Category Archives: Uncategorized

06.27.12
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The UltraMindSolution–It’s About What You Eat–Mark Hyman M.D.

Everywhere you look, the discourse is about the nation becoming anxious, depressed and FAT!   New York Times  columnist Mark Bittman has this recent report. ( June 27, 2012 Op-Ed) 

“One of the challenges of arguing that hyperprocessed carbohydrates are largely responsible for the obesity pandemic (“epidemic” is no longer a strong enough word, say many experts) is the notion that “a calorie is a calorie.”

Accept that, and you buy into the contention that consuming 100 calories’ worth of sugar-water (like Coke or Gatorade), white bread or French fries is the same as eating 100 calories of broccoli or beans. And Big Food — which has little interest in selling broccoli or beans — would have you believe that if you expend enough energy to work off those 100 calories, it simply doesn’t matter.

There’s an increasing body of evidence, however, that calories from highly processed carbohydrates like white flour (and of course sugar) provide calories that the body treats differently, spiking both blood sugar and insulin and causing us to retain fat instead of burning it off.

In other words, all calories are not alike.”

FromGordon’s Good Reads:

There is much more to the story than calories  and obesity. If you wish to read an outstanding overview and “work book”  on how eating the wrong foods in almost any combination can raise havoc with your life, your brain and your body, get a copy of Mark Hyman M.D.’s book The UltraMindSolution.  The book is  about “functional medicine,”  treating the root cause of illnesses and disorders rather than just the symptoms.

Dr. Hyman details how eating the wrong foods combined with food allergies can have health implications far beyond the obesity epidemic including autism, cancer, diabetes,  and the short circuiting of the brain!  Hyman cites many culprits including sugar, highly processed foods, yeast, gluten and mercury.  Conversely, he concludes and documents that eliminating toxic elements from the diet can  erase not only the symptoms but the disease itself!  The Ultra Mind Solution concludes that by fixing the body first by carefully examining what people ingest, individuals  can also fix their brains and free themselves from anxiety and depression.

This is a self-help book of the finest order. Whether you adopt Hyman’s philosophy is an open question but I predict that after reading the UltraMindSolution you will change your diet and carefully consider almost everything you eat. You may even adopt the program!  Proponents of Mayor Bloomberg’s  ban on super size sugar drinks should place this volume in their arsenal!

Also by Mark Hyman, M.D. : The Detox Box, Ultraprevention, UltraMetabolism,  The UltraSimple Diet, The UltraMetabolism Cook-Book.

01.23.12
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TOM CLANCY/ LOCKED ON/HARD TO PUT DOWN!

Locked On by Tom Clancy  with Mark Greaney  jumps into the action  literally on page one!  There is no waiting to begin another Clancy journey and all of the familiar characters assume their roles as the saga continues!  What other spy novel gets you up at 4 A.M. to see if Sam Driscoll gets extracted from prison in  Waziristan?  John Kelly becomes an enemy of the state in a bitter dispute with President Kealty whom Ryan is about to unseat.  While the re-election of Jack Ryan Sr. as president is a given, nuclear war heads in the hands of Islamic Terrorists is a drama played out from beginning to end.  All of Clancy’s high-tech innovations and cleaver and pointed tie-ins to current political events and themes permeate this new Clancy novel.  The India-Pakistan conflict escalates and there is even a love interest for Jack, Jr and that too becomes a cliff hanger for the next edition.  Did Mary Pat Foley make a good choice at as match-maker?  we will have to wait for that answer.

I am happy to place Locked On  in my library next to my hard cover collection of his fifteen previous novels. If you are a Clancy fan I think you will feel them same way.

01.04.12
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Gordon’s Good Reads /January-February Issue of VENU Magazine

Gordon’s Good Reads starts the New Year in VENU MAGAZINE with a look at five great suggestions for your library. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh, That Used To Be Us by Tom Friedman,  Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne and Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  You  will find VENU at leading retail establishments, hotels and venues throughout Fairfield and Westchester Counties.  Enjoy!

