From: Rob Reid <reidra>
Date: Tue, 3 Dec 1996 08:56:43 -0600

Another excellent science writer is Wisconsin author Nate Aaseng. Take a title like his 1995 book, Autoimmune Diseases, from Watts. Non-browsable, specific topic only researchers would use, correct? Nate, however, has some of the storyteller in him. The opening chapter is a personable account of his little boy falling to sleep several times during the day. Then the son tells Nate that his "potty is brown." Nate finds wine-colored urine, takes the child to the hospital and hears the doctor say "You have 30 minutes to pack a suitcase and head for Minneapolis Children's Hospital." After following the ambulance in a snowstorm the two hours it takes to get to MPLS, Nate and his wife watch in horror as their son approaches death. The doctor explains that the son's system is attacking healthy cells and there is nothing they can do. That's the first chapter of this book. That's the mark of a good nonfiction writer.

Rob Reid Eau Claire, WI
Received on Tue 03 Dec 1996 08:56:43 AM CST