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Book Notes
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The Lucky Gourd Shop
By Joanna Catherine Scott A.M. '77.
Washington Square Press, 2000. 295 pages. $13, paper.
When an American mother's three
adopted daughters reach their teens, they grow curious about
their Korean heritage. A much-anticipated letter provided by
the children's Korean orphanage fails to satisfy their curiosity
and conflicts with memories. In an effort to give her adopted
children a history in which to situate themselves, the American
mother creates a heartbreaking and inspiring tale of their birth
mother's life. The author herself raised adopted Korean orphans
with her husband while living in the Philippines. |
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An Improper Profession:
Women, Gender, and Journalism in Late Imperial Russia
By Barbara T. Norton and Jehanne M. Gheith, editors.
Duke University Press, 2001. 321 pages. $19.95, paper.
Norton, a history professor at
Widener University, and Gheith, associate professor of Slavic
and Women's Studies at Duke, have collected the writings of
ten scholars who explore how early women journalists contributed
to changing cultural understandings of women's roles, as well
as how class and gender politics meshed in the work of particular
individuals. Covering the period from the early 1800s to 1917,
this compilation examines how female journalists adapted to--or
challenged--censorship as political structures in Russia shifted. |
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Pumped: Straight Facts
for Athletes About Drugs, Supplements, and Training
By Cynthia Kuhn, Scott Swartzwelder, and Wilkie Wilson.
W.W. Norton & Co., 2000. 190 pages. $14.95, paper.
For every athlete, from the weekender
to the pro, this thorough reference book of advice is the latest
from these researchers and teachers in pharmacology and psychology
at Duke Medical Center. The trio's first book, Buzzed, covered
the gamut of the most used and abused drugs. Pumped provides
the latest scientific information in a clear, accessible style. |
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Weather Boy: A Story of
D-Day
By Steve McCoy-Thompson '84.
1stBooks Library, 2001. 165 pages. $13.98, paper.
Written for seven- to twelve-year-olds,
this novel is about ten-year-old Frankie Brown, an unlikely
World War II hero. While fighting over the radio with his sister
during a weather report, he receives an electric shock that
gives him the ability to forecast the weather. When General
Dwight D. Eisenhower learns of the "Frankie phenomenon,"
he sends for him, with his mother and sister, to help with scheduling
the invasion of Normandy, which has been impeded by unpredictable
weather. Frankie's father is already in England, a paratrooper
preparing to land behind enemy lines. |
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Durham's Lincoln Hospital
By P. Preston Reynolds '79, A.M. '81, M.D. '85, Ph.D. '87.
Arcadia Publishing, 2001. 128 pages. $19.99, paper.
A century ago, Lincoln Hospital
opened its doors to all patients, but primarily to meet the
medical needs of the city's African-American population. Its
construction costs were met by Washington Duke, who gave $5,000
for an endowment. Lincoln offered a nursing school and a program
for medical internships and residencies. It closed in 1976.
As part of the Black America Series, this book provides a pictorial
record--more than 200 photographs--of the people who contributed
to its history as a center for patient care and medical education
in a changing South. |
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Getting Ready for Baby:
The Ultimate Organizer for the Mom-to-be
By Hélène Tragos Stelian '85.
Chronicle Books, 2001. 200 pages. $14.95, ringbound.
Newborns don't come with instructions,
so Stelian, mother of twins and author of Oh Baby! A Journal,
provides them in this informative handbook. Organized chronologically,
from first trimester to the daycare interview process, it includes
pages for personal and medical contacts; to-do, baby-proofing,
mom-to-be, and new-mom checklists; and tips on shopping for
maternity and baby clothes, interviewing obstetricians, baby-shower
responses, nursery planning, and health-insurance needs. |
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The True Path: Western
Science and the Quest for Yoga
By Roy J. Mathew.
Perseus Publishing, 2001. 290 pages. $25, hardcover.
Mathew, a physician, psychiatry
professor, and associate professor of radiology at Duke's medical
school, is clinical director of the Duke Addictions Program
and the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Center in Butner, North
Carolina. He explains how the latest brain research supports
the idea that quieting the neurons that take care of everyday
activities allows for a more spiritual contemplation of life.
With scientific evidence that this "pure consciousness"
truly exists, he shows readers how to use meditation, yoga,
and other traditional Indian methods of contemplation to achieve
this spiritual state of mind. |
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Around Quitting Time: Work
and Middle-class Fantasy in American Fiction
By Robert Seguin Ph.D. '94.
Duke University Press, 2001. 211 pages. $17.95, paper.
The author, a visiting assistant
professor at the State University of New York at Brockport,
analyzes the works of Nathaniel West, Ernest Hemingway, Willa
Cather, John Barth, and Theodore Dreiser, modern writers who
were acutely sensitive to the American web of ideology and utopic
vision. He argues that a pervasive middle-class imaginary is
the key to the enigma of class in America, the supposed classless
society. |
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The Journey is the Reward:
A Year of Teaching and Traveling in Rural Hungary
By Mike Taylor '88.
New Tricks Publishing, 2001. 178 pages. $9.99, paper.
This first book is a humorous
account of leaving Corporate America for a modest job abroad.
Whether swimming in the thermal baths of Eger, backpacking through
Budapest, or sneaking through the secret passages of Dracula's
castle, the author shares his adventures of far-away places
and strange-sounding names. |
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