Saving Gotham

Saving Gotham: a billionaire mayor, activist doctors, and the fight for eight million lives / Tom Farley 310 pgs.

The New York City health department under the leadership of Thomas Frieden became very active in trying to have positive effects on the health of its residents.  One of the first big "wins" was making restaurants and bars smoke free.  Bar owners thought this measure would put them out of business but in the end, business went up.  Turns out there are a lot more people who were avoiding smoky bars than going to smoke in bars.  By lowering smoking rates, the health department could project the number of lives saved.  Backed by Mayor Bloomberg, the department continued to make positive health related changes via regulations and laws.  The argument being, if a known infectious disease killed as many people as tobacco, obesity and high blood pressure, the health commissioner would lose his job.  Why NOT try to improve those things and improve the health of the populous.

I enjoyed this book and learned a lot more about public health verse the way we usually think of medical care...one doctor treating one patient at at time.

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Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska by John Green  221 pp.

John Green is one of my favorite Young Adult authors. His talent for writing the dialogue of teenagers, especially highly intelligent ones, is what makes his books so compelling. When I was a teenager, the kids he writes about are the ones I would have wanted to hang out with. In this novel, Miles transfers to a prep school in Alabama. With the help of his roommate, Chip, he becomes part of a small group who introduce him to drinking, smoking, sex, and pranks. But it is the death of Alaska, the beautiful, but troubled member of the group that changes the trajectory of Miles & Chip's attentions. Their obsessive search for the truth about Alaska's death - accident or suicide? - consumes them and changes their lives. This book won a Michael L. Printz Award for the best teen book in 2006.

Too Cool to be Forgotten

Too Cool to be Forgotten by Alex Robinson  125 pp.

Andy, a middle-aged man, makes one final attempt to quit smoking by undergoing hypnosis. But he is startled to find himself back in high school, re-living all the awkwardness and problems he lived through at age 15. He keeps a slim connection to the present while facing his life as a teen. Finally he realizes the hypnotist has sent him back to the time he had his first cigarette and is sure that when he turns down that cigarette his smoking problem will be cured. But he doesn't return from being a teen-ager because he has one more thing he has to deal with. I didn't realize until I'd nearly finished the book that each chapter bears the title of a popular song from the 1980s.

This is the first graphic novel of Robinson's that I actually completed. The others, Box Office Poison and Tricked, I just couldn't get into. Frankly I wasn't impressed with his work. However, this book held my attention.

The Fran Lebowitz Reader

The Fran Lebowitz Reader/Fran Libowitz 333 pgs.

Fran Lebowitz is an American humorist and probably David Sedaris' god mother in the way that his essays resemble her attitude and style. Fran lives in New York and does not believe she would be allowed to live anywhere else. This book is loads of fun and Fran is acerbic and witty and quite the smoker. Some of the older essays may have been better for me had I lived in NYC in the 70's and if I was an activist in the smoker's rights movement. In her tips about how to avoid reading or writing ruinous material, she points out that "If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no longer be fantasies." And "The free lunch was originated by saloonkeepers during the Depression. Free verse also often originates during depression. If this happens to you, try to nip it in the bud by taking a drink." And finally, "Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and reading to make a profit, the interest is not so special." Fran is pretty great and if you need more life lessons like these, take a look at this book.

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