But many are quite good. So, without further ado, here are my favorites.
The prettiest, and at $16.47 (on Amazon.com) the least expensive, book in my collection is the "Mayo Clinic Book of Alternative Medicine" (2007), which is chock full of colorful images -- thin women doing yoga, peaceful women smelling blossoms, huge garlic heads floating in space.
By contrast, the text explaining things like acupuncture and hypnosis seems a bit bland. But there is lots of good information in the "sidebars," and I really like the book's system of green, yellow, and red traffic lights to signal approval, caution, or disapproval for various treatments. This is especially useful for herbs. Valerian, for instance, the herbal sleeping pill, gets a green light, while kava, the anti-anxiety herb that once appeared so promising, gets a red light because of potential liver toxicity.
Another graphically pleasing, very solid reference is "The Duke Encyclopedia of New Medicine" (more thin women doing yoga, more women running through meadows and getting massaged, more gigantic garlic heads). I like this 2006 book because it costs only $26.37 and has easy-to-use information about how the body works and about specific diseases, as well as a whole separate section on alternative and complementary therapies.
The latter section is excellent, though it includes some crazy stuff I would have left out. Like sophrology, supposedly the study of "harmonious consciousness" (with a picture of a bare-chested guy rock climbing), and "neurocranial restructuring," manipulating the skull bones to treat medical problems. Like the Mayo book, Duke uses red and green color strips with check marks to indicate benefits and risks. To its credit, Duke rates sophrology as having minimal benefit (and minimal risk) and warns people in no uncertain terms to stay away from neurocranial restructuring.
