.

It’s not surprising that Jane Austen, a perennial favorite, has been the focus of several such efforts. Colleen McCullough, author of the enormously popular book THE THORN BIRDS, has taken Austen’s book PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and added to the story line of the forth Bennet sister.  Lydia is a silly, spirited, willful, unforgettable character, who serves as a wonderful starting point for a new story. 

Along the same lines, Carrie Bebris has written four mysteries involving Elizabeth Bennet, also from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.  This original classic ends when Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy Fitzwilliam marry.  Bebris creates a story which involves the beloved characters Elizabeth and Darcy with new characters, new circumstances and plenty of  mystery.

Another author, Stephanie Barron, uses the wildly popular author herself as the  main character for her books. In the Jane Austen mystery series, readers follow Miss Austen across the 19th century English countryside as she uses her great intelligence and wit to solve crimes as well as write novels. 

In another interesting variation on the Jane Austen theme, Karen Joy Fowler writes about six women in California who join a book club to discuss Jane Austen novels.  Over the next six months, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable, and love happens – all in the spirit of  Jane Austen,  a writer who gave the world stories we will never forget. And never stop dreaming about.