The Energy Healing Experiments

By Gary E. Schwartz, PhD

"When you were a child, did you ever play with a crystal radio? When I was around eleven years old, I spent many wonder-filled hours listening to Long Island and New York City radio stations with my toy crystal radio set."

The Great Life Diet

By Denny Waxman

"As a child, I refused to eat vegetables. Lettuce and tomatoes (in a sandwich) were the only exceptions. My mother was an excellent cook but I didn't appreciate her skills. Food was a problem for me. Once a week I was permitted to have dinner out with my friends. These were the meals I liked best. I ate all the junk food my body could handle. Whether consciously or not, throughout my childhood I refused vegetables completely. I would eat my mother's vegetable soup only if she strained out the vegetables. I was that bad! In light of this confession, it strikes me as highly ironic that I have spent most of my adult life trying to convince other people to eat their vegetables."

The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership

By Steven B. Sample

"To a greater extent than we realize, and to far greater extent than we would ever care to admit, we are what we read."

The Hour I First Believed

By Wally Lamb

"Figuring it was better if they talked with someone who could speak "medical," I had Maureen call the hospital. She tried twice but couldn't get past "Louella's resting comfortably" and "Someone from the medical team will be calling" and "Can you verify that her insurance provider is Blue Cross/Blue Shield?" And goddamnit, by the time the medical team did call, Mo'd gone out."

Thrive

By Brendan Brazier

"As the body carries out normal functions such as movement and digestion, it naturally becomes increasingly acidic: Acid formation is a natural by-product of a healthy metabolism. The normal biological function becomes a problem only when an inordinate amount of food is consumed. As I mentioned earlier, nutrient-dense, high net-gain food is key. The lower the net gain of the food, the more that must be consumed to obtain all the nutrients the body needs. This leads not only to an overconsumption of empty calories but also to the digestion of more food than is necessary. The more food that passes through the system, the more acidic the body will become."

Body Eloquence

By Nancy Mellon

"After the king died, his ghost haunted the castle the princess had inherited from him, threatening her every step. In her loneliness, she sent her servants out with wicker baskets in search of birds. Each morning she would cry, 'Bring more birds! I must have more birds!'"

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

By Helen Simonson

"To tell Mortimer that he had never begrudged Bertie the gun had been a damn lie. Sitting on the seafront, his back pressed against the wooden slats of a park bench, the Major turned his face up to the sun. The sweater absorbed heat as efficiently as a black plastic bin liner, and it was pleasant to sit tucked away in the lee of the fisherman's black-tarred net-drying sheds, listening to the waves breaking themselves to pieces on the shingle."

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By Rebecca Skloot

"I told her I was hoping to talk to David, and she asked who was calling. Rebecca, I said, afraid she'd hang up if I said anything more."

Just Kids

By Patti Smith

"I needed to get another job. My friend Janet Hamill had been hired at Scribner's Bookstore, and once again, as she had done in college, she found a way of giving me a helping hand by sharing her good fortune. She spoke to here superiors, and the offered me a position. It seemed like a dream job, working in the retail store of the prestigious publisher, home to writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and their books, where paintings by Maxfield Parrish hung in the stairwell."

In Defense of Food

By Michael Pollan

"So scientific eating is an old and venerable tradition in America. Here's how Harvey Levenstein sums up the quasiscientific belies that have shaped American attitudes toward food for more than a century: 'that taste is not a true guide to what should be eaten; that one should not simply eat what one enjoys; that the important components of foods cannot be seen or tasted, but are discernible only in scientific laboratories; and that experimental science has produced rules of nutrition which will prevent illness and encourage longevity.' Levenstein could be describing the main tenets of nutritionism."

Time Alive

By Alexandra Stoddard

"The rooms we occupy are not still lifes. They are living, breathing spaces where we go to celebrate every day. While there will be many different rooms in ours lives, each one we feel comforable in and enjoy living in will have a great deal of influence on our mood and outlook."

The Book Thief

By Markus Zusak

"As they walked back to Himmel Street, Rudy forewarned her. 'One day, Liesel,' he said, 'you'll be dying to kiss me.'"

Sh*t My Dad Says

By Justin Halpern

"My dad has always valued education and hard work. 'If you work hard and study hard and study hard, and you fuck up, that's okay. If you fuck up and you fuck up, then you're a fuck up,' he's said to me on more than one occasion. But there are a lot of other factors besides effort that go into a successful and enjoyable school experience. Probably the most important one is how you fit in socially. "

Prescriptions For Natural Healing

By Phyllis A. Balch, CNC

"Many cases of carnitine deficiency have been identified as partly generic in origin, resulting from an inherited defect in carnitine synthesis. Possible symptoms of deficiency include confusion, heart pain, muscle weakness, and obesity."

Tropic of Cancer

By Henry Miller

"Easter came in like a frozen hare - but it was fairly warm in bed. Today it is lovely again and along the Champs-Elysees at twilight it is like an outdoor seraglio choked with dark-eyed houris. The trees are in full foliage and of a verdure so pure, so rich, that it see,s as tough they are still wet and glistening with dew. From the Palais du Louvre to the Etoile it is like a piece of music for the pianoforte. Tor five days I have not touched the typewriter nor looked at a book; nor have I had a single idea in my head except to go to the American Express. At nine this morning I was there, just as the doors were being opened, and again at one o'clock. No news. At four-thirty I dash out of the hotel, resolve to make a last minute stab at it. just as i turn the corner I brush against Walter Pach. Since he doesn't recognize me, and since I have nothing to say to him, I make no attempt to arrest him. Later, when I am stretching legs in the Tuileries his figure reverts to mind. He was a little stooped, pensive, with a sort of serene yet reserved smile on his face. I wonder, as I look up at this softly enameled sky, so faintly tinted, which does not bulge today with heavy rain clouds but smiles like a piece of old china, I wonder what goes on in the mind of this man who translated the four thick volumes of the History of Art when he takes his blissful cosmos with his drooping eye."

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

By Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

"I want to find some travel or history books about the Channel Islands too. Is it really true that on a clear day, you can see the cars on the French coast roads? So it says in my Encyclopedia, but I bought it secondhand for 4 shillings and I don't trust it. There I also learned that Guernsey is 'roughly seven miles long and five miles wide, with a population of 42,000 inhabitants.' Strictly speaking, very informative, but I want to know more than that."

The Detox Strategy

By Brenda Watson

"While allergic reaction to mold (experienced by one in three people) is the most common health problem associated with exposure, many symptoms (either alone or in combination) may also result."

The Secret

By Rhonda Byrne

"Action is a word that can imply "work" to some people, but inspired action will not feel like work at all. The difference between inspired action and action is this: Inspired action is when you are acting to receive. If you are in action to try and make it happen, you have slipped backward. Inspired action is effortless, and it feels wonderful because you are on the frequency of receiving."

The Agenda

By Bob Woodward

"The morning of October 4, 1992, Clinton called Stephanopoulos into his suite at the Grand Hotel in Washington. Clinton was grumpy. He was scheduled to travel to North Carolina to deliver a speech on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)."

The Alchemist

By Paulo Coelho

"All who went there were happy at having done so. They placed the symbols of the pilgrimage on the doors of their houses. One of them, a cobbler who made his living mending boots, said that he had traveled for almost a year through the desert, but that he got more tired when he head to walk through the streets of Tangier buying his leather."