The American Diabetes Association has named November as the month to spread awareness about diabetes in America. Diabetes is a disease that results from when a person's body either doesn't produce insulin (type 1) or does but the person's body doesn't respond to it (type 2). Insulin helps control blood sugar levels and diabetic people have high blood sugar levels, which can cause health problems, though today there are many ways to manage the disease.

In the United States, 24 million people have diabetes. Another 57 million are pre-diabetic, which means they are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes. About 95% of the people diagnosed with diabetes have type 2. The only way to really know if you have the disease is to have a blood test done by your doctor, as there are no noticeable symptoms.

Diabetes is a disease that affects people of all different backgrounds but there are specific factors, such as family history of diabetes and overall health, which can indicate whether you may be at risk.  The American Diabetes Association has simple test you can take here to see if you are at risk of developing diabetes.

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The French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, who introduced a structuralist and universalist approach to the study of anthropology has died, a month before he would have turned 101.

Levi-Strauss was born in 1908 in Belgium and grew up in France, in a French-Jewish family long involved in the arts. He began field work and teaching in the 1930s, primarily in Brazil. He was a visiting professor at the New School in New York in the 1940s and then returned to Paris, where he received his doctorate.

In 1955, Levi-Strauss published what many see as his most influential work, Tristes Tropiques. Levi-Strauss began the story of his anthropological work in Brazil and elsewhere by declaring: "I hate traveling and explorers." And indeed, many of his critics' largest problems with his structuralist approach to anthropology, which sought universal ideas in so-called primitive societies to show human commonalities, was that Levi-Strauss was not an explorer. He preferred study to fieldwork. Levi-Strauss searched for an underlying universal structure to humanity and believed that humans relied on opposites, such as cold vs. hot, to understand the world.

Tristes Tropiques was one man's look at humanity, his attempts and work to understand it. Much of anthropology has changed since the book was published 55 years ago and Levi-Strauss himself rejected the idea that he was the "father of structuralism". But regardless of labels, his influence on anthropology is undeniable and his works will continue to be read by those still trying to make sense of how people explain the world around them.

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Halloween is still two days away but get your vampire fix with this special podcast. Richelle Mead visited the Penguin office about a month ago en route to her Australian book tour and she talked to us about her fabulous YA series, "Vampire Academy".

 Blood Promise

Richelle Mead - author

$16.99 - add to cart

Book: Hardcover | 8.26 x 5.23in | 512 pages | ISBN 9781595141989 | 25 Aug 2009 | Razorbill | 12 - AND UP years 

As November nears, some people begin to think about Thanksgiving, spending time with their families and the upcoming blitz of the holiday shopping season. But for others, the focus for November is one thing only: getting to 50,000 words in 30 days. Yes, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us!

Some say that NaNoWriMo is only for masochists. Others point out that it is more of a quantitative exercise then qualitative (and who but literary folk would use such words?). But I think the best description I've read of NaNoWriMo is that you are given 30 days to let your imagination roam free. Maybe aliens land in Mexico or you spend 1,000 words describing a stain on the couch, so what? The most important thing is that NaNoWriMo gets over 100,000 people around the world writing.

Started in 1999, NaNoWriMo may not have produced the best writing ever (to see a list of published NaNoWriMo authors click here) but it has generated a lot of fun. You do not win prizes for completing your 50k but you can bask in your own personal sense of accomplishment and heck, 50k is a lot of words! (To give you some perspective: in order to write 50k in 30 days, you'd have to write about 1,667 words a day, everyday in November to get there, this blog post is maybe one fourth of that number) NaNoWriMo is possibly the mother of all writing challenges.

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Ah, Candide, can it be? 250 years old already? Happy Birthday!

To celebrate the anniversary, an exhibition called "Candide at 250: Scandal and Success" is on display at The New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

The exhibit, continuing through April 2010, touts Voltaire's original manuscript of Candide (on loan from the Bibliothèque nationale de France), plus other Voltaire relics and memorabilia from the 1956 Broadway production.

Are you a Candide fan? Check out Alan Walker's review of the work in Penguin Classics on Air.

Also, here are a few questions taken from our Candide Reading Group Guide - share your answers by adding a comment to this post with your responses!

