The Art of Expressing the Human Body
Author: Bruce Le
Beyond his martial arts and acting abilities, Bruce Lee's physical appearance and strength were truly astounding. He achieved this through an intensive and ever-evolving conditioning regime that is being revealed for the first time in this book. Drawing on Lee's own notes, letters, diaries and training logs, bodybuilding expert John Little presents the full extent of Lee's unique training methods including nutrition, aerobics, isometrics, stretching and weight training.
New interesting book: Attitudes In and Around Organizations or End of Capitalism
Pretty Is What Changes: Impossible Choices, the Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied My Destiny
Author: Jessica Queller
A timely, affecting memoir from the front lines of medical science: When genetics can predict how we may die, how then do we decide how to live?
Eleven months after her mother succumbs to cancer, Jessica Queller has herself tested for the BRCA “breast cancer” gene mutation. The results come back positive, putting her at a terrifyingly elevated risk of developing breast cancer before the age of fifty and ovarian cancer in her lifetime. Thirty-four, unattached, and yearning for marriage and a family of her own, Queller faces an agonizing choice: a lifetime of vigilant screenings and a commitment to fight the disease when caught, or its radical alternative—a prophylactic double mastectomy that would effectively restore life to her, even as it would challenge her most closely held beliefs about body image, identity, and sexuality.
Superbly informed and armed with surprising wit and style, Queller takes us on an odyssey from the frontiers of science to the private interiors of a woman’s life. Pretty Is What Changes is an absorbing account of how she reaches her courageous decision and its physical, emotional, and philosophical consequences. It is also an incredibly moving story of what we inherit from our parents and how we fashion it into the stuff of our own lives, of mothers and daughters and sisters, and of the sisterhood that forms when women are united in battle against a common enemy.
Without flinching, Jessica Queller answers a question we may one day face for ourselves: If genes can map our fates and their dark knowledge is offered to us, will we willingly trade innocence for the information that could save ourlives?
Publishers Weekly
TV writer Queller (The Gilmore Girls) was 31, single and healthy when her mother succumbed to ovarian cancer at the age of 58, having battled breast cancer six years earlier. Queller chronicles her mother's long and anguished struggle in vivid detail. After her mother's death, at the suggestion of an acquaintance, Queller opted to discover whether she carries the breast cancer gene; indeed, she tested positive for the BRCA-1 gene mutation, which gave her an 87% chance of breast cancer before age 50 and a 44% chance of ovarian cancer in her lifetime. With this knowledge in hand, Queller began the journey toward her pivotal choice: a prophylactic double mastectomy at age 35. Along the way she traveled between the West Coast and New York City, seeking medical opinions, information and unsuccessfully-but not for lack of trying-a man she can love who will father her children before she follows up with voluntary surgery to remove her ovaries. This Hollywood writer's story is seamless and gripping; readers will be rooting for Queller and her heroic decision to confront her genetic destiny. (Apr.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
Two weeks after Queller's maternal grandmother died from kidney failure, her mother was diagnosed with metastasized ovarian cancer. Eleven months after she, too, died, Queller, single and in her thirties, got tested for the "breast cancer gene" mutation (BRCA). Her results came back positive. Queller, who planned eventually to marry and have children, figured the cancer would come in the latter half of her life. But after doing some research and talking with medical experts and breast cancer survivors-many with her same genetic mutation, BRCA-1-she realized the cancer could strike at any time and that she would need either "vigilant surveillance and hope for the best" or undergo radical surgery. The experience of her mother's suffering-along with her own bravery and strong will to survive-led her to decide on a prophylactic double mastectomy (she has decided to put off having her ovaries removed until after she has the children for whom she hopes). Queller has written a vivid, powerful, informative account of a difficult situation and an almost impossible decision (hers is one with which not all medical authorities would agree) with honesty and grace. Highly recommended for all public library and consumer health collections.-Marcia Welsh, Dartmouth Coll. Libs., Hanover, NH
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
Television writer Queller recalls testing positive at age 35 for the BRCA-1 gene mutation and her subsequent decision to undergo a double mastectomy. In 2002, the author accepted a job in New York to be closer to her dying mother, who after winning a battle with breast cancer was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. Stephanie spent much of her final months with her two daughters; Queller recalls that her last discernible words were, "This is against my will." In the wake of her mother's death, Queller opted to take the blood test for BRCA; she had to make repeated phone calls before a gruff, harried doctor gave her the results, which meant that she had "up to an 85 or 90 percent chance of getting breast cancer." (Positive test results also signify a 44-percent likelihood of ovarian cancer, which increases after the age of 40.) Upon being advised by multiple physicians that aggressive surgery was her best option, she wrote about her radical choice of a double mastectomy in an op-ed piece for the New York Times and later discussed it on Nightline, personalizing a controversial and relatively new dilemma. Queller writes frankly about everything from overwhelming medical stresses to her desire for children. Scenes from her dating life show one man after another entering and quickly dropping out of the picture. Her decision, viewed by many as unnecessary and even crazy, was validated when the surgeon found pre-cancerous cells in her right breast. This discovery prompted the author's younger sister to reconsider her choice to remain in the dark. Other women who tested positive for the gene are also brought to life in stories that are by turns inspiring, sorrowful and profoundly moving.Queller's sense of humor and grace transform the most harrowing of situations into a riveting and heartfelt memoir. Wrenching, but surprisingly lively.
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