Healthy Diet

            New Year, new diet books. Here are some recently published ones.

            The Economists’ Diet: The Surprising Formula for Losing Weight and Keeping It Off is written by Christopher Payne and Rob Barnett. They are two economists who met while working at Bloomberg, both were formerly obese. They modified their diets using behavioral techniques based on economic principles. Their recommendations include weighing yourself every day, being calorie conscious but not a calorie counter, occasionally splurging, limiting variety, and more.

            Brain-Powered Weight Loss: The 11-Step Behavior-Based Plan that Ends Overeating and Leads to Dropping Unwanted Pounds for Good is written by Eliza Kingsford, a licensed psychotherapist specializing in weight management, food addiction, and eating disorders. Her goal is to show the reader how to modify high-risk situations, cope with stress, and prevent a slip from continuing to a setback or binge. Learn how to overcome your addiction to fatty, sugary, and salty foods.

            The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection is written by science journalist Scott C. Anderson, and medical researchers John F. Cryan and Ted Dinan. They explain how a healthy gut can manage depression and anxiety, by adjusting your intestinal bacteria. The typical American diet, often highly processed and rich in sugar and white flour, is very unhealthy for the body’s microbiota. It also is blamed for causing such illnesses as Crohn’s Disease and diabetes.

            Diet Right for Your Personality Type: The Revolutionary 4-Week Weight-Loss Plan that Works for You is written by health and fitness trainer Jennifer Wlderstrom, featured in NBC’s The Biggest Loser. She describes the requirements for the five personality types and presents a four-week diet and exercise plan for each. Recipes are included.

            Food Can Fix It: The Superfood Switch to Fight Fat, Defy Aging, and Eat Your Way Healthy is written by Dr. Mehmet Oz, well-known television host and health book author. He presents a 21-day weight loss jumpstart plan, and includes healthy recipes accompanied by full-color photographs. Learn to fix problems such as fatigue, pain, bad moods, run-down immunity, and more.

Personal Finance: How to Make the Most of Your Money

           With the New Year comes New Year’s resolutions. And money management is on almost everyone’s list. Let these books guide you in reaching your goals.

            Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter is written by Dan Ariely and Jeff Kreisler. They identify the psychological aspects of poor money management styles and discuss how to override them. They will help you cope with the financial bombshells inherent in credit card debt, household budgeting, holiday spending, and real estate sales, and keep your interest with the book’s breezy, anecdotal style.

            Ageproof: Living Longer without Running out of Money or Breaking a Hip, written by Jean Sherman Chatzky and Michael F. Roizen, MD, is a two-pronged approach to living securely in your senior years. Chatzky, a financial expert, and Roizen, an internist at the Cleveland Clinic, explain the very important connection between health and wealth and demonstrate ways to maximize your quality of health, longevity, and financial well-being.         

            The Motley Fool Investment Guide: How the Fools Beat Wall Street and How You Can Too, is written by David and Tom Gardner, investors and authors of earlier editions of this guide, other investor manuals, and co-founders of The Motley Fool, Inc. They present a simple and effective investment strategy that espouses their theory that making money through investments involves some risk.

            Rich Dad, Poor Dad: With Updates for Today’s World – and 9 New Study Session Sections is the latest in the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series. Written by Robert T. Kiyosaki, the book presents the history of money, investing, and the global economy over the past twenty years. Then the author demonstrates how to modify your investment style to complement today’s economy. The book provides financial literacy lessons for both the reader and his or her children.            

            Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook is written by Tony Robbins, an investment author and financial coach. In this book, Robbins interviews fifty international financial masterminds who offer their formulas to attaining financial freedom.  Your investments can grow no matter what stage of life you start or how much you earn, and whatever political and economic crises come into play.                                                       

Holiday Mysteries Part Two

            Relax and enjoy some more Christmas-themed mysteries from our library.

            The Mistletoe Murder: And Other Stories is from renowned British mystery author P.D. James, who passed away in 2014. Two of the stories feature poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh; the other two bear some resemblance to the writing style of Agatha Christie.  

            In Murder for Christmas, written by Francis Duncan, the party guests of Benedict Grame discover a body that bears a striking resemblance to Father Christmas under the tree. It is up to Mordecai Tremaine to find the culprit before another death occurs.

            Nantucket Red Tickets is written by Steven Axelrod. It’s Christmas Eve on Nantucket and prominent businessman Jackson Blum is about to live out his own version of A Christmas Carol.

            The Usual Santas: A Collection of Soho Crime Christmas Capers is published by Soho Crime. This is a compilation of eighteen holiday crime short stories set in locations around the globe.

            Wagging through the Snow is written by Laurien Berenson and is another in the series of Melanie Travis canine mysteries. With Christmas approaching, Melanie investigates a possible murder after discovering a whimpering Maltese beside the dead body of a squatter on the property that her ex-husband just bought.

            Yuletide Homicide is written by Jennifer David Hesse. Family law attorney and Wiccan Keli Milanni goes undercover when mayoral candidate Edgar Harrison, her boss’s old friend, is blackmailed. Before finding the culprit, Harrison winds up dead, and Keli must risk her own rebirth during the Wiccan holiday Yuletide to catch the killer.  

           

Holiday Mysteries

            Though the season may be merry and bright, murder and mayhem never take a holiday at Christmas. Here are some novels that prove the point.

            A Cajun Christmas Killing: A Cajun Country Mystery, written by Ellen Byron, describes how Maggie Crozat must pair up with an unlikely ally and longtime family enemy to catch the killer before Christmas on the bayou is ruined. Includes recipes.

