Too often we celebrate the mind and the spirit and forget that we are incarnate beings, merely but magnificently mortal. While it's true that our flesh will ultimately fail and die, our passage on this earth is nevertheless contained within what the Anglo-Saxons accurately and evocatively called the "bone house," which in spite of how much we ignore it, abuse it, or forget we have it, remains incredibly resilient and resourceful for much of our lives. That's why we need to protect and cherish it, and that's why Lantern Books publishes titles that can help you do just that.

In Condom Sense, Dr. Monica Sweeney, director of the New York City Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, makes it clear that the AIDS epidemic is not over, not only in Africa and Asia, but in North America and Europe, where a new generation of young men and women are returning to sex without condoms, resulting in a dramatic increase in HIV cases after years of decline. Her message is clear and strong: The best protection is prevention, with latex condoms. Condom Sense uncompromisingly focuses on the reality of human lives and tells you how to stay safe.

Much of what makes weight loss work is having the right attitude: a feeling of joy in one's life and not the dread of deprivation. A case in point is Norris Chumley, author of The Joy of Weight Loss. He had been on virtually every diet, and they'd all failed. He tipped the scales at the 400 pounds time and time again. He felt hopeless, and, in rare glimpses of honesty, secretly admitted that he was slowly committing suicide. His book tells the dramatic story of how he turned his life around, discovered joy, happiness, and permanent freedom from obesity and offers a straightforward way for you to manage your weight.

Ruth Heidrich faced a different challenge. Diagnosed with breast cancer in her mid-forties, she underwent a double mastectomy. In the process of recovery, she realized that what she had took for fitness and a good diet was in fact killing her. She decided that her recuperation would be to set herself the goal of completing the punishing Ironman Triathlon, a test of endurance involving a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile marathon run. As she describes in A Race for Life, the Ironman led her on an odyssey for health and wellness that will inspire you. Now approaching eighty, Ruth Heidrich is still running, cancer-free, and positive about life. This is her story. In Senior Fitness, Ruth shows how you can maintain and even increase physical and sexual fitness at any age, and dramatically reduce the risk of diseases associated with aging.

Donna Beaudoin (a.k.a. Sister Vegetarian) felt fatigued, sick, and blah. She decided to listen to her deeper self and take her vegetarianism one day at a time. She lasted a week, then a month, then several months, and then over a year. She wrote a book about her experiences—the kind of book she wished she'd had when undergoing her transformation. This is Sister Vegetarian's 31 Days of Drama-Free Living: a recipe, inspirational guide, and fitness guide for anyone who wants to get up and get moving.

For Ginny Jordan, author of Clear Cut, the challenge was recognizing that her health, indeed her very identity, depended on finding something that was "her," even when parts of her body were being cut off to remove the cancer from her body. This poetic and incisive memoir of survival is an incredible testament to our will to survive.