You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People

You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People by the brilliant Aubrey Gordon is a book for everyone to read.

We live in a world of social and systematic anti-fat bias. In this book Gordon debunks the ideas that have helped to create this body of myths.

Broken into easy to digest bits that make up the false logic that our institutions base their policies on, this book will make you think about your biases. From using the BMI as a measure of health (it was a survey of the people in Norway and was never meant to be diagnostic or related to health - until insurance companies started using it to raise rates), to the idea that skinny is healthier, this breakdown of how we got here is easy to read and eye opening. 

Also check out Aubrey Gordon's podcast, Maintenance Phase, for a very entertaining listen while you learn a ton.

Gordon, Aubrey. (2023). You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People. Boston: Beacon.

Viral

Viral by James Lilliefors is a thriller featuring two brothers trying to stop a genocide in Africa. Charles Mallory is an ex-CIA spy who has discovered a plot to kill hundreds of thousands of people in Africa. His brother, Jon, is a reporter who Charles wants to be a witness to the atrocities and get the word out to the public.

Though Jon has not seen or heard from Charlie in years, they have been working together to write a series of stories about what is happening in the (made up) nation of Sundiata, Africa. Now Jon is to go and meet with a doctor who has been trying to treat the victims of a mysterious sickness that kills them in hours.

But Jon's increased involvement also makes him more visible. He must first survive the pandemic sweeping the country and then find his way to safety before he can post his story.

Working together from different sides, the Mallory brothers travel the world following clues as to what is really going on in Africa and who is behind it. Lilliefors has written a fast-paced thriller with a virus at the base but without the gore of previous book in the medical thriller genre.

Lilliefors, James. (2012). Viral. New York: Soho Crime.

Transhuman

Transhuman by Ben Bova is a medical science fiction novel that follows a man on his quest to cure his granddaughter of cancer.

Angela is only eight years old, but she is months away from dying from an inoperable brain tumor. Her grandfather, Luke Abramson, is a brilliant cellular biologist who cannot sit by and watch her die. When the hospital board will not approve the use of his untested cure, Luke signs Angela out of the hospital. He has outfitted an SUV as an ambulance and he plans to make his way across the country to a former student's lab where he is sure he can help Angela.


Being chased by the FBI, Dr. Abramson will get Angela help. Of course, being a 75 year old man, he is not in the best shape of his life. He plans to inject himself with a serum that has shown to reverse aging - in mice.

Bova has written a chase across the country within a race for a cure. Many people have a stake in the outcome of the race - either personally or politically - and Dr. Abramson will be changing lives, one way or another.

Bova, Ben. (2014). Transhuman. New York: Tor.

The Living (The Living #1)

The Living by Matt De La Pena is the story of a cruise gone wrong.

Shy is excited about his summer job. He wanted to save some money before his senior year of high school and the Paradise cruise lines pay better than fast food. It also gives him some time away from home after the death of his grandmother.

His second cruise is an eight day voyage to Hawaii. But as the crew and passengers are getting settled into the routine of the ship, news of a massage earthquake on the West Coast of the United States changes everything. Theoretically, in the middle of the Pacific, the ship is safe from tsunami, but the ship is not quite in the middle of the ocean. It is just off of the Hidden Islands.

Without much warning, the crew must put in place the emergency drills it has been learning and try to save as many passengers as possible. Shy will begin the hardest week of his life.

De La Pena has written a young adult natural disaster novel with a few twists thrown in for fun. This book is fast-paced and readers will devour it.

De La Pena, Matt. (2013). The Living. New York: Delacourte Press.

Dragonsblood (Dragonriders of Pern)

Dragonsblood by Todd McCaffrey is a continuation of the Dragonriders of Pern started by Anne McCaffrey. This is the first novel written about Pern by someone other than Anne McCaffrey.

When the Red Star gets to close to the planet Pern, the skies of Pern rain Thread - an organism that will destroy the planet if allowed to burrow into the soil or plants. In order to combat Thread, the first human settlers of Pern altered the genetic code of fire-lizards to create a creature like the dragons of Earth lore. The dragons can breathe fire and destroy the Thread while it is still in the sky.

All of society developed on the need for dragons. Dragonriders live with the dragons in Weyrs, others live in Holds that supply food and goods to the Weyrs. The Dragons, in turn, protect the planet from Thread.

Told in two times, the current dragonriders are concerned that some dragons are getting sick. As they search through the records they find no evidence of dragons ever getting sick. They have lost the technology and ability to create cures. And all dragons are needed as Thread will begin its latest fall soon.

