Books by Gina Kolata
Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused It
by Gina Kolata
A national bestseller, the fast-paced and gripping account of the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918 from acclaimed science journalist Gina Kolata, now featuring a new epilogue about avian flu.
When we think of plagues, we think of AIDS, Ebola, anthrax spores, and, of course, the Black Death. But in 1918 the Great Flu Epidemic killed an estimated forty million people virtually overnight. If such a plague returned today, taking a comparable percentage of the US population with it, 1.5 million Americans would die.
In Flu, Gina Kolata, an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. From Alaska to Norway, from the streets of Hong Kong to the corridors of the White House, Kolata tracks the race to recover the live pathogen and probes the fear that has impelled government policy.
A gripping work of science writing, Flu addresses the prospects for a great epidemic’s recurrence and considers what can be done to prevent it.
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The Best American Science Writing 2007
Provocative and engaging, this collection brings together the premiere science writing of the year. Featuring the imprimatur of bestselling author and New York Times reporter Gina Kolata, one of the nation's foremost voices in science and medicine, and with contributions from Atul Gawande, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Oliver Sacks, among others, The Best American Science Writing 2007 is a compelling anthology of our most advanced, and most relevant, scientific inquiries.
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Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting
by Gina Kolata
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
In this eye-opening report, New York Times science writer Gina Kolata shows that our society's obsession with dieting is less about keeping trim and staying healthy than about money, power, trends, and impossible ideals. Kolata's account of four determined dieters in a study comparing the Atkins diet to a low-calorie one becomes a broad tale of science and society, of social mores and social sanctions, and of the place of diets in American society. Brimming with anecdote, scientific data, and common sense, Rethinking Thin offers a challenge to the conventional wisdom about diets and weight loss.
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Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting
by Gina Kolata
In this eye-opening book, New York Times science writer Gina Kolata shows that our society’s obsession with dieting and weight loss is less about keeping trim and staying healthy than about money, power, trends, and impossible ideals.
Rethinking Thin is at once an account of the place of diets in American society and a provocative critique of the weight-loss industry. Kolata’s account of four determined dieters’ progress through a study comparing the Atkins diet to a conventional low-calorie one becomes a broad tale of science and society, of social mores and social sanctions, and of politics and power.
Rethinking Thin asks whether words like willpower are really applicable when it comes to eating and body weight. It dramatizes what it feels like to spend a lifetime struggling with one’s weight and fantasizing about finally, at long last, getting thin. It tells the little-known story of the science of obesity and the history of diets and dieting—scientific and social phenomena that made some people rich and thin and left others fat and miserable. And it offers commonsense answers to questions about weight, eating habits, and obesity—giving us a better understanding of the weight that is right for our bodies.
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Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Health and Exercise
by Gina Kolata
From the highly acclaimed New York Times science writer Gina Kolata, the book for people who love exercise as much as they value the truth.
In Ultimate Fitness, Gina Kolata, science reporter for The New York Times, takes a fascinating journey into the fads, fictions, and genuine innovations that have defined the world of physical fitness. From weight lifting for men and women in the early days, to jogging in the 1970s, cycling in the 1980s, aerobics in the 1990s, and now Spinning, Kolata explains the science of conditioning and the objective evidence behind commonly accepted prescriptions.
Ultimate Fitness is also a book about the individuals who have challenged and influenced or failed to influence the industry, and the many of us who have participated in
this multimillion-dollar corner of American culture.
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Mercies in Disguise: A Story of Hope, a Family's Genetic Destiny, and the Science That Rescued Them
by Gina Kolata
"[Kolata] is a gifted storyteller. Her account of the Baxleys... is both engrossing and distressing... Kolata's book raises crucial questions about knowledge that can be both vital and fatal, both pallative and dangerous." ―Andrew Solomon, The New York Review of Books
New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata follows a family through genetic illness and one courageous daughter who decides her fate shall no longer be decided by a genetic flaw.
The phone rings. The doctor from California is on the line. “Are you ready Amanda?” The two people Amanda Baxley loves the most had begged her not to be tested―at least, not now. But she had to find out.
If your family carried a mutated gene that foretold a brutal illness and you were offered the chance to find out if you’d inherited it, would you do it? Would you walk toward the problem, bravely accepting whatever answer came your way? Or would you avoid the potential bad news as long as possible?
In Mercies in Disguise, acclaimed New York Times science reporter and bestselling author Gina Kolata tells the story of the Baxleys, an almost archetypal family in a small town in South Carolina. A proud and determined clan, many of them doctors, they are struck one by one with an inscrutable illness. They finally discover the cause of the disease after a remarkable sequence of events that many saw as providential. Meanwhile, science, progressing for a half a century along a parallel track, had handed the Baxleys a resolution―not a cure, but a blood test that would reveal who had the gene for the disease and who did not. And science would offer another dilemma―fertility specialists had created a way to spare the children through an expensive process.
A work of narrative nonfiction, Mercies in Disguise is the story of a family that took matters into its own hands when the medical world abandoned them. It’s a story of a family that had to deal with unspeakable tragedy and yet did not allow it to tear them apart. And it is the story of a young woman―Amanda Baxley―who faced the future head on, determined to find a way to disrupt her family’s destiny.
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Mercies in Disguise: A Story of Hope, a Family's Genetic Destiny, and the Science That Rescued Them
by Gina Kolata
"...a moving, suspenseful page-turner that's likely to become a classic of medical storytelling." ―The Washington Post
New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata follows a family through genetic illness and one courageous daughter who decides her fate shall no longer be decided by a genetic flaw.
The phone rings. The doctor from California is on the line. “Are you ready Amanda?” The two people Amanda Baxley loves the most had begged her not to be tested―at least, not now. But she had to find out.
If your family carried a mutated gene that foretold a brutal illness and you were offered the chance to find out if you’d inherited it, would you do it? Would you walk toward the problem, bravely accepting whatever answer came your way? Or would you avoid the potential bad news as long as possible?
In Mercies in Disguise, acclaimed New York Times science reporter and bestselling author Gina Kolata tells the story of the Baxleys, an almost archetypal family in a small town in South Carolina. A proud and determined clan, many of them doctors, they are struck one by one with an inscrutable illness. They finally discover the cause of the disease after a remarkable sequence of events that many saw as providential. Meanwhile, science, progressing for a half a century along a parallel track, had handed the Baxleys a resolution―not a cure, but a blood test that would reveal who had the gene for the disease and who did not. And science would offer another dilemma―fertility specialists had created a way to spare the children through an expensive process.
A work of narrative nonfiction, Mercies in Disguise is the story of a family that took matters into its own hands when the medical world abandoned them. It’s a story of a family that had to deal with unspeakable tragedy and yet did not allow it to tear them apart. And it is the story of a young woman―Amanda Baxley―who faced the future head on, determined to find a way to disrupt her family’s destiny.
Copies
No copies available.