MARCIA ADAMS: HEART TO HEART, is a contradiction of sorts, and a delightful one. A happy hurrah of joy and determination, this book by the well known cookbook author and PBS cooking chef, Marcia Adams writes of her new role as she grapples with congestive heart failure and a possible heart transplant. It is not a sad book, but is written with both honesty and good humor. "The first thing I tell people about my illness is that the food I write about in my cookbooks, did not do this to me. My congestive heart failure is caused by an upper respiratory virus that settled in my heart, damaging it before it left my body—such a nuisance! " The book reflects Adams' far-ranging interests in cuisine, travel, gardening, art and antiques. She admits to a passion for literature and books, saying "I am a literature junkie. I have real feelings of anxiety that I might run out of good things to read. I have never understood why people go to bars or do drugs to escape, when they could go to a library. . . A library is such a quiet civilized place, and you never have a hang over." A self-described control freak, Adam's journey from frustration and "a sort of denial, because I wasn't being true to my inner self" to the acceptance of her condition is a compelling reading experience. Her news of her diagnosis and her decision to be a potential heart transplant patient is presented as a daily journal, over a year's period. Uninhibited and natural, the journal records Marcia's emotional ups and downs, making the decision to live. She became active in promoting more information about women and heart disease through the media. "I was devastated when I first heard I had serious heart disease. I was in the middle of writing another cookbook and producing another public television series," said Adams. "How could this happen to me? I still have so much to do, and more books are in my head just waiting t0 tumble out and be written on the page. What I learned immediately was, 'why not me?'" Suffering also from painful and ever-present arthritis and fibromyalgia, Adams first decided to let nature take its course. "I began to get my life in order, the will was re-written, the cemetery plot and stone were selected, all the cupboards and closets were cleaned, the memorial service planned. . . then I just kept on living. It was taking too long to die. I had difficulty just lying around, waiting for death. It is very unlike me to passively wait for anything, including my demise. I was reminded myself of the character of Pozzo in Samuel Beckett's play, who observes with a touch of surprise, "I do not seem . . . able to depart." The introduction of a new arthritis drug enabled me to come to the decision I would attempt to have a heart transplant. "Emily Dickinson points out 'we dwell in possibility,' which, incidentally, is a mantra of mine. My quality of life, other than the slowing down from cardiac heart failure, still provides me with so much creative satisfaction and interaction with hundreds of people. With a laptop computer, and four very devoted caregivers, including my Spouse, Dick, I have been able to survive this interim period before I receive a new heart, with some grace and a great deal of happiness. And I have been given enough time to write this book and produce half-hour PBS documentaries on women and heart disease. This is a precious opportunity. During all this upheaval, my philosophy and lifestyle did change totally. The essence of it is, though, the whole experience certainly has not been a negative one. And I want people to know that and also to take encouragement and comfort from the book, if they choose." Determined to turn the negative into a positive, Adams went on a local heart transplant list in February, 2000, at Fort Wayne, Indiana, a regional heart surgery center. The journal, which also includes over a hundred of her new recipes, plus a list of medical resou