If you thought that there were a lot of Web sites dealing with diabetes, consider the number of books on the subject.

I link and describe the 1,400 or so substantive Web sites in the 16 Web pages of my On-line Resources for Diabetes. When I started that directory there were only two other Web sites about diabetes, and I never dreamed how much work it would take to keep it up to date.

The “Best Books” about diabetes.

Good thing that I restrained myself from listing and describing the books about diabetes!

There are more than 2,000 available books about diabetes. The American Diabetes Association has probably published more of these books than any other organization. Many of them are linked at the Diabetes Store.

Searching the Library of Congress Online Catalog returned 2218 books.

Searching the California Digital Library returned 1917.

Barnes & Noble.com has 1,750 titles with the keyword diabetes plus 879 matching titles from its network of out of print book dealers.

By comparison, when I checked my favorite general bookstore, Amazon.com had a mere 1580 titles on diabetes. And some of these are not yet published, some are out of print, and a few are written for children or are in other languages. Some only an endocrinologist would love.

One of my favorite things about Amazon.com is that with the links to the books it sells it includes reviews, both professional and from readers. Not all of these reviews are positive. In fact, I have sometimes decided not to buy a book based on one or more of them.

Still, there are a huge number of words to read about diabetes, if you would so choose. I wouldn't, and you probably wouldn't either. And just like Web sites, the quality of the books about diabetes ranges from the superb to awful. So, to make the task easier I highlight a few of my favorite books.

Here, listed in Amazon.com sales rank order (as of September 1, 2003), are the dozen or so books that I think are worth the attention of most anyone with diabetes. The link, where provided, is to the Web page where I have reviewed the book:

Richard K. Bernstein, Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution.
Jennie Brand-Miller et al., The New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index—The Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health.
Gretchen Becker, The First Year—Type Two Diabetes: An Essential Guide for the Newly Diagnosed.
Alan L. Rubin, Diabetes for Dummies.
John A. Senneff, Numb Toes and Aching Soles: Coping with Peripheral Neuropathy. The sequel is Numb Toes and Other Woes: More on Peripheral Neuropathy.
American Diabetes Association Complete Guide to Diabetes.
Gerald M. Reaven, Insulin Resistance: the Metabolic Syndrome X.
Jennie Brand-Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell, and David Mendosa, What Makes My Blood Glucose Go UpÖAnd Down?
William H. Polonsky, Diabetes Burnout.
Gretchen Becker, Stop Diabetes: 50 Simple Steps You Can Take at Any Age to Reduce Your Risk of Type 2 Diabetes.
Michael Bliss, The Discovery of Insulin.
June Biermann and Barbara Toohey, The Diabetic's Book: All Your Questions Answered.
Andie Dominick, Needles: A Memoir of Growing Up with Diabetes.
Deb Butterfield, Showdown with Diabetes.
Steven V. Edelman, Taking Control of Your Diabetes.
A. Paul Chous, Diabetic Eye Disease: Lessons From a Diabetic Eye Doctor.
June Biermann and Barbara Toohey, The Diabeticís Total Health and Happiness Book.

If you want to read any of these books, you generally have, of course, two good choices. You can borrow them from your local library or you can buy from a local or on-line bookstore.

Few local libraries have many books about diabetes. My local library in Santa Cruz County, California, has only 94. But most libraries participate in inter-library loan programs that can find almost any book if you are willing to wait for it.

Buying these books will make them available to you for permanent reference and provide certain other psychic satisfactions. If your local bookstore doesn't have the books you want, you can probably buy them for less on the Web, if you are willing to wait for them to be sent to you. For easy ordering nothing can beat Amazon.com, but a couple of book shopping bots, AddALL and BestBookBuys will show you those on-line vendors that have the best prices.

The American Diabetes Association originally published this article on its Web site as one of my “About the Internet” columns.

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