"An engrossing human drama . . . The Shift is one nurse's story, but it contains elements of every nurse's experience."--The Wall Street Journal Practicing nurse and New York Times columnist Theresa Brown invites us to experience not just a day in the life of a nurse but all the life that happens in just one day on a busy teaching hospital's cancer ward. In the span of twelve hours, lives can be lost, life-altering treatment decisions made, and dreams fulfilled or irrevocably stolen. Unfolding in real time--under the watchful eyes of this dedicated professional and insightful chronicler of events--The Shift gives an unprecedented view into the individual struggles as well as the larger truths about medicine in this country. By shift's end, we have witnessed something profound about hope and humanity.

During the past several decades considerable interest has developed in the United States for the wines that are produced in small wineries across our nation. This in terest continues to intensify, especially for the truly good wines that are reason ably priced. Consumers are unforgiving. Second-class wines will not be accept able just because a vintner may be newly established. The functions that must take place in the small estate-type wine cellar and the controls that can be realistically exercised by winemasters are essential in the creation of superior products. Although wine can be a comparatively simple food to produce, it is a very vast topic. Perhaps much the same as with other art forms, it is the infinite variability offactors at the root ofthe subject that renders it so complex. There are hundreds of different vine varieties cultivated around the world, and doubtlessly an even greater number of fruit and berry cultivars. Combined with such factors as soils, climates and mesoclimates (which may change with each vintage season), culti vation techniques, harvesting criteria, and overall operational philosophy, one can easily understand the enormous breadth and depth of variation which exits. This diversity, along with more than 5 years of enological development, generates a number of different wine possibilities that can only be conceived as something vastly exponential.

"Doctors heal, or try to, but as nurses we step into the breach, figure out what needs to be done for any given patient today, on this shift, and then, with love and exasperation, do it as best as we can."--from Critical Care

"At my job, people die," writes Theresa Brown, capturing both the burden and the singular importance of her profession. Brown, a former English professor at Tufts University, chronicles here her first year as an R.N. in medical oncology. As she does so, Brown illuminates the unique role of nurses in health care, giving us a deeply moving portrait of the day-to-day work nurses do: caring for the person who is ill, not just the illness itself.

Critical Care takes us with Brown as she struggles to tend to her patients' needs, both physical (the rigors of chemotherapy) and emotional (their late-night fears). Along the way, we see the work nurses do to fight for their patients' dignity, in spite of punishing treatments and an often uncaring hospital bureaucracy. We also see how a twelve-hour day of caring for the seriously ill gives Brown herself a deeper appreciation of what it means to be alive. Ultimately, this is a book about embracing life, whether in times of sickness or health.

As she takes us into the place where patients and nurses meet, Brown shows us the power of human connection in the face of mortality. She does so with a keen sense of humor and remarkable powers of observation, making Critical Care a powerful contribution to the literature of medicine.

Released for the first time in the English language, and marking the centennial of Albania's independence, Serbs and Albanians delivers an at once refreshing and comprehensive insight into the cultural composition of Southeast Europe. A wider audience can now appreciate the work of Milan ufflay, a controversial figure of his time whose assassination was denounced by leading intellectuals, Albert Einstein and Heinrich Mann. With a measured and often poetic voice, ufflay takes us on a journey through the Middle Ages as it unfolded on a land where opposing cultures were distilled and interwoven, dynasts and whole cities upturned and reborn.