Anticancer

At age thirty-one David Servan-Schreiber was a rising neuroscientist with his own laboratory for brain imaging funded by the National Institutes of Health. While testing brain-scanning equipment, he discovered a tumor the size of a walnut in his own brain. This is the moving story of how a researcher and scientist who believed only in conventional treatments was transformed into an integrative physician who realized the importance and power of the body's natural defenses against chronic disease.

Dr. Servan-Schreiber's advice details how to find the right blend of traditional and alternative health care; how to develop a science-based anticancer diet (and the small changes that can make a big difference); the top ten household products to replace; understanding the effects of helplessness and "unhealed wounds" both physical and emotional, and how to regain balance; and how to reap the benefits of exercise, yoga, and meditation.

Anticancer

Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]

Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet.

Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]