The Thorn

January 14, 1991
In this concise, specialized, workmanlike survey of the history of antibiotics, Wainwright, a lecturer at the University of Sheffield in England, discusses how such chemical materials were first discovered by science (6000 have been identified to date). Though used in folk medicine for centuries, antibiotics have been explored in the laboratory only during the past 60 years, and the author lavishes much attention on the pioneering efforts of Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming, who isolated and cultivated penicillin in 1928. Also examined are less famous scientists who contributed to cures for tuberculosis and venereal disease, as well as recent developments in medications for cancer and AIDS. Wainwright speculates that vaccines (against malaria, leprosy, sleeping sickness, respiratory diseases et al.) may eventually achieve more widespread use and effectiveness, and predicts that new wonder drugs will supersede many of today's antibiotics. Photos not seen by PW.

September 15, 2010
Impulsive and self-absorbed Hen, who left her Old-Order Amish family to marry a man of the world, and sweetly obedient Rose Ann, the younger sister upon whose slim shoulders falls responsibility for their crippled mothers care, are both troubled in spirit. Hen now has a four-year-old daughter and yearns for a romanticized version of the Plain life she left behind, thus forsaking her husband for her parents house. Rose Ann finds solace in currying and riding her fathers driving horses, accompanied only by her dear childhood friend Nick, the rebellious now-grown foster son of their bishop who refuses to join the church. Suspicion, melodrama, and misdirected passions are the order of the day in best-selling, Christy Award-winning Lewis newest Amish romance, the first in a trilogy set in 1985 Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and introducing the two Kauffman sisters, one struggling to reconcile her background and beliefs with her obligations, and the other innocently unaware that not one but two young men want to claim her.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)