Describes the components of a healthful diet and explains why eating these foods is important for maintaining overall good health.

CAUTION: Milk Can Be Harmful to Your Health! The frightening new medical facts about the world's most over-rated nutrient. If you drink milk, you MUST read this. Frank Oski, MD, was the Director, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief, the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

“[An] absorbing and meticulously researched history of the beginnings and causes of our obsession with vitamins and nutrition.” —The New York Times Most of us know nothing about vitamins. What’s more, what we think we know is harming both our personal nutrition and our national health. By focusing on vitamins at the expense of everything else, we’ve become blind to the bigger picture: despite our belief that vitamins are an absolute good—and the more of them, the better—vitamins are actually small and surprisingly mysterious pieces of a much larger nutritional puzzle. In Vitamania, award-winning journalist Catherine Price offers a lucid and lively journey through our cherished yet misguided beliefs about vitamins, and reveals a straightforward, blessedly anxiety-free path to enjoyable eating and good health. When vitamins were discovered a mere century ago, they changed the destiny of the human species by preventing and curing many terrifying diseases. Yet it wasn’t long before vitamins spread from labs of scientists into the realm of food marketers and began to take on a life of their own. The era of “vitamania,” as one 1940s journalist called it, had begun. Though we’ve gained much from our embrace of vitamins, what we’ve lost is a crucial sense of perspective. By buying into a century of hype and advertising, we have accepted the false idea that particular dietary chemicals can be used as shortcuts to health—whether they be antioxidants or omega-3s or, yes, vitamins. And it’s our vitamin-inspired desire for effortless shortcuts that created today’s dietary supplement industry, a veritable Wild West of overpromising “miracle” substances that can be legally sold without any proof that they are effective or safe. Price’s travels to vitamin manufacturers and food laboratories and military testing kitchens—along with her deep dive into the history of nutritional science— provide a witty and dynamic narrative arc that binds Vitamania together. The result is a page-turning exploration of the history, science, hype, and future of nutrition. And her ultimate message is both inspiring and straightforward: given all that we don’t know about vitamins and nutrition, the best way to decide what to eat is to stop obsessing and simply embrace this uncertainty head-on. Praise for Vitamania: “Measured, funny, and fascinating. The only thing that Catherine Price is selling here is good reporting, engaging storytelling, and more than you thought you could possibly learn about vitamins. If you need vitamins to survive (you do), you should read this book.” —Scientific American

Jerry and Molly Schiff are the only non-celebrities in their Malibu neighborhood; in fact, their shabby beachfront ranch is next to Barbra Striesand's mansion. As the play opens, Jerry is working himself into a frenzy over the media circus surrounding their famous neighbor's 1998 wedding. Limos are clogging the streets, helicopters hover noisily overhead and news crews are broadcasting from their front lawn. Jerry, an out of work television actor whose only claim to fame was a small role as a wacky neighbor in a sitcom, is reminded by all of the commotion of his own obscurity - he wasn't even invited to the wedding! He rages against Streisand, Hollywood, the media, his wife and anything else that comes to mind. An argument escalates into a full blown fight with his wife that threatens to wreck their marriage; she'd leave if only Arnold Schwartzennegger's Humvee wasn't blocking the driveway. This anti show business comedy by a Hollywood insider is a hilarious send up with a happy ending.

In 1965, James, a half-English, half-Irish boy, is taken by his mother on a visit home to her Irish village after years of alienation from her family. She is physically and emotionally scarred from a car accident in which James’ little sister was killed. Once home, she decides to leave her husband and stay there. At first traumatized, James finally resigns himself to living there, eventually becoming close to his uncle and his grandmother. His grandmother decides that James should become a priest, and he enters private school and then university to do so, only to lose his faith as he enters adulthood. Through it all, James is deeply embittered at his father’s apparent abandonment. Then, as a young man, he visits his father and discovers that the man has been writing and sending gifts all along and has even paid for James’ education. All of which his mother kept from him. Now furious at both parents, he must try and make sense of his life on his own terms. The story of Seamus (James) Wilberforce Young, is beautifully told, and speaks to the isolation and loss of so many children who find themselves in broken families and must struggle to find their way back to wholeness and hope.

Russian a self-teaching guide Learn Russian at your own pace How do Russian letters differ from English letters? How do you choose the correct form of specific verbs? What are some useful, everyday Russian words? With Russian: A Self-Teaching Guide, you'll discover the answers to these questions and many more about this challenging language. This thorough primer presents an easy-to-follow, proven method for grasping the basics of Russian, complete with helpful tips on writing and pronouncing Cyrillic characters and building your Russian vocabulary. You get lively dialogues and reading exercises, concise lessons on grammar and usage, notes on Russian culture, and a compact Russian-English glossary. The clearly structured format of Russian makes it fully accessible, providing an easily understood, comprehensive overview for everyone from students to business and leisure travelers to Russian culture mavens. Like all Self-Teaching Guides, Russian allows you to build gradually on what you have learned--at your own pace. Questions and self-tests reinforce the information in each chapter and allow you to skip ahead or focus on specific areas of concern. Packed with useful, up-to-date information, this clear, concise volume is a valuable learning tool and reference source for anyone who wants to improve his or her understanding of basic Russian.