Falling ill is like joining a private fraternity—one you would never enter voluntarily, but whose membership reveals profound truths that most of us are too busy rushing through our days to consider. In the midst of everyday life, you are suddenly jolted by your own fallibility and finiteness, by the fact that you are no more durable than the shoes on your mortal feet.

In a culture that manages to cordon off this reality as if it were the special circumstance of others, you perceive all at once that this is your fleeting, precious human life. And then it's as if a veil has been ripped from your eyes. As the poet Rilke wrote: "Just once for everything, only once."

A person doesn't have to fall ill or experience great adversity to have such realizations. But the way humans are wired, it often requires such a shock to knock off the blinders of complacency and self-absorption. It is in the face of suffering that so many of us are thrown into the depths of ourselves, and come up bearing treasures of strength, insight, and courage we never knew were there.

  
 
 

When I first was diagnosed with systemic lupus, I yearned for something specific—to connect with others who knew what I was experiencing. If I couldn't find them in the flesh, then I wanted to read about them, real people like me who'd struggled and survived. I didn't want romance or fiction, but true stories about transformation and courage. Before I formed my own nationwide support network, I wanted to read words that would help heal and inspire me.

  

Unexpected Blessings
Roxanne Black
ISBN 978-1-58333-321-1
$24.95 / $27.50 CAN
Hardcover
Available October
  
 

But when I was young, these kinds of books were hard to find.

"If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it," the writer Toni Morrison once said.

So I've set out here to write the kind of book I yearned to read myself, a book made up of separate interlocking stories or vignettes that fit together like the links of a necklace.

I'll weave together the inspiration and wisdom I've received from ordinary people and celebrities alike who've taught me not just how to survive chronic illness, but also how to flourish in spite of it: Christopher and Dana Reeve and a nameless hospital cleaning lady who sang "Amazing Grace" to me; Alan Alda, Deepak Chopra, Oliver Sacks, and Naomi Judd. They've made me realize that facing the challenges of illness is really facing the challenges of life itself.

Along the way, I'll take you through my transformation from a powerless, lonely, and desperately ill teenager, through my formation of a local lupus support group that eventually blossomed into Friends' Health Connection (FHC), the national organization that I founded and ran from my hospital bed and dorm room.

I'll take you along a path zigzagged with the most unusual destinations: one day at the White House Rose Garden, shaking hands with President George H. W. Bush, two days later homebound in a wheelchair; one day on Fox television, the next day back in a hospital bed.

I'll share the lessons of valor and hope, courage and love that have been bestowed on me along the way.

My years of chronic illness have shown me that the private fraternity I thought I was entering wasn't so private at all—it was a club in which most of us would eventually become members, if not ourselves, then through friends and loved ones.

Transplants are miracles of modern medicine, and I've been doubly blessed. I vowed to my sister and the nameless eight-month-old who were my donors that my life would be worth their sacrifice. This book is part of my promise to them.

Excerpted from Unexpected Blessings by Roxanne Black. © 2008 by Roxanne Black. All rights reserved.

  
         

Prescription for Nutritional Healing:
The A-to-Z Guide to Supplements
Phyllis A. Balch, CNC
ISBN 978-1-58333-316-7

The Juice Lady's Guide to Juicing for Health:
Unleashing the Healing Power of
Whole Fruits and Vegetables
Cherie Calbom, M.S.
ISBN 978-1-58333-317-4

  
 
 
   


Do you suffer the occasional headache or regularly experience cluster and migraine headaches? Everyone gets a headache at one time or another. An estimated 17.6 percent of women and 6 percent of men in the United States experience headaches on more than an occasional basis. Common causes of headache include stress, tension, anxiety, allergies, coffee consumption, sinus pressure, and nutritional deficiencies.