450 years in the past, the last geneticist, Wind Blossom, is trying to figure out a way to leave the knowledge to treat dragons if they ever get sick. Because without dragons, Pern will become barren and uninhabitable. They must find a way to hide the information for safe keeping but have it ready to be used in the future.

The ability that makes this happen is that dragons and fire-lizards can go between places in the blink of an eye and they can also go back in time. When a fire-lizard appears and falls out of the sky, Wind Blossom will use the last of the antibiotics to heal him. Then she will begin the process of saving the future of Pern.

Todd has done a great job carrying on the stories of Pern. He has captured the same feel as the Pern books by Anne McCaffrey. Fans of the original books will be thrilled to see the series continue.

McCaffrey, Todd. (2005). Dragonsblood. New York: Del Rey Books.

Infected

Infected by Scott Sigler is a science fiction, horror novel that will leave you nauseous.

A rash of outbreaks of a triangle blisters is making people crazy. One doctor within the Center for Disease Control has been given the task of tracking down the victims. She needs a live person to examine. But she keeps getting there too late. All infected seem to go crazy - killing themselves and others.

Now ex-football player "Scary" Perry Dawsey has noticed what look like bug bites. But these bits hurt more than any other. Soon he is in so much pain he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't trust doctors since they failed to fix his knee, ending his football career.

Will the CDC find Perry in time to discover the true organism behind the outbreak? Will they be able to stop the spread before the whole nation is Infected?

Sigler, Scott. (2008). Infected. New York: Crown Publishers.

Deadly Exposure (a Joanna Blalock Medical Thriller)

Deadly Exposure is the fifth Joanna Blalock medical thriller by Leonard Goldberg. (Unfortunately, it is the first one I am reading. I may have to go back and start at the beginning.)

Dr. Joanna Blalock is a forensic pathologist. She is in the middle of an outbreak of unknown origin when she is called away from Los Angeles by a Navy team of scientists - ETOX.

(ETOX was started before the 1969 moon landing. It is a team of scientists of all fields who would be the first response to any dangerous alien threats. Of course, none came back from the moon. But ETOX was not disbanded. The group is now sent in where unknown toxin, bacteria, etc... is found.)

In Alaska, an iceberg has been found with a deadly toxin. Test confirm evidence that the substance found in the iceberg is from a meteorite that crashed onto Earth 65 million years ago. Now the icecaps are melting and the toxin could threaten all life on the planet.

Can Dr. Blalock and the ETOX team learn enough about the bacteria to save humanity?

Deadly Exposure is a medical thriller - for the first 4/5ths of the book - then it switches to a Titanic-like ship-sinking adventure. Strange shift, but both parts are good reading.

Goldberg, Leonard. (2000). Deadly Exposure. New York: Signet Books.

Stigma

Stigma by Philip Hawley, Jr. is a tense and dramatic thriller. Quite a novel for his writing debut.

Luke McKenna, a pediatric ER doctor in Los Angeles is trying to solve a mystery. A young Mayan boy from Guatemala just died under his care. His symptoms don't make sense. And before an autopsy can be performed the body disappears.

Could the disease that killed the young boy have been caused by the pharmaceutical company Zenavax that is conducting malaria research in the jungles of Guatemala? A doctor who used to work with Luke's father gave Zenavax the key research that lead them to the malaria vaccine they are testing.

Is it even possible to genetically alter mosquitoes to deliver a vaccine for malaria as opposed to them spreading the disease?

Hawley takes cutting edge science and twists it to make a fascinating novel that you will not be able to put down.

Hawley, Philip Jr. (2007). Stigma. New York: HarperCollins.

Sequence

Sequence is Lori Andrews first novel. She is an expert on law and genetics and the chair of the federal advisory committee dealing with the legal, ethical and social implications of the Human Genome Project. Needless to say, she had the knowledge to write a great forensic-style thriller.

The book's main character is Dr. Alexandra Blake, a geneticist at AFIP - the Armed Forced Institute of Pathology. She is working on a cure for the 1918 Spanish Flu to protect soldiers from potential biological warfare. Alex is forced to put her research on hold when a new presidential appointee takes over the AFIP. His plan is to turn AFIP into a mini FBI: solving murders involving the military. And it just so happens that at the current moment, there is a serial killer murdering women near military bases across the US.

Andrews has written a great first novel. The science is of course exceptional. Alex is an easy to relate to, likeable main character. And the plot, as one reviewer puts it, has a double helix sort of a twist.

Andrews, L. (2006). Sequence. New York: St. Martin's Press.