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Even when I was a teen, I’m not sure I read any YA non-fiction, preferring adult non-fiction instead. Since one of my reading resolutions for this year was to read more non-fiction, I thought I should also make an effort to read more YA non-fiction. So I borrowed a couple of acclaimed YA non-fiction books, Invisible Allies and the second edition of Invisible Enemies, both by Jeanette Farrell, and An American Plague by Jim Murphy. I also borrowed two adult books, The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, that I had long been meaning to read. While all five books have their merits individually, I think I got more out of each book by reading them as a group. I’m not sure if I consciously chose to borrow these books as a group because I suspected they’d work so well together or simply because they were the first non-fiction books that came to mind. In any case, the first four books all deal with the effects of culture and the movement of people around the world on medical issues, particularly those related to public health, some more explicitly than others.

~really long, so click below to read the rest~

In Invisible Enemies, Jeanette Farrell tells the stories of seven infectious diseases (smallpox, the plague, leprosy, tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, and AIDS) and their effect on people. She begins by discussing medical beliefs in historical times, then focuses on one disease per chapter, describing the microbe that causes the disease, the disease in history, attempts at treatment (basically, completely misguided prior to the acceptance of germ theory), the identification of the cause of the disease, efforts to contain or eradicate the disease, and the current state of the disease. Due to this format, Farrell does not have much space to explore each disease in depth, but she still manages to write with clarity, engaging readers while conveying a lot of information. However, what especially interested me were the differences between this book, which I read first, and those by Johnson and Murphy.

Cholera has existed in the Indian subcontinent for over 2,000 years. However, it was not until the early 19th century that a cholera epidemic hit British soldiers in India and eventually spread around the world. Farrell devotes several pages in Invisible Enemies‘ chapter on cholera to London’s cholera outbreak of 1854 and the man who traced it to a water pump on Broad Street. It’s the most epidemiological part of the entire book, and as there is something about epidemiology that I find extremely fascinating, I was glad that I had already borrowed Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map.

The Ghost Map is ostensibly about the aforementioned cholera outbreak and the two men who discovered its root. However, the scope of the book is wide, since part of Johnson’s framework is that one must understand how the era, and the common beliefs of the time, came to be, in order to understand why John Snow and Henry Whitehead were the right men to investigate the cause of this particular outbreak of cholera.

Snow was a doctor of some acclaim for his study of and medical practice concerning the use of gases for anesthesia. But he also had an interest in other medical issues, and eventually turned his attention to cholera. Whitehead was an Anglican reverend whose intimate knowledge of the Golden Square community, the epicenter of the outbreak, enabled him to work in conjunction with Snow and to ultimately identify the first person who became ill in this particular outbreak. Unfortunately, according to Johnson, Whitehead’s role in the investigation is often minimized or simply overlooked; he is not mentioned in Farrell’s account at all. (Also, while Farrell credits the Broad Street pump with starting Snow’s investigation of the companies supplying piped water to London’s homes, as Johnson shows, Snow was convinced that cholera was spread via water and was already collecting statistics on cholera victims and the water companies that supplied their homes with water. He saw the Broad Street outbreak as another means of discrediting the miasma theory, which blamed sicknesses such as cholera on foul air, and those who considered cholera among the lower classes a sign of their inferiority.) Much of the book, the parts I found most interesting, discusses the growth of London and the epidemiological investigation. It’s when Johnson becomes a futurist and starts discussing urbanism, the possibility of pandemics, and terrorist attacks that I became bored.

The titular American plague of Jim Murphy’s book is Philadelphia’s outbreak of yellow fever in 1793. (Not to be confused with the Memphis outbreak in 1878, the subject of Molly Caldwell Crosby’s The American Plague.) Whether or not you’ve read Laurie Halse Anderson’s Fever 1793, Murphy’s book makes for fascinating reading, especially with Paraguay’s current outbreak of yellow fever hitting the news.

Philadelphia had already been hit hard by several different diseases in 1793. When people began dying in late summer, sharing the same horrific symptoms (Murphy identifies a sailor as one of the first, if not the first, persons to die of yellow fever, and later says water casks on ships were the perfect method for transporting yellow fever-carrying mosquitoes), many doctors did not believe that the culprit was yellow fever. Yellow fever was among the most feared diseases of the era, and Murphy, using numerous primary sources, writes of various “remedies” for yellow fever and how these attempts at curing were based on the beliefs of the period. He also shows the far-reaching effects of this particular outbreak on American history and government. Like The Ghost Map, implicit in Murphy’s narrative is the belief that the outbreak—why it occurred, peoples responses to it, and attempts at ending it—cannot be separated from the events and medical theory of the period. The historical context is essential to understanding the outbreak, and to look at cholera in 1854 London or yellow fever in 1793 Philadelphia without noting this context is to not fully comprehend a diseases causes or effects.

