A fall harvest of books by local authors

By Bonnie Wells
Staff Writer

Published on September 12, 2008

From asthma education to walking tours of Boston, from sacred tree medicine to poetic tributes and fictional explorations of "The Secret" for teen readers, local authors have been busy of late. Here's a sampling of new books that crossed the Bulletin's features desk this month.

'One-Minute Asthma'

Amherst physician Thomas Plaut is convinced that virtually all of the two million people who suffer from asthma in America can learn to control their illnesses. Among other books on the subject, he published the pocket-size "One Minute Asthma: What You Need to Know" in 1991 to explain the basics of the illness and the medicines and devices used to treat it. Seventeen years and two million copies later, Plaut's publishing company, Pedipress, Inc., has just brought out the eighth edition.

"The reason I published the new edition now is because a panel of national experts on asthma just came out with some new guidelines on diagnosis and treatment," Plaut said.

The guidelines issued by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in 2007 and included in Plaut's new edition state that a patient whose asthma is well controlled will not have any of the following:

* symptoms more than two times per week

* nighttime awakening due to a cough or wheeze more than once a month (children) or twice a month (adults)

* a need to use quick relief medicine for symptom control more than two days per week

* any interference with normal activity

* a need to take an oral steroid more than once a year.

Written at a fifth-grade level, each page of "One Minute Asthma" presents a single concept or set of facts and takes about one minute to read, the introduction states. One page includes this definition: "Asthma is a long-standing (chronic) disease of the airways. When you have asthma, your airways are over-sensitive and inflamed."

With occasional diagrams and graphs, one-page topics start with "You Can Control Your Asthma" and move on to include "Asthma Triggers," "Danger Signs," "Working With Your Doctor" and "Exercise."

The second half of the book reviews various medications and their delivery systems as well as the importance of keeping an asthma diary.

"There are people who have more experience and knowledge in treating asthma than I do," Plaut said. "My claim to fame is that I know more about teaching people about asthma than anybody in the country."

Plaut will discuss the book and asthma control Sept. 17 at 8 p.m. at Amherst Books, 8 Main St. in Amherst.

A husband's tribute

On the evening of July 16, 2006, Amherst artist Ronald Trent Anderson and his wife, Barbara Groffman Anderson, were sitting in their living room together, admiring the sunset through their sliding glass doors, when he dozed off. He awoke to find that Barbara had joined him in sleep. Beside her was a poem she'd begun.

"I'm happy for my life right here and now," she'd written, "the loveliness I hold within my sight."

Four days later, on the way to a doctor's appointment, she died of a pulmonary embolism.

Anderson says that when he returned home that day, devastated, he found what appeared to be her last poem sitting on the kitchen table, where she'd been working on it that morning.

I am passing through
my years
and each person who has touched me
each dog that has bounded by my side
each branch that has nodded ...
before my eyes ... my pleasure filled
has made me who I am.

After retiring from a long career in teaching, Barbara had devoted herself to poetry for the last 10 years of her life. Now Anderson has published a tribute to his wife, "Pleasure of Discovery," a book of her poetry and images, which includes a timeline of her life and a brief history of their life together.

As she says in "Old Rhythms for New Feet," "I write about

the life of every
day ... intangible yet
real in effect."

The topics of her remarkable poetry and haiku range over the petunias on her deck, the soft green grass of morning, favorite haunts, remembrances of her parents and a muse on experience, as in this ending to her poem "Black on White":

"Wisdom's price,
the pain
erasing innocence."

And woven through all, her pleasure of discovery - of an experience, a sight, a sound, a notion.

"Pleasure of Discovery" is available for $15 in a large-format paperback at the Jeffery Amherst Bookshop in Amherst; the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley and Broadside Bookshop in Northampton. All proceeds will benefit the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, where Barbara served as a docent after her retirement.

Sacred tree medicine

In 1829, scientists extracted the compound salicin from the bark of the willow tree to create the world's most ubiquitous pain medicine, aspirin. But according to Belchertown author, herbalist and Druid priestess Ellen Evert Hopman of Belchertown, the willow is just one of many trees that offer compounds for physical and spiritual health.

Medicine from trees was the topic of her 1991 book "Tree Medicine, Tree Magic," and she has returned to the subject in her latest book "A Druid's Herbal of Sacred Tree Medicine" (Destiny Books, 2008).

"I'm bringing knowledge from the past into the present so modern people will continue to appreciate the lore and practical aspects of the trees," Hopman said. "You can eat it, make medicine and go to it for spiritual comfort."

And she means the deep past. The new book is organized by the ancient alphabet of the pre-Christian Druids known as Ogham, and based on trees. She begins with the first letter of the Ogham alphabet, birch, and ends with yew.