12.08.11
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Osawatomie, Kansas/ Colonel Roosevelt/Edmund Morris

Gordon’s Good reads is an Edmund Morris fan!  We have recommended all of his TR books and in addition placed him among the historians suggested for Obama’s ” Kitchen Cabinet” of writers!  So here we go to Osawatomie, Kansas, magnificently researched by Morris in Colonel Roosevelt under the banner of TR’s The New Nationalism.  It all begins on page 100 and if you wish to see where President Obama’s campaign is heading Colonel Roosevelt may be a good road map.

11.30.11
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Gordon’s Good Reads Christmas Picks

Classic books make thoughtful Christmas gifts. They can be paired to the personality and interests of the recipient and the  loves and likes of family and friends.  Classic books are unique gifts and will likely not be duplicated. You can find them in paperback for stuffing in Christmas stockings,  in original hard cover, collectors signed copies and of course digitally!  Some have been reviewed here in Gordon’s Good Reads.

To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

East of Eden, John Steinbeck

Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver

The Sun also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry

Sons and Lovers ,D.H. Lawrence

The Wings of the Dove, Henry James

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis

There are classics for all ages

Spark  young persons interest in reading good books with Jack London’s Call of the Wild or Patricia Rawlings The Yearling  or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird?  It is well worth the try!  

Any further suggestions? Let me here from you and I will be happy to post.

11.15.11
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NON ZERO SUM- WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!

Conversations with friends can quickly lead to  book recommendations. A discussion of Tom Friedman’s That Used To Be Us, resulted in  a recommendation and  a gift copy of Robert Wright’s  NON ZERO SUM THE LOGIC OF HUMAN DESTINY. 

Heavy duty subject? Yes indeed! However, Wright presents the subject matter in a logical and understandable progression.  The basic  premise is that throughout the development of civilization, Non- Zero Sum cooperation, just the opposite of  Zero- Sum with only winners and losers, is what advanced our civilization from savages, barbarians, chiefdoms and tribes to a cooperative civilization.  Take a look at this quote from Wright. “Judging by history, the current turbulence will eventually yield to an era of relative stability, an era when global political, economic and social structures have largely tamed the new forms of chaos. The world will reach a new equilibrium. Or on the other hand, we could blow up the world.”

Or, “As history progresses, humans find themselves playing non-zero-sum games. Interdependence expands, and social complexity grows in scope and depth.”

“Innovate or die! Population density drives technological and social development not by creating opportunities, but by creating problems. Problems that must be solved  for the greater good!”

Not at all unlike many of Tom Friedman’s theories so ably expressed in The World is Flat,  Hot Flat and Crowded. and That Used To Be Us. Wright, like Friedman has the ability to take sweeping concepts and break them down into logical elements. He outlines how throughout history  man has managed to turn acute need and chaos into opportunity, not with a Zero-Sum  I win you lose approach, but with the concept of working together for a common good or what he calls Non-Zero!

Non-Zero is a tremendous exploration of how we have become who we are and the implication is clearly that the evolution of our civilization as a cooperative society will play a key role in what we become. 

Zero -Sum has no winners! With Non-Zero  everyone can win.  There are  many lessons here , especially in today’s political climate domestically and around the globe. If you have a friend in the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate send them a copy!

10.19.11
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Occupy Wall Street? Two Insightful Books Morgenson and Rosner,Friedman and Mandelbaum

Anyone who questions the “why” in the Occupy Wall Street movement that is sweeping the nation and the world need only pick up a copy of Reckless Endangerment by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner! ( See Gordon’s Good Reads July 16, 2011 blog post.)  The book did not predict that folks would be manning the barricades by October but I would assume the  Occupy Wall Street movement came as no surprise to these two  excellent reporters. Reckless Endangerment is a must read for all who are trying to put Occupy Wall Street in context.  The mantra ” We are the  Ninety-Nine Percent” will become abundantly clear after reading Morgenson’s and Rosner’s work.

Nor will the Occupy Wall Street movement come as any  surprise to readers of  Tom Friedman’s and Michael Mandelbaum’s That Used To Be Us, How America Fell Behind in the World We Invented and How we Can Come Back.  That Used To Be Us  places in focus the circumstances leading up to the economic and social turbulence in America.

