Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Book meme

I got tagged by Nicole! Okay, so she tagged everyone.

Total Number of Books Owned: A little over 1456

Last book bought: The Discovery of Insulin by Michael Bliss. Very interesting. What a lot of drama went on.

Last Book Read: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (I actually reread the whole series after reading DH originally.)

Five Books That Mean a Lot to You:

1. Using Insulin by John Walsh. Seriously.
2. Type 1 Diabetes by Ragnar Hanas. Makes me want to move to Scandinavia.
3. The Silent Language by Edward T. Hall. Really, most of his books. Completely fascinating and explained things I had been wondering about (and struggling with) for a long time.
4. Longer Views by Samuel Delany - Amazing writer, amazing book.
5. Fire in the Lake: the Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances Fitzgerald - I was stunned when I first read this. I had to check the publication date repeatedly because I couldn't believe it. I even met a Vietnam scholar who didn't know this book. Apparently the least known and best book on the subject? No wonder it seems history is doomed to repeat itself.

Best Five Books You Read in the Last Year: I haven't read a lot of books in the past year because of my eyes (not related to diabetes)

1. Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: The Failure of Healthcare in Urban America by Laurie Kaye Abraham - I knew a lot of it already, but the book really brought it home.
2. Abraham by Bruce Feiler - About the role of Abraham in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Boy did he ever do some crazy things! And yet it all worked out somehow.
3. Medicine and Culture by Lynn Payer - I think "Sicko" left some things out when praising France's medical system, heh. I'm not going to tell you; you'll have to read about it.
4. Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee - can that man ever write. It was refreshing just to read something that well-written.
5. Okay, not a book but a series: the Mas Arai series by Naomi Hirahara. Pretty good mysteries and felt pretty familiar to me. I think she got it right.

I guess I will do the open tag thing, too. Do it if you want!

3 comments:

Chrissie in Belgium said...

Oh gosh Lili, you know how me and books are close buddies - but to do this meme I would have to spend so much time at the computer..... and that makes me feel like s**t! Instead, I will just continue mentioning in my blog entries the good books I come across as I read them. I guess you could call me too self-centered. I am off to the park and a play with Skye and other dog buddies! Thanks for you time and effort. I will check out the titles you have mentioned at Barnes & Nobles' site. I really value their Kirkus Reviews. Toodles! BTW - have your ketones disappeared? Mine haven't! I ALWAYS have low-value ketones!

Lili said...

Chrissie - No problem. And yes, I do always have trace ketones. When they get in the higher trace range, I get very sick and nauseated. Strange, isn't it?

IDFSteph said...

Lili,

Wow, you are quite the reader and the books you choose are so eclectic! My brother, who works for a publishing company, would surely admire you.

Moving on, because you are living with and blogging about diabetes, I thought you might help the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) out with our World Diabetes Day campaign.

Here's how and why:
We are in the midst of our preparations for the first UN-observed World Diabetes Day (www.worlddiabetesday.org) on 14 November this year, and I wanted to ask you if you would like to help us to spread awareness of this worldwide event and the theme we have chosen for it this year - Diabetes in Children and Adolescents.

It is estimated that over 200 children develop type 1 diabetes every day and there's no question that the disease often hits disadvantaged communities the hardest, and that children in the developing world can die because their parents are unable to afford medication. In many countries diabetes is still considered an adult disease and as a result can be diagnosed late with severe consequences, including death. Even after diagnosis many children experience poor control and develop complications early.

This is why one of our key objectives for World Diabetes Day this year is to double the number of children covered by the Life for a Child Program - http://www.worlddiabetesday.org/go/wdd-2007/life-for-a-child. We also want to encourage initiatives that can help to reduce diabetic ketoacidosis (diabetic coma) and to promote the sort of healthy lifestyles which can prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes in children.

A version of the diabetes circle, the icon we used for our Unite for Diabetes campaign http://www.unitefordiabetes.org/ has now been adopted for World Diabetes Day and we have produced a number of web banners that you can view and download here http://banners.worlddiabetesday.org.

The way in which you can help us spread awareness of World Diabetes Day is to add one of the banners to your own blog, which we would really appreciate.

The UN's World Diabetes Day Resolution (61/225) was really just the first goal of an ambitious campaign that we have been leading. This is the first time a non-communicable disease has been recognised as a serious threat to global public health and we are hoping now to further raise awareness globally of the disease that is predicted to contribute to 6% of the world’s mortality in 2007.

If you would like to know more about the UN Resolution and our plans for World Diabetes Day this year, just drop me a line at stephanie.tanner@idf.org and I will get back to you with more information.

Kind regards,
Stephanie Tanner
IDF - Communications Assistant