Some home remedies to prevent and ease headaches:

  • Eat a well-balanced diet, including protein with every meal.
  • Practice deep-breathing exercises. A lack of oxygen can cause headaches.
  • If you feel a headache coming on, drink a large glass of water every three hours until symptoms subside.
  • Acupressure is helpful for tension headaches and pain. Press up firmly with your thumb underneath your skull, at the back of your neck, for one to two minutes.
  • Use a heating pad, hot-water bottle, or hot towel to relax neck and shoulder muscles, whose excessive tightness can cause tension.
  
 

Prescription for Nutritional Healing,
Fourth Edition
Phyllis A. Balch, CNC
ISBN 978-1-58333-236-8
$24.95 / $32.50 CAN
Trade Paperback
Available Now
 


Some things to consider:

  • Headaches are often caused by food allergies. A food allergy diary may help identify offending foods.
  • Poor vertebral alignment may result in reduced blood flow to the brain. This is often due to flat feet or to wearing high heels.
  • Routine chiropractic spinal manipulation and deep neck muscle massage can reduce the frequency of headaches and the need for pain-relieving medications.
  • Regular exercise may help prevent headaches caused by tension and may also reduce the frequency and severity of migraines.
  • Research shows that sleeping in a bedroom kept at a cooler temperature may help prevent cluster headaches. Headaches are more frequent when environmental heat increases body temperature, which causes blood vessels to dilate.

Learn more recommendations to alleviate headaches in the newly revised edition of Prescription for Nutritional Healing, fourth edition, by Phyllis A. Balch.

  
                                       
   

Just because summer is over doesn't mean we can forget about our beach-ready bodies. Continue to lose body fat, build muscle—and keep the weight off for good with The Body Fat Solution by Tom Venuto.

By now we all know that we gain fat when we take in more calories than we burn. But we're not always rational creatures when it comes to food. Tom Venuto offers a sound eating plan and helps readers focus on the mental roadblocks and emotional eating patterns that prevent them from losing weight for good. Readers can dig deeper and learn more about calorie output and input, as well as emotional and psychological factors that can sabotage success. With years of training expertise and personal experience, Venuto can help you change your relationship with food and empower you to take charge or your life. His program promises dramatic and permanent results.

 
 

The Body Fat Solution
Tom Venuto
ISBN 978-1-58333-329-7
$24.95 / $27.00 CAN
Hardcover
Available December

                        
 
         

Start Strong, Finish Strong
Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D., MPH,
and Tyler C. Cooper, M.D., MPH
ISBN 978-1-58333-318-1
$14.95 / $16.50 CAN
Available now

The Natural Superwoman
Uzzi Reiss, M.D., OB/Gyn, and Yfat Reiss Gendell
ISBN 978-1-58333-324-2
$14.00 / $15.50 CAN
Available November
 
 

"The global obesity epidemic affects all of us—families, communities, and nations around the world. It's a weighty subject in every way, with dire consequences for well-being, life expectancy, and economic productivity in the years ahead unless seriously confronted. The World Is Fat is compelling reading on this complex and growing societal threat. Dr. Barry Popkin is one of the world's most distinguished experts on obesity, the global food system, and nutrition, with extensive firsthand knowledge of the trends in the United States, Europe, India, China, and beyond. His writing is remarkably clear and concise, free of jargon, and full of wisdom, balance, and good judgment. His call to action and practical suggestions to individuals, communities, and political leaders will be read with enormous interest and benefit around the world."

—Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and author of The End of Poverty and Common Wealth

 

The World Is Fat
Barry Popkin
ISBN 978-1-58333-313-6
$24.95
Hardcover
Available December

  
                                       

The Keeler Migrane Method
Robert Cowan, M.D.
ISBN 978-1-58333-322-8
Paperback
Available November

Anticancer: A New Way of Life
David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D.
ISBN 978-0-670-02034-8
Hardcover

AVAILABLE NOW FROM VIKING

A member of Penguin Group (USA)
www.penguin.com
  

NEWSLETTER EDITOR
Jessica Lee
Jessica.Lee@us.penguingroup.com

PUBLICITY CONTACT
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phone: 212-366-2110
fax: 212-366-2738
Anne.Kosmoski@us.penguingroup.com

  

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