MY MOTHER WAS NUTS A Memoir
Marshall, Penny Amazon/New Harvest (352 pp.) $26.00 | Sep. 18, 2012 978-0-547-89262-7
Actress, producer and director Marshall’s frank and funny memoir about the path that led her from an ordinary childhood in New York City to Hollywood stardom. Marshall never planned to get into acting. But her mother, who ran a neighborhood dance and acrobatics school for children in the Bronx, always believed that “every child should know what it feels like to entertain.” So she began teaching her daughter the rudiments of physical movement before she was 1 year old. By the time Marshall was a teenager, she and the other girls her mother taught had performed at churches, charity events and telethons; they had even appeared on the Jackie Gleason Show. Dancing, however, was not Marshall’s passion. A mediocre student with no idea what she would do with her life, she went to the University of New Mexico, a college that “accepted anyone from out of state.” A few years later, Marshall was a divorced UNM dropout who had lost custody of her child, but she had also started to find her niche as an actress through involvement in community theater. She went to Hollywood to join her brother Garry, who was building a career as a comedy writer for TV and got bit parts in such classic TV shows as That Girl and The Odd Couple. She finally came into her own in the mid-1970s as the star of the hit sitcom Laverne & Shirley, and then in the ’80s and early-’90s as the director of the hit films Big and A League of Their Own. Marshall is as candid about her failures (which include a painful second divorce from writer/comedian Rob Reiner) and her weaknesses (like the one she developed for drugs) as she is about her successes. With gratitude for a life lived on her own terms, she writes, “I’ve been given my five minutes…and then some.” Bold and irrepressibly sassy.
MAYO CLINIC BREAST CANCER BOOK
Mayo Clinic Good Books (410 pp.) $22.95 paperback | Oct. 1, 2012 978-1-56148-772-1 A medically sound, digestible reference guide to understanding, treating and coping with br east cancer. Esteemed Mayo Clinic oncologists Charles Loprinzi and Lynn Hartmann are the adroit medical duo behind these encyclopedic chapters, which range from the intricate science behind cancer formation to treatments, side effects and the emotional fallout of the breast cancer experience. They begin with the basics, explaining what cancer is (“characterized by the overgrowth of abnormal cells”), the process of how it 1906
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occurs (years can pass before becoming detectable), risk factors (including surprising myths) and progressive drug treatment options that can result in increasingly optimistic remission statistics. The text is further enhanced with color graphics, charts, computer- and microscopically generated imagery, and poignant personal stories from survivors. The authors explore the sensitivity of breast cancer from a medical perspective but also address a woman’s post-diagnosis emotional and physical vulnerability. Loprinzi and Hartmann offer reliable counsel on mammograms, symptoms to be watchful for, cancer prevention, and both medicinal and holistic treatment strategies. For women intimidated by procedures like mammograms, biopsies, radiation and chemotherapy, the authors’ approach is patient and worry-free. The closing chapters include valuable resource references and assistance specifically targeting partners of women with breast cancer. An empowering tool that soothes the sting and shock of a cancer diagnosis with up-to-date information and physician-supported advice.
THE SECRET LIVES OF CODEBREAKERS The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park McKay, Sinclair Plume (352 pp.) $16.00 paperback | Oct. 1, 2012 978-0-452-29871-2
A detailed, well-researched account of the people who ran the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, whose work helped the Allies win World War II. President Eisenhower once said that the work of the British codebreakers “shortened the war by two years.” But as Daily Telegraph journalist McKay (Ramble On, 2012, etc) reveals, official recognition has been slow in coming. Some of the participants—e.g., celebrated Cambridge mathematician Alan Turing, would go on to earn notoriety, including official, but always muted, recognition by the British monarchy. Most would go on to lead more or less anonymous lives. McKay notes that a large part of the problem had to do with the fact that, unlike those who had actually fought on the front lines, no one from GC&CS “was allowed to say a single word” about the years they spent deciphering the infamous German Enigma codes. Only after RAF officer and MI6 operative Frederick Winterbotham published a controversial book about the project in 1974, The Ultra Secret, did the veil begin to lift. Rather than attempt to glamorize what the codebreakers did, however, McKay attempts to demystify their world by highlighting the day-to-day realities they faced. With few exceptions, aristocrats mixed with academics, students and factory workers shared the same hardships: small, cramped billets, tasteless food and jobs that were as tedious as they were physically and mentally taxing. Interviews with surviving Bletchley Park veterans offer
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