Friedman and Mandelbaum cite four major challenges facing America: How to adapt to globalization, how to adjust to information technology, how to cope with large and soaring budget deficits and how to manage in a world of rising energy consumption and rising threats to the climate and environment.  Though That Used  To Be Us was written before Occupy Wall Street  it clearly enlightens the reader on the years of ignorance in all quarters leading up to the nations current economic straits.  Whereas Reckless Endangerment is an investigative chronology of  America’s financial meltdown, That Used To Be Us  meticulously peals back the covers of missed opportunities to right the ship by both government and business. The  How We Come Back  subtitle of the book brings forth big challenges and a hint of optimism but ironically it ties directly into the public protests of today.   Friedman and Mandelbaum call for an end to the political “gross irresponsibility” demonstrated during the budget crises. ” Anyone who proposes solutions that are not at the scale of the problem and don’t require immediate action is not serious. ” They call for  equipping the citizenry with the skills and tools essential for economic growth in a global economy, rebuilding America’s infrastructure,  and emphasize that ” cutting ”  is not the answer unless it is coupled with major tax increases to create hope for a future balanced budget. ” Anyone who says that we can restore order to our national finances today without raising taxes is not being serious.”

Global warming is a major subject in That Used to Be Us, and the twist is that the authors see global warming as a huge economic opportunity to get out in front of new technology with inventions and production that can lead America out of the Great Recession and place its future on a sound economic growth pattern. The authors  urge America to seize the green energy initiatives being undertaken in China and make them America’s own. Stop exporting our science and technology at our own expense, reference the authors.

Great books are timeless and many have been posted on Gordon’s Good Reads.  Reckless Endangerment and That Used To Be Us my not go down in the annals of literature  as timeless or iconic but in 2011 they are certainly timely and both add greatly to broadening ones understanding of this critical American crossroads.

My blog of last week on That Used To Be Us, promoted by last Sunday’s  New York Times Op-Ed by Tom Friedman was written with 100 pages of the book left to read. The finish line is an eye opener no matter what your politics.

09.14.11
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VENU MAGAZINE/SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER ISSUE

Gordon’s Good Reads appears in the just published September-October issue of  VENU Arts and Culture Magazine now available at locations throughout Fairfield and Westchester Counties. Gordon,s Good Reads  is proud to be associated with this wonderful publication.  Enjoy

 

08.24.11
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A KITCHEN CABINET OF HISTORIANS FOR BARAK OBAMA!

Recalling the importance and power of President Harry Truman’s Kitchen Cabinet, brought vividly to life in  David McCulloch’s Truman, the thought occurred to me that it might not be a bad idea for President Obama to appoint his own Kitchen Cabinet to help think through some of  overwhelming issues facing the president and the nation.  There is a wellspring of talent in the world of books and historians from which might come some unique and a-political  ideas and possibly answers. 

 Here we go Mr. President with a suggested list of invitees! My guess is they would all not only come but bring some well-educated perspective.

Jonathan Alter,  The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

Henry William Brands,  The Reckless Decade, America in the 1890s. TR The Last Romantic, Traitor to his Class. ( FDR)

Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson

Doris Kerns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

David McCullough, Truman, John Adams

Edmund Morris,  The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, Colonel Roosevelt, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan

Gordon Wood,The Creation of the American Republic and Empire of Liberty

The body of work by the authors of these works of history is a national resource!  They could very well be the best  and most productive “committee ” in Washington , DC. Go for it Mr. President. You will be in great company!

I Would enjoy hearing  suggestions from my blog readers for the Great Historian Kitchen Cabinet at the White House!

 

08.20.11
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INVISIBLE BRIDGE MAKES NY TIMES TOP 100 OF 2010

Happy to see that Julie Orringer’s Invisible Bridge has made the New York Times Top 100 Fiction For 2010. Well deserved recognition for a great young author. Check our my initial review in the Gordon’s Good Reads archives!  Congratulations!