Book nook: 'Mindfulness' about depression

MINDFULNESS: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World, by Mark Williams and Danny Penman. Rodale Books, 276 pp., $24.99.

Williams, a clinical psychology professor at the University of Oxford, was part of an international team that in 2002 developed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, which is used from the Mayo Clinic to his native Britain to help prevent relapse of depression.

Williams and journalist Penman begin with "Chasing Your Tail": "Can you remember the last time you lay in bed wrestling with your thoughts?" (You mean, like, last night?) Our thoughts often control our moods -- but they don't have to.

They start simply, with a chocolate meditation, teaching you how to really taste that sweet treat. It's astonishing.