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Pooh, who had just put his paw into the tenth pot of honey, left it there, just to be on the safe side, and asked: "What about Christopher Robin?"
"The Rumour, Pooh. Do you suppose he has come back?" - Return to the Hundred Acre Wood

To celebrate the publication of the first new Winnie-the-Pooh book in 80 years, here is a very short History of Pooh:

The oddly name (but beloved) bear known as Winnie-the-Pooh received his name from the real Christopher Robin, author A.A. Milne's son, who named his teddy bear after animals he saw at the London Zoo.

Milne first wrote about a teddy bear who was "short and fat" in his 1924 book of poems, When We Were Very Young. The bear that we know and love as Winnie-the-Pooh had his debut a year later in a story Milne wrote for the Christmas edition of the British newspaper, the Evening Standard. This story later became the first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh. Milne only wrote one more Pooh book after that, The House at Pooh Corner.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy died today, Wednesday, August 26^th, at the age of 77. Kennedy was the third-longest serving senator and despite being diagnosed with brain cancer last year he continued to work on promoting healthcare reform until right before his death.

Kennedy came from the American political family that produced John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, both assassinated in the 1960s. As the younger brother of such charismatic politicians, it was taken for granted that he would go into politics, though not everyone thought he was qualified. Kennedy replaced JFK as a Massachusetts senator in 1962 and proved to everyone that he was.

Ted Kennedy became a lasting political figure in America and a powerful spokesman for liberal ideals in the Democratic Party, which has become more centrist in recent years. But he wasn't a polarizing figure. Republicans also said they enjoyed working with him.

August 16^th marks the 32^nd anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. Known to fans as "The King", Elvis was just 42 when he died. He has sold over a billion records world wide and continues to sell records posthumously.

Elvis is credited with popularizing the melding of different musical traditions, most notably music that at the time was primarily listened to by African-Americans, that led to rock'n'roll. John Lennon once said, "Before Elvis, there was nothing."

At the time of his death, Elvis had fallen out of the public eye mostly. His death at his home, Graceland, outside of Memphis, TN turned Elvis into a cult figure and certainly reinstated his musical legacy in the public consciousness.

From whether Elvis's middle name is Aron or Aaron--to what exactly caused his death to what his life meant to Americans--a lot has been written about Elvis Presley. Here are a few books for adults and kids for you to browse, as you remember "The King".

Bobbie Ann Mason - Author 

$13.00 add to cart

Book: Paperback | 8.26 x 5.23in | 192 pages | ISBN 9780143038894 | 31 Jul 2007 | Penguin | 18 - AND UP

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Last month, an L.A. Times blogger, Carolyn Kellogg, mused in her blog about what former President Bill Clinton was reading. He obliged her and sent her a list of seven books he is currently reading, Media Bistro's GalleyCat reports.

We were pleased to discover that his first three current reads are Penguin books! Discover them for yourself, here:

The Invention of Air

Steven Johnson - Author 

$25.95 add to cart

Book: Hardcover | 9.25 x 6.25in | 272 pages | ISBN 9781594488528 | 26 Dec 2008 | Riverhead | 18 - AND UP

The Ghost Map

 Steven Johnson - Author

$15.00 add to cart 

Book: Paperback | 8.26 x 5.23in | 320 pages | ISBN 9781594482694 | 02 Oct 2007 | Riverhead | 18 - AND UP 

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 I was thrilled when I found out that I’d gotten a summer internship with Penguin, and this summer has turned out to be everything I hoped for and more. I’m an intern with the Penguin Speaker’s Bureau, and it’s been a great experience. The department was started in 2006 to develop author speaking engagements, and it is constantly evolving and improving. In-house speakers bureaus are a relatively new component of the publishing industry, and Penguin’s was one of the first and already has tons of great authors on its roster. I love being a part (however small) of this new development in the publishing industry, and I also love seeing all the speaker requests we get from people who are so excited about the books.

From the first hour of orientation, I could tell this wasn’t the typical corporate environment. Everyone is just so nice, and everyone I’ve talked to really cares about books and seems genuinely happy to be here. I’d never worked for a big company before, so I didn’t know what to expect in terms of bureaucracy. But Penguin manages to minimize the red tape while maintaining some excellent corporate perks (reduced entrance fees to Six Flags are perfect for the intern three-day weekends).