            The Christmas Mystery: A Detective Luc Moncrief Story is written by James Patterson. The story follows French NYPD detective Luc Moncrief during a busy Christmas season as he investigates the theft of a cache of priceless paintings and the murder of a wealthy socialite.

            A Christmas Return: A Novel is the newest annual Christmas mystery by author Anne Perry. Spurred by holiday cheer and a surprise hidden in a Christmas pudding, and elderly aristocrat endeavors to correct a past wrong by solving a decade-old murder.

            Crimson Snow: Winter Mysteries is a short story collection edited by Martin Edwards. It shares Christmas mysteries from such authors as Fergus Hume, Margery Allingham, and Michael Gilbert.

            The Ghost of Christmas Past, written by Rhys Bowen, features Molly Murphy Sullivan and her husband Daniel. They are invited to spend the holidays at a Hudson mansion, only to be embroiled in the mystery of their hosts’ daughter’s disappearance.

            How the Finch Stole Christmas! A Meg Langslow Mystery is written by Donna Andrews. When Meg’s husband organizes a full-scale production of “A Christmas Carol” with a famous veteran actor in the starring role, she finds herself navigating unexpected challenges in the star’s baggage and enemies.  

 

Afternoon Book Discussions

Join us for our Afternoon Book Discussions, held on the third Wednesday of every month from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. We select books from a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction, encourage lively discussion, and enjoy delicious refreshments. The reading selections for the first half of 2018 are:

January 17^th -- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking/ written by Susan Cain. Demonstrates how introverted people are misunderstood and undervalued in modern culture, charting the rise of extrovert ideology while sharing anecdotal examples of how to use introvert talents to adapt to various situations.

February 21^st – The Little Paris Bookshop: A Novel/written by Nina George. Prescribing books that offer therapeutic benefits to his customers, a literary apothecary in a floating bookstore on the Seine struggles with private heartbreak before embarking on a journey of healing at the side of a blocked writer and a lovelorn chef.

March 21^st – I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban/written by Malala Yousafzai. Describes the life of the young Pakistani student who advocated for women’s rights and education in the Taliban-controlled Swat Valley, survived an assassination attempt, and became the youngest nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.

April 18^th – All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel/written by Anthony Doerr. A blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast.

May 16^th – The Cuckoo’s Calling/written by Robert Galbraith. Working as a private investigator after losing his leg in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike takes the case of a legendary supermodel’s suspicious suicide and finds himself in a world of multi-millionaire beauties, rock star boyfriends, desperate designers, and hedonist pursuits.

June 20^th – Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation/written by Cokie Roberts. Explores the lives of women who helped shape the United States, profiling such key figures as Abigail Adams, Eliza Pinkney, Dolley Payne Madison, Deborah Read Franklin, and Catherine Littlefield Greene. 

Healthy Living: New Books to Promote Wellness

            Proactive advice to maintaining your health is available at the library. Here are some new books that can help.

George Demirakos is the author of Fix My Knee: A Guide to Preventing and Healing from Injury and Strain. He is a licensed physical therapist who has worked with Canadian professional hockey, tennis, and Olympic teams. Demirakos explains how the knee works, why your knee is at risk for injury, and the different types of knee injuries. Then he discusses different techniques that help such as acupuncture, yoga, Pilates, cortisone injections, and more. Strengthening exercises, accompanied by photographs, are included.

You Are Getting Sleepy: Lifestyle-Based Solutions for Insomnia provides techniques based on research to induce sleepiness. To aid with this, authors Paul Glovinsky and Arthur Spielman discuss changes to make to your daily routines and show you how to use cognitive behavioral treatments. They also instruct on managing anxiety, depression, an out-of-sync biological clock, and dependence on sleep aids in order to lessen insomnia.

The Diabetes Carbohydrate & Fat Gram Guide, 5^th edition, is a concise guide to preventing or delaying the complications of diabetes. The reader learns how to plan meals using carbohydrate counting, calorie counting, and food lists as published by the American Diabetes Association. The main part of the book consists of nutrient tables that include the amount of carbohydrates, sodium, sugar, fiber, protein, and fats from a wide variety of foods, along with calorie counts and serving sizes. 

Take Charge of Your Diabetes: November is American Diabetes Month

            29.1 million Americans have diabetes, but 8.1 million more may be undiagnosed. Learn all you can about this disease by reading these books.

            Reverse Your Diabetes in 12 Weeks: The Scientifically Proven Program to Avoid, Control, and Turn around Your Diabetes is written by George L. King, M.D, the chief science officer at Harvard’s Joslin Diabetes Center. He presents the eight proven strategies, which include a modified rural Asian diet deriving seventy percent of its calories from carbohydrates, a five to seven percent reduction in body weight, exercise, reducing stress, using your body’s brown fat, getting at least seven hours of sleep per night, and more.  

            Your Type 2 Diabetes Action Plan: Tips, Techniques, and Practical Advice for Living Well with Diabetes, is a publication of the American Diabetes Association, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to simplifying diabetes management, since 1940. The book includes information on improving glucose management, optimizing medication, designing an exercise program, creating a nutritious meal plan, coping with complications, and other beneficial material.

            Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy, 5^th Edition, provides the diabetic reader with updated information on revised food groups and updated food lists. The author is Hope S. Warshaw, who is an expert on health and meal planning with diabetes who has written many other books on this topic.

            The Perfect Diabetes Comfort Food Collection: 9 Essential Recipes You Need to Create 90 Amazing Complete Meals, is written by Robyn Webb, the food editor of Diabetes Forecast and the author of 14 cookbooks. This book contains more than ninety recipes based on variations of nine cooking techniques, along with one hundred classic side dish recipes to accompany them.