(Sidenote that may be of interest only to me: Murphy and Farrell differ in their very brief mentions of the failure of DDT in the campaigns exterminate the mosquitoes responsible for spreading yellow fever and malaria, respectively. Farrell focuses on the effect of DDT on the food chain—DDT was also ingested by roaches, which were eaten by lizards, which became sick, thereby sickening the cats who ate the lizards, etc.—and the evolution of DDT-resistant mosquitoes. Murphy discusses the lack of funding to fully eradicate the disease-bearing mosquitoes as well as the “concern about health risks and environmental problems associated with the use of DDT,” specifically mentioning Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as well as her prediction that DDT would only worsen the problem by creating mosquitoes resistant to DDT and other pesticides.)

Reading these books, you can see how, as trade goods and people began moving rapidly around the world, so did sickness and disease. Unlike the above books, the subject of Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is not microbes or epidemics, but the treatment of young epileptic girl. Still, like the Johnson and Murphy books, understanding culture is essential to understanding how and why this particular situation arose. Plus, it could not have occurred if the world was not shrinking and people did not have the ability to move halfway around the world in a relatively short (evolutionarily speaking) amount of time.

Of course, epilepsy is the Western diagnosis. For the parents of Lia Lee, Hmong immigrants, it is obvious that the correct diagnosis is quag dab peg, “the spirit catches you and you fall down.” While Hmong know that quag dab peg can be dangerous, it could also have been seen as a blessing, since “Hmong epileptics often become shamans.” When one of Lia’s seizures scared her parents enough to send them to the emergency room of the county hospital, it led to a series of confrontations between Lia’s parents and the doctors and social service providers who all thought they were acting with Lia’s best interests at heart. The doctors prescribed medicines, the Lees thought the medicine was making Lia sick, the doctors were unable to convey the Lees why they must give Lia Western medicines, the Lees continued to try to heal Lia with traditional methods, and so on. Both sides were unable to communicate with the other due to linguistic and, most importantly, cultural barriers. Fadiman writes gracefully and sympathetically about a very difficult situation, and if you read just one of these books, make it The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.*

I suppose Farrell’s Invisible Allies is the odd book of the bunch, since it examines the many ways microbes benefit humans. Following the same format as Invisble Enemies, Farrell looks at just a few of the millions of microbes that are beneficial to humans. These advantageous microbes dwarf the number that are dangerous to humans, and the ones that Farrell discusses here all happen to be at least partly related to food production and consumption (cheese, bread, chocolate, and the microbes in our intestinal tracts, and the final chapter which focuses on sewage and cleaning polluted waters). It’s easy to think of the negative effects of microbes on our lives, making this book an intriguing, if sometimes slightly disgusting, look at how we benefit from them.

* Also, it so clearly and devastatingly shows how certain values and aspects of belief systems are not universal. Schools and public libraries must also deal with cultural clashes, not to the same potentially harmful effect, obviously. But as some of our libraries are increasingly patronized by immigrants, I think it’s important to keep in mind that publicly funded institutions such as public schools and libraries may (literally) be foreign concepts and that other conceptions of property and group ownership may differ from what we value as American public service providers. Okay, off my soapbox now. On another note, it does have teen appeal, especially for those considering entering a medical field. I was reminded that I wanted to read this book after noticing that one of my teens had requested it from another library.

Geek High by Piper Banks
Miranda’s romance writer mother is going to England to do research, leaving Miranda behind with her father, whom she’s had little contact with since her parents divorced, and a stepmother and stepsister she does not get along with. Plus, not only is Miranda blackmailed into organizing her brainy school’s unpopular winter dance, her crush appears to be falling for her stepsister, Hannah. But Hannah does have a cute male friend who just may be interested in Miranda…

I’m not sure why, but for some reason I thought this was going to be a very lightweight, insubstantial read. It wasn’t, not as much as I was expecting, at any rate. But it was still the perfect post-Cybils read—entertaining, well-written, and, thank god, no one died or was abused.

