In the United States cancer is overtaking heart disease as the leading cause of death. Although a devastatingly common disease, the average person in the US has minimal practical or scientific knowledge about cancer and its treatment. And fewer still are aware of the pitfalls and obstacles inherent in cancer care. Here, Stephen Rosenberg, MD, offers an accessible guide to the disease and the challenges of receiving the best care possible. He guides readers and their loved ones through the process of receiving the diagnosis and laying out a plan moving forward regardless of cancer diagnosis. He identifies the most common pitfalls on the treatment path and helps readers avoid them while they seek the best care possible. Receiving a cancer diagnosis is already devastating. Navigating the confusing waters of treatment should not be. Offering insight into handling emotions, incorporating complementary care, important lifestyle choices, and how to overcome the most common mistakes made in cancer care, this work offers a light in the dark.

Artist, columnist, and poet Gertrude McCarty Smith (1923-2007) of Collins, Mississippi, carried herself as a demure and proper southern lady, yet this was deceiving as she was a prolific, creative trailblazer who had collectors and dedicated readers from coast to coast, and even in Europe. She grew up during the Great Depression with only some vivid storytelling and pictures from the family Bible to inspire and kindle her artistic spirit. However, at the age of ten, her career launched when her grandmother coaxed her with a box of crayons to milk the family cow-her seventy-year love affair with the arts was born. Over the years, she would express her creativity in many forms, resulting in thousands of paintings, sculptures, songs, poems, and newspaper columns and along the way a variety of artful cakes, as she ran a celebrated twenty-five-year cake business. Her art appeared in all shapes, sizes, materials, and "eatability." For most of her early career, Gertrude dabbled with a variety of styles-with subjects mostly centered around life in rural Mississippi and her spiritual life. But in 1980 at the age of fifty-seven, she attended her first Mississippi Art Colony at Camp Jacob in Utica. Over the next fifteen years, she would make her pilgrimage twice a year to be inspired by celebrated guest instructors from around the nation and connect with fellow artists. The Colony was a major catalyst, exposing her to new styles, giving her encouragement and freedom to experiment. Gertrude said of the Colony, "I never knew anything about abstract art, but it fascinated me to no end. Abstract art to me is like a beautiful melody without words. In mixed media, I am in another world and often am surprised at the piece that evolves from the torn watercolor papers. The effect is a kaleidoscope of colors that makes the retinas dance." This book features more than 150 images, a dozen poems, insightful essays from New York art dealer Stephen Rosenberg, acclaimed southern cultural scholar and curator Pat Pinson, and artist, curator, and instructor Rick Wilemon, along with a foreword by Tommy King, president of William Carey University, and a chronicle of her life's journey by her son-in-law, Thomas R. Brooks. As Rosenberg has said, "Gertrude Smith is a remarkable and authentic American woman who teaches us that talent and creativity combined with a humanistic spirit is both a state of mind and a state of grace-at any age." Book proceeds will benefit the Gertrude McCarty Smith Foundation for the Arts to bring access and passion for literature, performance, and visual arts to children in underserved communities throughout Mississippi.

This text on analysis on Riemannian manifolds is a thorough introduction to topics covered in advanced research monographs on Atiyah-Singer index theory. The main theme is the study of heat flow associated to the Laplacians on differential forms. This provides a unified treatment of Hodge theory and the supersymmetric proof of the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet theorem. In particular, there is a careful treatment of the heat kernel for the Laplacian on functions. The author develops the Atiyah-Singer index theorem and its applications (without complete proofs) via the heat equation method. Rosenberg also treats zeta functions for Laplacians and analytic torsion, and lays out the recently uncovered relation between index theory and analytic torsion. The text is aimed at students who have had a first course in differentiable manifolds, and the author develops the Riemannian geometry used from the beginning. There are over 100 exercises with hints.

This text on analysis on Riemannian manifolds is a thorough introduction to topics covered in advanced research monographs on Atiyah-Singer index theory. The main theme is the study of heat flow associated to the Laplacians on differential forms. This provides a unified treatment of Hodge theory and the supersymmetric proof of the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet theorem. In particular, there is a careful treatment of the heat kernel for the Laplacian on functions. The author develops the Atiyah-Singer index theorem and its applications (without complete proofs) via the heat equation method. Rosenberg also treats zeta functions for Laplacians and analytic torsion, and lays out the recently uncovered relation between index theory and analytic torsion. The text is aimed at students who have had a first course in differentiable manifolds, and the author develops the Riemannian geometry used from the beginning. There are over 100 exercises with hints.

Growing up can be difficult, and when your parents take you away from your friends and all that is familiar, growing up slides a little closer to impossible. For Douglas Hobart, age ten, son of a hardworking but sometimes enigmatic father and an emotionally fragile mother, growing up took a turn towards the impossible when his family moved to the rural suburbs of Montvale, Maryland. Through the eyes of Douglas, each of the four Hobart children reacts in their own way to the uprooting and the sprawling effects thereafter. With a free-spirited older sister, an attention starved younger brother, and one more little brother "baking in the oven," Douglas embarks on a journey of self-discovery and emotional evolution. When the worst possible tragedy befalls the Hobart family, the children go their separate ways, both emotionally and physically. Douglas finally frees himself from the tragic associations of Montvale by attending a small western Pennsylvania college, where an affable theatre student, two Swedish lesbians, a wealthy but rebellious New York debutante, and an increasingly unhealthy relationship with his sister send him hurdling in unforeseen directions. In the end, a great many lives have been affected in ways that could not be predicted, and in Douglas' mind, it all started with the family move.