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The only good thing about being sick for a long time is that you get to read a lot. Here are a few of the non-fiction books that helped me while away the hours recently while I couldn’t do much of anything else.
Environment
Tom’s River: A Story of Science and Salvation
By Dan Fagin, read by Dan Worren, Books on Tape (2013), 18-1/2 hours, 15 CDs. I chose to read this book because I figured it would be so boring it would put me to sleep. Boy, was I wrong! Once I started reading Tom’s River, I had to stay with it to the end.
Tom’s River is a small town on the New Jersey coast that turned out to be the site of the largest legal settlement in the annals of toxic dumping. It’s an example of investigative journalism at its best, combined with spellbinding storytelling that tells a sprawling whodunit. It’s also a study of cancer epidemiology that makes science accessible and exciting.
The villains are spread out over the world, some of them lurking behind loopholes, others hiding in the ivory tower of their corporate offices, but the heroes and there are many of them, come from the ranks of Everyman. It was a great read, and one I think was enhanced by being on audio, since Dan Worren’s voice projects the right mix of newspaper reporter gravitas and emotional drama.
Nature
Gardening for Birds: How to Create a Bird-Friendly Backyard
By George Adams, Timber Press (2013), 444 pages. Being sick at any time of year is a drag, but if you’re a gardener, you know that being sick in the summer is the total pits.
Plants dry up from lack of water, tomatoes go unpicked, bad bugs destroy all the squash blossoms. Dreadful. I had no choice but to embrace The Frustrated Gardener’s motto: “When You Can’t Plant, You Plan.” So I piled new gardening books up high on the bedstand and started digging in.
The most wonderful book in the pile turned out to be Gardening for Birds by George Adams, a 444-page tome that tells you everything, I mean everything, you want to know about bringing birds to your garden. Better than that, it was lavishly illustrated with color photos of birds and bird-friendly plants and lovely black-and-white illustrations—an absolutely gorgeous book that is as informative as it is inspiring.
Music
Wild Tales: A Rock and Roll Life
Written and narrated by Graham Nash, Random House Audio (2013), 12-1/2 hours, 10 CDs. My two favorite songs are “Teach Your Children” and “Our House,” written by Graham Nash, the British transplant who became one-quarter of the legendary American folk-rock super band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY). I was thrilled to find his autobiography, Wild Tales, narrated by him on audio.
The book starts with Nash’s horribly poor childhood in post-war Britain, through his youthful glory days with Britain’s pop group The Hollies. Then Graham goes off to America where he falls in love and lives in Laurel Canyon with Joni Mitchell, who introduces him to David Crosby (formerly with The Byrds), who will be his closest friend for decades, and Stephen Stills and Neil Young–co-founders of Buffalo Springfield. The endless decadence gets boring, but Graham’s behind-the scenes tales of his political awakening, making music, and the many people who inspired him, was fascinating.
Nash was in America, developing his photography skills, when he saw a 1962 Diane Arbus photo “Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park.” He wrote the song four years later and it was recorded when Neil Young joined the group on their Déjà Vu album in 1970. Also on that album was “Our House.” It was inspired when Joni Mitchell bought a beautiful vase in an antique shop and came home to fill it with flowers and grasses from her garden.
Other musicians constantly drop into the story: Phil Everly, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendryx, Mama Cass, Laura Nyro, Rita Coolidge—a long, long list. Even with all their internecine battles, the group never broke up. At age 72, Graham Nash is still performing with Crosby and Stills. You can see their concert schedule at www.csny.com
Soul
Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self
By Sandra Ingerman, Harper San Francisco (updated 2006), 22l pages. While I was sick, there was a time when I thought I was going to die. Nothing dramatic. No tearful revelations to anyone. Just this message inside my head, “I’m going to die.”
When I started recovering, it was a few days before I fully accepted that I hadn’t died. One of my health providers, acupuncturist Whitney Madden at The Source in Black Mountain (www.sourceforwellbeing.com), was concerned that even after three weeks of treatment, I had not re-gained enough chi (energy) from the wallop of pneumonia, for her to deal with the chronic pain I had originally sought her out for. She mentioned that shamanic healers would say that part of me did die, and part of my soul had indeed fled my body.
My continually low chi perhaps (nothing’s for sure here) could indicate I needed to get that part of my soul back. At first it’s a pretty far-out idea, but frankly, when I read this book, I felt author Ingerman had written it directly to me. I was struck by how much logic the seemingly ancient technique of shamanic healing could have for someone like me, who had gone through several soul-shattering shocks over the years. (And haven’t we all?)
Soul Retrieval’s foreword was written by Michael Harner, who my own studies have shown is the country’s most reputable shamanic teacher. If you are curious about how shamanic soul retrieval can be combined with modern psychology methods, I highly recommend this book.
www.sandraingerman.com/soulretrieval.html
The Foundation for Shamanic Studies, (Michael Harner), www.shamanism.org You can find and/or order any of these books from your local bookseller, including Malaprop’s.
