Protect Your Brain with a Book

Did you know . . . according to Prevention Magazine (December '07) . . .

• "Cozying up with a good book shields your brain from decline. Baltimore's Center for Occupational and Environmental Neurology studied 112 factory workers with similar blood levels of lead, a known mental health hazard, and those with an 11th grade reading level or lower did half as well on cognitive tests as better readers. Researchers theorize that bookworms develop a brainpower reservoir that's tapped when disease or aging threatens their gray matter." And, the article also says:


• The average number of books a person has read in the last year . . . 4.

I read waaaay more books than that. I read a lot - not just books, but also magazines and a variety of things online. Puzzle type games are supposed to be good for our brains too. Well, with those statistics, I'm likely to live to at least 120 or more. ;-)

My Book Club Comes for Dinner

Once a year my AAUW Evening Books group (American Association of University Women - you have to be a college grad from an accredited school to be a member) gathers at my home for an annual potluck dinner. Other months of the year we trade around what house we visit. But December. Well, it's always at my house. I have a big kitchen and this enormous 12 foot square island which makes easy work for a buffet dinner. And a dining room table that seats 12 with ease. And a view of the twinkly lights looking towards Newport Beach and Palos Verdes. I enjoy the Christmas decorating too. Everybody brings a salad, vegetable or salad, and a few people sign up for desserts (otherwise we'd have too many) and I provide the beverages (red and white wine, soft drinks, etc.) and an urn of coffee.

We enjoy our dinner - always lots of raves all around - we have some very good cooks in our group - and the desserts with coffee, then we gather in the living room, around the fireplace and tell stories. Or read a passage from a book, about Christmas. We don't read a designated book in December. Nor do we do our normal sharing of other books we've read. This is just a time for reading aloud an article or very short story about the Christmas season. Some years people don't have much to share; other years we have several who do. In many of the past seasons I've not shared because I didn't have anything I thought appropriate. But this year I found a new book - A Family Christmas. See the red covered book below. I can't say enough nice things about it. It's an anthology compiled by Caroline Kennedy, with chapters divided up by aspects of the season: Santa Claus, Deck the Halls, the Christmas Feast, Winter Wonderland, with related poems, the words from Christmas carols, that pertain to these subjects. There are stories that could be read to children, others that are more complex, some almost academic in nature, about the history of Christmas, and lovely illustrations too. I have read about half the book so far and have pink stickies poking out of it in many places. All possible reads for the book group in coming years.
Speaking of Christmas books, I must share another book I own. Valerie in our book group brought this one December, and I had to have it. Seasons Greetings from the White House. It's an absolutely charming book about the history of Christmas cards sent from the White House. Lovely photographs, fascinating history, and a nice coffee table book to put out in December. We've received 3 or 4 White House Christmas cards and I keep them in this book.

Ever since reading that book I've watched the Christmas special on HGTV, the one that shows the frantic decorating that goes on at the White House starting a few days after Thanksgiving. And it usually includes a segment about this year's Christmas card. The White House Christmas 2007. Hundreds and hundreds of workers come in, working 24 hours a day, to get the White House completely decorated before the first Christmas celebration held at the White House every year, usually on December 1st. My Tivo has been programmed for a couple of weeks for this show - it's on Sunday night, the 16th at 8:30 pm.

But, back to Caroline Kennedy's book: if you're still looking for something for someone on your Christmas list, this might just be the perfect answer:

So, I'll close this particular posting with the first page in this book. It's a letter found in the Kennedy family archives. Kennedy finds it "really embarrassing, but everyone else insisted we use it in the book." It was Caroline Kennedy's letter to Santa, December 19, 1962. She was just 5 - not old enough to write it herself, but dictated it to her mother, Jacqueline. It was to be her last Christmas at the White House.

Dear Santa:
I would like a pair of silver
skates - and one of those horse
wagons with lucky dips - and Susie Smart and
Candy Fashion dolls and a real pet
reindeer and a clock to tell time and a
covered wagon & a farm and you
decide anything else -
And interesting planes or bumpy thing he can ride in or some
noisy thing or something he can push or pull for John.
Love from Caroline
PS I would like a basket for my bicycle

A sequel to Pillars of the Earth

Yesterday was a red letter day for me . . . I discovered that Ken Follett has written a sequel to one of my favorite-books-of-all-time, Pillars of the Earth. The book, entitled World Without End, is only in hardback at this point, and is 1014 pages long. I bought it at Barnes & Noble (20% off), but it may be at Costco one day soon. I have no doubt it will be a best seller.

What I'm afraid of is that once I start reading it, I may become a book recluse. My family will be forgotten, my other responsibilities. So I'm just going to stare at it for a few days.

As an aside, last night I listened to a Tivo'd program which contained an interview with Ken Follett. For those of you who read my blog and live in the United States, there is a CBS TV program which airs very early on Sundays, aptly named Sunday Morning. It usually starts at 6 or 6:30 am, but the time varies. (That's why I love Tivo so much . . . I just instruct Tivo to record the program and it knows when it airs.) Mostly, Sunday Morning is about "good news." There's a short quip at the beginning about current news, but it's no more than a minute long. The remainder is a series of short to long segments about esoteric things like inventions, travel here in the U.S., music legends, a good movie, art and artists, photographers, writers (like Follett) and even poets. On every show they end with a one minute segment of nature somewhere in our U.S. of A. Beautiful panoramic views of parks, forests, mountains, streams, rivers, birds. Sound from the location is included, so you hear the katydids, crickets, birds, whatever. I always look forward to that last segment.

Anyway, Ken Follett was interviewed from his London home and office. He talked about how his publisher, Dutton, was very, VERY skeptical about the manuscript for Pillars of the Earth. It was such a divergence for Follett, who had written nothing but [very popular] espionage novels since his first scribblings as a teen. Pillars is mostly a book from the Middle Ages, about a church. Everything you might ever have wanted to know about the concept and building of a church. Follett writes a book similar to Michener, as far as the depth and creativity with the people(s) who inhabit the history. Pillars was wildly popular - has been translated into 51 languages, I believe he said. Some incredible number of the books have been printed.

And, he talked about the folly of trying to write a sequel, and his fear that people will say "oh, it's okay, but not as good as the first one." He wants us to like this one even better. We'll see . . .

Interestingly, Follett's wife is a politician in England, a member of Parliament. She was briefly interviewed too. She rolled in with Tony Blair's Labour Party, and is still in office with the new P.M. Ken got into a squabble with Tony Blair about Blair's proclivity to gossipmongering.

If you haven't read Pillars, I recommend you read it first. I'll try to remember to give an update on the sequel once I've read it.