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
I won’t say much about this one because I’m afraid of giving away too much of the story. (But if you want to talk, particularly about the denouement, I am so up for a chat about it.) And really, where hasn’t this been reviewed? I think it was even the lead book review in People a couple of weeks ago, if I remember correctly. I will say that there was enough to the story to satisfy me, and I absolutely love the last line of the book.

Also, I came up with a playlist for Gemma last year, around the time the book’s publication was first announced. But after reading the book, it changed significantly, so here’s what is currently on my TSFT playlist:

1. Incantation - Loreena McKennitt
2. Hope There’s Someone - Antony and the Johnsons
3. Woman King - Iron & Wine
4. To Let Myself Go - Ane Brun
5. Miracle - Craig Armstrong
6. It’s In Our Hands - Björk
7. The Mystery of Love - Marianne Faithfull
8. Maybe Not - Cat Power
9. Sé Lest - Sigur Rós
10. Icebound Stream - Laura Veirs
11. Faded from the Winter - Iron & Wine
12. Misery and Mountains, Arrows and Bows - New Buffalo

I realize I’m totally breaking a playlist rule with two Iron & Wine songs on the same playlist but I was unable to pick just one, and I think the sequence of “Icebound Stream,” “Faded from the Winter,” and “Misery and Mountains, Arrows and Bows” works perfectly, so there you go.

TSFT was reviewed by: Angieville, Becky, Bookshelves of Doom, Oops…Wrong Cookie, among others.

Reading Resolutions update:
Tea: The Drink that Changed the World by Laura C. Martin was the non-fiction book I read in January. Let’s see, I like tea, I like microhistories… Is it any surprise I picked this up? But as fascinating as I found it, it was too brief for my tastes, so I plan on reading The Story of Tea and Liquid Jade, as well.

And, as mentioned earlier, the translated book I read was The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø, translated by Don Bartlett. In 1999, a Norwegian detective makes a potentially embarrassing mistake. Transferred to a new department and position, he comes across a report that piques his interest. Full of twists that never feel forced, this book had me totally hooked, especially after the first World War II scene. There were occasional mentions of events that I am sure occurred in the previous (not yet released in the US) book, which once again really makes me wish publishers would bring these series over *in order*, like it appears Vertical is doing with Shinjuku Shark. (February’s rapidly becoming translated-from-Japanese month for me, since I’ve already got five such novels checked out/on hold.)

Colleen Mondor asked bloggers about the books we’re looking forward to, so I thought it would be fun to create a list of the 2008 books I most want to read, categorized from A to Z. Unfortunately, I got stuck on letters like Q and X. Oh, and K and L and Y and a lot more. So here’s my not quite A-to-Z list.

Asian-American Protagonists
Besides Good Enough and She’s So Money, I am also looking forward to Girl Overboard by Justina Chen Headley. And I’ll be reading my first Kimani Tru book, How to Salsa in a Sari by Dona Sarkar, about a part Indian, part African-American girl. Not sure about The Fold, though, because the subject matter is not exactly of interest to me. But I’ll probably give it a try (because the cover rocks! Look at it, it totally does) and see if it’ll be the first An Na book I actually finish.

Boarding School
Yes, I am a sucker for books set at boarding schools. Except for Kate Brian’s Private series. (I couldn’t even get through the first book, the girls were so mean.) Hence, E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks.

Covers
Besides the aforementioned The Fold, here are some of my favorite covers.

And is it just me, or does the Ivy cover model look like a redheaded version of the girl on Hearn’s The Minister’s Daughter?

Debut Authors
I’m looking forward to these books by debut authors.

Hey There Delilah I mean, Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway. Bonus: Meg Cabot likes it.

A la Carte by Tanita S. Davis (a.k.a. TadMack!)

Not Anything by Carmen Rodrigues

The Mystery of the Third Lucretia by Susan Runholt

For more books by debut authors, check out the Class of 2k8.

Feiwel & Friends
Between Carpe Diem, Get Well Soon, Long May She Reign, and The Poison Apples, I am automatically reading every YA book they publish, like The Compound by S.A. Bodeen and Zombie Blondes by Brian James. Or republish, in the case of Ellen Emerson White (The President’s Daughter, White House Autumn, and Long Live the Queen).

Here’s the Feiwel and Friends website, or visit the Macmillan site to view their catalog.

Geniuses, Boy
Apparently I’m on the immature side, because I happen to find flatulent dwarves absolutely hilarious. Especially when read by Nathaniel Parker. I’ve already done D and F, so I couldn’t put this with one of those letters, but since I also find ex-criminal mastermind boy geniuses intriguing, I think this works just as well as a category. Anyway, THE 2008 book I’m most looking forward to is Artemis Fowl #6, The Time Paradox.