In Part One of the book, for each of 20 trees, she details the lore, as well as herbal and spiritual uses, complete with directions and cautions. Part Two features the Druidic arts, including magic, magical tools, festivals and divination.

Hopman will speak on Celtic cosmology and sign her several books at a Pagan Pride Day celebration Sept. 28, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. outdoors by the campus pond at the University of Massachusetts. She has a six-month intensive on herbal medicine starting Oct. 15 at her home in Belchertown, covering Western herbal medicine, the Chinese five-element theory, homeopathic first aid and flower essence counseling, among other topics. For more information, visit the Web site www.celticheritage.co.uk/EllenEvertHopman/ or call her at (413) 323-4494.

'The Rule of Won'

In his latest book for teen readers, "The Rule of Won" (Walker Books for Young Readers, 2008), Amherst author Stefan Petrucha takes a look at the dark side of "The Secret," the notion promulgated by the bestselling 2006 book and DVD of the same name, that thoughts reify, or as it says on The Secret's Web site, "The Secret reveals the most powerful law in the universe...[It] teaches us that we create our lives, with every thought, every minute of every day."

At Screech Neck High a club has formed around a book based on just such a notion, called "The Rule of Won." As the club's president puts it, "The book explains that if you can completely imagine you've already achieved some goal in your life, you will win it." The meetings, called "craves," are all about fulfilling desires.

You might think the club would be a natural fit for self-described slacker Caleb Dunne, our witty, sensible Screech Neck guide and narrator. The creed, after all, is a slacker's dream. But Caleb's slackitude is grounded in contentment. "As a proud self-avowed slacker, I've actually been accused of being un-American," he says, "but the fact is I just don't want anything badly enough to have to work for it. Stuff? Nope, got some. Riches? Thanks but no thanks. Power? Not unless I can fly. Love? Well, you never really own love, do you?"

Maybe not, but in order to continue to rent some for awhile, Caleb succumbs to his over-achieving girlfriend's insistence that he join the club. Gradually he sips the Kool-aid, but he doesn't swallow. And then things begin to go due south.

As he did in last year's "Teen Inc." Petrucha has peopled "The Rule" with a cast of engaging eccentric characters, and a believable, absorbing and thought-provoking tale that keeps the pages turning way past bedtime.

"I have been - for 15 years or so, going back to the "X-Files" - fascinated by what people believe and why," Petrucha said. "There's nothing wrong with positive thinking, but the expectation that it has to come to you without work can be dangerous. This book looks at some of the mechanisms of the dark side of that."

Meanwhile, "Teen, Inc" may be on its way to the small screen. The book has been optioned for a TV series by NBC Universal and is in development at Nickelodeon.

Petrucha's many other novel for teens include the "Time Tripper" series and a series of Nancy Drew graphic novels. He will be in Boston Sept. 20 at the New England Independent Booksellers Association show at the Hynes Auditorium to sign the latest book in his "Wicked Dead" series, "Wicked Dead: Prey."

'Walking Boston'

"In 1958, M.I.T. student Oliver Smoots was laid end to end repeatedly to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge."

Turns out the bridge is equal to 364 5-foot, seven-inch Oliver Smoots, plus an ear.

Amherst author Robert Todd Felton invites readers (and walkers) to count it out for themselves in his new book "Walking Boston," just out from Wilderness Press.

The user-friendly paperback plots 34 interesting walking routes around Boston, complete with a brief introduction to the area, maps, points of interest, pictures and "back story" insets, from which the Smoots story was drawn.

Routes range from the popular Beacon Hill area with its cobblestones and gaslights, to the 200-year-old Haymarket, the Freedom Trail and lesser known haunts like Bay Village.

"I literally stumbled into it," Felton said. "It's this cute little neighborhood with cobblestone streets and houses built by the workmen who were building the [grander] houses on Beacon Hill."

Also known throughout history as the Church Street District, South Cove and Kerry Village, the neighborhood is bounded by Boylston, Arlington, St. Fayette and Charles Streets. The walking route of approximately one mile is marked "easy."

Felton is the author of "A Journey into the Transcendentalists' New England" and "A Journey into Ireland's Literary Revival," both by Roaring Forties Press. He writes a monthly column on literary roadtrips for Automotive Traveler.

He said what distinguishes "Walking Boston" from the scores of Boston guidebooks, is his emphasis on the quality of the walk. "They're all pleasant walks," he said, "with good walking surfaces and nice views."

Amherst Books hosts a book- launch party for Felton Sept. 16 at 7 p.m. at the bookshop at 8 Main St. in Amherst. More information about the author is available at his Web site, www.rtoddfelton.com.