Category: Art & Books

The book I've been recommending to everyone this summer is The Emperor of All Maladies, A Biography of Cancer. It's a fabulous history of the last 200 years of medicine in this country, and a well-researched guide to the complexities of both the science and politics of cancer. Plus, it's a page-turner.

For the science geeks I recommend The Brain That Changes Itself. This book tells fascinating stories of patients and researchers in the evolving area of neuroplasticity. No science degree necessary to understand and enjoy! I may regret saying this, but I have become a fan of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. It is an alternative reality series in which magic is real and the main character is a wizard who also works as a detective in Chicago.

My book recommendation has little to do with diabetes, but here it is: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. This is a book about an alternate perception of reality. When I read it for the first time, it moved me in such a significant way that I talked about it with everyone I knew (or met).

My favorite diabetes book is Pumping Insulin but it's not exactly the sort of paperback you'd want to bring to the beach. So instead I'll recommend Farm City, by my friend and colleague Novella Carpenter. It's about her experience starting and running an urban farm in the Oakland flats -- she lives in an old house next to the freeway, and has managed to raise everything from bees, rabbits, chickens, ducks and turkeys to dairy goats and two enormous pigs. Her story is funny, inspirational, and wonderfully written.

From now through January 31, 2011, The New-York Historical Society will present the exhibition Breakthrough: The Dramatic Story of the Discovery of Insulin, recalling the desperate fight for life that used to be waged by juvenile diabetes patients, and commemorating the events of 1921 that inaugurated a new era of hope for them and their families.