THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604260724
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA, BOOK EDITOR
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
Two Norfolk mental-health practitioners top a diverse mix of authors living - currently or formerly - in Virginia or North Carolina who have recently published books.
Psychiatrist Abbot Lee Granoff discusses panic attacks and phobias in his new self-help guide, Help! I Think I'm Dying! (paper, $14.95), and clinical psychologist Gerald T. Ramsey examines transsexuals and transgenderism in his soon-to-be-released Transsexuals: Candid Answers to Private Questions (The Crossing Press, $24.95).
In Help! I Think I'm Dying!, Granoff confronts fear and confusion about anxiety disorders, explains both panic attacks and the genesis of agoraphobia, and charts a clear, sensible course to accurate diagnoses and effective treatment from qualified professionals. Copies of the book may be ordered from the author at 6330 Newtown Road, Suite 316, Norfolk 23502; (804) 461-7571. An 80-minute videotape, ``Panic Disorder: A Clinical View,'' with Granoff covering the same material, may be purchased for $19.95.
Ramsey, a Richmond native who practices with Ghent Psychological Practices in Norfolk, has counseled hundreds of transsexuals both before and after their decisions to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. His book elaborates on transsexuality in a lively question-and-answer format based on case histories and interviews with transsexuals, their families, friends and lovers. Transsexuals: Candid Answers to Private Questions may be ordered from the California publisher at (408) 722-0711.
Chesapeake author MaryAnne Gleason has set her first novel, Forbidden Obsession (Cascade Books/Ocean Publications, paper, $6.95), a suspense mystery, in Hampton Roads. Main character Melody Moon arrives in Norfolk to prove her brother's suicide was actually murder and is soon terrorized by someone who wants her dead as well. Gleason, a Virginia Beach elementary school teacher, spices up the plot by linking Moon romantically with a handsome priest. The novel may be ordered from the publisher at 650-7890.
Unlisted Numbers (Mount Olive College Press, $10), part of Mount Olive's ``Psyche Series'' for female voices, collects free verse by Eleanor Rodman May, editor of ``Coastal Plains Poetry'' in Washington, N.C. May's affecting poetry is grouped under sections titled ``Unlisted Numbers,'' ``Remembering'' and ``Atonement.'' To order a copy, call May at (919) 946-1299.
Educator and Alexandria resident Raymond Lawrence Smith, Ph.D., relates a woman's 20-year struggle with alcoholism in The Peach Cobbler Lady (Noble House, $27.95), a sequel to The Ice-Cream Man. The novel may be ordered from the Baltimore publisher at 1-800-873-2003 or (410) 882-7700.
Calvin Ray White drew from his decades of experience in counseling troubled adolescents to write A Boy and a Man: Short Stories of Interpersonal Relationships (Carlton Press, $11.95). White lives in Lexington, S.C., but held his first book signing in February at Norfolk State University, where his son Gary is a senior.
The Virginia Chefs Association and Martha Hollis Robinson have collaborated to produce Culinary Secrets of Great Virginia Chefs: Elegant Dining from Colonial Williamsburg to Historic Richmond (Rutledge Hill Press, $19.95, 313 pp.), a cookbook of more than 200 of the best recipes from Virginia's finest chefs and a collection of the chefs' ``trade secrets.''
Deliverance of a Treasure: The Cupola House Association and Its Mission (Research Triangle Press, $10), by attorneys and historic preservationists Mary Ann Coffey and Murphy Moss, recounts the 1918 salvation of the 1758 Cupola House in Edenton, N.C. The work of the Cupola House Association was the earliest community-based effort in North Carolina to save a historic structure. For a copy, send a $12 check, payable to the Association, to P.O. Box 311, Edenton, N.C. 27932.
John H. Hyman of Alexandria spent the first nine years of his life in Scotland Neck, N.C., and fondly recalls the place of his childhood in his new first novel, The Relationship (E.M. Press, Manassas, Va.; $16.95). Two boys, one white, one ``colored,'' growing up in segregated Scotland Neck during World War II, form a tight friendship that is tested.
Ron Levin, who grew up in Williamston, N.C., sets his post-World War II thriller, Devil's Gut: A Novel of Good and Evil (paper, $9.95), in a small eastern North Carolina town on the edge of a wilderness swamp. The self-published novel may be ordered from the author at 4303 Old Greenville Hwy., Liberty, S.C.; (803) 646-6425.
Former real estate tax appraiser J. Willis Judkins, Sr., a Newport News native now living in Wilmington, N.C., shares his expertise in Tax Appraisal Strategy (Vantage Press, $11.95 paper), a practical how-to guide. A copy may be ordered from the publisher at (212) 736-1767. by CNB