Stranger on a Train: Daydreaming and Smoking Around America with Interruptions
Author: Jenny Diski
Using two cross-country trips on Amtrak as her narrative vehicles, British writer Jenny Diski connects the humming rails, taking her into the heart of America with the track-like scars leading back to her own past. As in the highly acclaimed Skating to Antarctica, Diski has created a seamless and seemingly effortless amalgam of reflections and revelation in a unique combination of travelogue and memoir.
Book Magazine
This memoir/travelogue by the British author of Skating to Antarctica chronicles her journey from Europe to America by cargo ship, followed by two cross-country Amtrak trips. Diski's smoking habit serves as the storytelling vehicle as she desperately seeks out smoking sections throughout her travels in the increasingly health-conscious United States. Often assuming the role of listener, she records the tales shared by the diverse occupants of Amtrak's passenger cars, ultimately finding a piece of herself reflected in their lives. Diski's trek is an eloquent meditation on identity and individuality. —Ann B. Stephenson
Book Magazine
This memoir/travelogue by the British author of Skating to Antarctica chronicles her journey from Europe to America by cargo ship, followed by two cross-country Amtrak trips. Diski's smoking habit serves as the storytelling vehicle as she desperately seeks out smoking sections throughout her travels in the increasingly health-conscious United States. Often assuming the role of listener, she records the tales shared by the diverse occupants of Amtrak's passenger cars, ultimately finding a piece of herself reflected in their lives. Diski's trek is an eloquent meditation on identity and individuality.
Publishers Weekly
"I am not a travel writer in any reasonable sense of the word," Diski confesses. "I do not feel compelled to bring the world to people, or meet interesting characters, or enlarge my circle of acquaintance. I just want to drift in the actual landscape of my destination." Despite the disclaimer, the British novelist (Only Human) does all of the above in this eloquent exploration of the psyche America's and her own. The work is divided into two parts. Journey One begins aboard a transatlantic cargo ship where Diski is among a handful of passengers en route to Savannah, Ga. From there, she takes Amtrak to Arizona. Journey Two takes place a year later as Diski circumnavigates the U.S. from New York's Penn Station to Portland, Ore., and back, stopping in the suburbs of Albuquerque to stay in the backyard trailer of a friend from the first sojourn. As in the Hitchcock thriller of (almost) the same title, strangers whom Diski befriends in the smoking sections, or "sin bins," of the trains divulge the details of their lives; Diski, however, plays it close to the vest, sharing intimacies with readers only about her difficult childhood, struggles with substance abuse and more. "I became remarkably unhappy at having been chosen to survive," she recollects after her first trip, comparing the experience of saying goodbye to her travel mates to leaving the psych ward of England's Lady Chichester Hospital at age 14. As she did in Skating to Antarctica: A Journey to the End of the World (1998), Diski again blurs the borders between traditional travelogue and memoir to create a transcendent work. (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
English novelist Diski (Only Human) mixes memoir and travelog in a sharp, vivid, but ultimately disappointing narrative written around two train journeys, one across the southern United States and the other around its perimeter. She begins each journey with seeming enthusiasm, but before long, she starts feeling that she has opened herself up too much to strangers. She then panics and withdraws, needing to hide away in her tiny cabin on the train. A short visit to the home of a woman she meets on the first journey ends in paranoid terror when Diski becomes convinced that the family won't let her leave. Intermittently, she flashes back to other times in her life, including an unhappy childhood and several episodes of severe depression. The places she visits (Phoenix, Chicago, Jacksonville) are entirely incidental to the story, the scenery is best seen through a train window, if at all, and the people she meets are unremarkable. In the end, Diski seems happiest when exiled to a dingy smoking car puffing desperately on a cigarette, heading home. Not a priority purchase. Linda M. Kaufmann, Massachusetts Coll. of Liberal Arts Lib., North Adams Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
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Our Overweight Children: What Parents, Schools, and Communities Can Do to Control the Fatness Epidemic
Author: Sharron Dalton
The United States is facing a health crisis of epidemic proportions: children are gaining weight younger and faster than ever before. With the prospect of becoming the most obese generation of adults in history, they are already turning up with an alarming assortment of "grown-up" maladies, from type 2 diabetes to high blood pressure. This book takes a clear-eyed look at what's behind the statistics and diagnoses, and what can be done about the major health crisis among American children.
Sharron Dalton begins with the basics: what obesity is, what causes it, and why it matters. Integrating information from scientific and popular sources, she reviews past remedies and their results and compares specific strategies and programs for children. When a third of our children are overweight or likely to become so, it's everyone's problem--and this book argues for a united approach, promoting the role of parents, health professionals, and school and community leaders. For each group, Dalton outlines actions to combat the epidemic. She suggests ways for parents to respond to their children in interactions centered on food and physical activities. And she illuminates a number of issues raised by childhood obesity, from the pain of fat discrimination to the economic, social, and political ramifications of an epidemic of obesity among the young.
At once authoritative and nontechnical, no-nonsense and compassionate, Our Overweight Children is a clear call to action--a prescription for treating the most dire problem threatening our children's health and our nation's future.
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