From Booklist
Under each illness is a very brief description of the condition written in plain English, followed by lists of national and/or state organizations, support groups, libraries, reference books, magazines, pamphlets, videos, and children's books. Also included are a list of Wish Foundations that grant wishes for terminally or chronically ill children, and a chapter on Death and Bereavement.
The directory information is most helpful. The lists of organizations and support groups provide names of contact people, as well as complete addresses and telephone and fax numbers. The bibliographies for each section belong in the category of good place to start. While prices are given for books and pamphlets, date of publication and ISBNs are not. Many of the book titles include descriptive annotations.
Information is easy to find. The table of contents has see references to broader entries. For example, Anorexia and Bulimia are cross-referenced to Eating Disorders; Alcoholism and Drug Abuse are found under Substance Abuse. The index is a good search tool if one knows the name of an organization or the title of a book and doesn't know where to find it in the main body of the book. One noteworthy feature in the index is that all titles in the book from any publisher are listed under the publisher's name.
This is the place to start for general information on chronic illness. While expensive, it contains the kind of information that any public library would use regularly as long as the publisher keeps it up-to-date.