Historical Fiction
Primavera by Mary Jane Beaufrand (Italian Renaissance)

Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher (1940s Chicago)

Sovay — ooh, Celia Rees! And, c’mon, with a description like this, how can I resist?

It’s England, 1783. When the rich and beautiful Sovay isn’t sitting for portraits, she’s donning a man’s cloak and robbing travelers—in broad daylight. But in a time when political allegiances between France and England are strained, a rogue bandit is not the only thing travelers fear. Spies abound, and rumors of sedition can quickly lead to disappearances. So when Sovay lifts the wallet of one of England’s most powerful and dangerous men, it’s not just her own identity she must hide, but that of her father.

New Year’s Reading Resolutions
These are more general resolutions, not solely YA-focused, but I’ve got two reading resolutions for 2008.

1. With this in mind, read at least one non-fiction book a month. At least four books must be YA non-fiction. Alas, I can’t think of any upcoming YA non-fiction I want to read, but I’ve got 3 YA non-fiction and 2 adult non-fiction books checked out right now, which I hope means I’ll be on track with this goal.

2. Read at least one book in translation a month. A book originally written in a foreign language and translated into English, I mean. And since I know I could do this entirely with books from the mystery aisle (and probably one year’s worth in one month, too), I’ll say that at least four books must be non-mysteries, and a couple, whether mysteries or not, must be written for children or teens. Like Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi. And manga doesn’t count. First up: The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø, which is not a YA book but is over 500 pages long and due back at the library in a little over a week.

Princesses
I would never want to be a princess, but for some reason I like to read about them.

Forever Princess (Princess Diaries #10) by Meg Cabot, especially since this is the last in the series

Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Aurelia by Anne Osterlund

Retellings, Fairy Tale
A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce (Rumplestiltskin; see Miss Erin’s review)

Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George (East of the Sun and West of the Moon; for another retelling, try East by Edith Pattou)

The Swan Kingdom by Zoë Marriott (doesn’t sound exactly like a retelling, but inspired by The Wild Swans)

Scarletts
In any given year, you can find multiple characters with the same name. Still, I thought it interesting that there will be at least two books about girls named Scarlett. And, yes, I want to read both Kiss Me Kill Me by Lauren Henderson and Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson.

Plus, it looks like there’s a Scarlet in ghostgirl by Tonya Hurley, which makes this list mostly because of two words: gummy bear.

Sequels (okay, I’m cheating with two S’s)
I might not have loooooved The Luxe, but I’m still dying to find out what happens next, so I’ve got to read Rumors by Anna Godbersen.

Also Hell Week by Rosemary Clement-Moore, Kitty Kitty by Michele Jaffe, and Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg.

I had Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce on this list, until I checked Amazon again, and saw that it was postponed (again) to May 2009. Is this book ever going to come out? Although I would much prefer a delayed but excellent book to an on time but blah book, so I’ll stop complaining.

And in the it’s-a-companion-novel-not-a-sequel-but-I’m-sticking-it-here-anyway category: the dead & the gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Titles
Titles totally matter, and I love these titles.

Band Geek Love by Josie Bloss

Debbie Harry Sings in French by Meagan Brothers

The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson. And the story sounds good, too:

[I]t is the story of a 15-year-old girl growing up in an alternate version of 1930s Edinburgh, one where the legacy of Napoleon’s victory a century earlier at Waterloo is a standoff between a totalitarian Federation of European States and a group of independent northern countries called the New Hanseatic League. This world is preoccupied with technology (everything from electric cookers to high explosives) but also with spiritualism, a movement our world largely abandoned in the early twentieth century; Sigmund Freud is a radio talk-show crank, cars run on hydrogen and the most prominent scientists experiment with new ways of contacting the dead.

Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty by Jody Gehrman

Fat Hoochie Prom Queen by Nico Medina

La Petite Four by Regina Scott

Crimes of the Sarahs by Kristen Tracy (Ooh, website. Yay!)

Vampire-less Paranormal Fiction
A.k.a., the “I need a category that doesn’t start with a letter I’ve already used” category. The vampire books don’t seem to be slowing down, so I’m trying to do my part to encourage people to read more non-vampire books.

Wake by Lisa McMann, about a girl who can see into other people’s dreams. Which sounds like exactly the kind of paranormal fiction I want to read more of.