On Keeping a Notebook: A Reading List
A lot has been written on the why and how of keeping a notebook or journal. Here writer, editor, and translator Jeanne Bonner explains, “You can always write in a notebook — on a plane, in the car, even while out on a lake in a canoe. It’s almost never a breach of etiquette to pull out a notebook.”
She provides a list of, with links to, eight in-depth articles that “explore the joys of keeping a notebook and the art of writing longhand.”
Study finds guns automatically prime aggressive thoughts — even when wielded by a ‘good guy’
Since the 60s, studies have tested whether the presence of a gun increases measured aggression in participants. The results of these studies have confirmed that the presence of a gun does indeed prime aggressive thoughts, a phenomenon referred to as the “weapons effect.”
This article discusses the results of a recent study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Binge drinking is increasing among seniors, study finds
I unthinkingly associate binge drinking with young adults, so this article caught my eye.
A report published July 31 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that more than 10% of people over age 65 engage in binge drinking, defined in the study as consumption of five or more alcoholic drinks at a time.
Moreover, the study found that such binge drinking among older adults is on the rise. The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Benjamin Han, assistant professor of geriatric medicine at NYU Langone Health in New York City, theorizes that the increase may be occurring because older women are catching up to older men, whose rate of binge drinking remained relatively stable between 2005 and 2014.
Han also says, “‘Many organizations, such as the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism [NIAAA], recommend lower drinking levels as people get older or have more chronic diseases.’”
Novels That Explore the 1970s
Over time, I’ve posted a lot of articles, mostly nostalgic, about the 1960s, the decade during which I came of age. But I was a new adult in the following decade, the 1970s, and was therefore continuing my maturing process.
If the ’60s had been a decade in which young people focused their attention on making changes in their society, the ’70s has often been called “the me decade,” as individuals turned their attention inward in hopes of finding peace from outside chaos. The enormous social problems people had protested in the 1960s didn’t disappear, but for a variety of reasons, social issues didn’t seem as compelling to many people as the need to change themselves. Self-help became big business.
Here’s a list of novels set during that time:
- The Summer of Ellen by Agnete Friis
- Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Drop City by T.C. Boyle
- Beatlebone by Kevin Barry
- Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James T
- he Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
- City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg
- Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
- All the Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth J. Church
- Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
- Unworthy by Antonio Monda
- Rusty Brown by Chris Ware
- Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty by Ramona Ausubel
- Hippie by Paulo Coelho
More older adults die from cancer despite high screening rates
A recent report published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians found that “the fastest-growing age group in the United States, adults older than age 85 have higher incidences and death rates from cancer than those between ages 65 and 84.”
“The purpose of our study was to provide a comprehensive review of cancer in the oldest old using the most up to date national data,” Carol Desantis, a researcher at American Cancer Society and study author, told UPI. “We hope that these data spur additional research on cancer in this vulnerable and rapidly growing population.”
© 2019 by Mary Daniels Brown
Retreading for Retirement 