It’s the story of many things at once: a country torn apart by power factions and manipulation, a story of a man and what happened to his patriotism over time, a story about genetic and cultural inheritance, a story about migration, and above all, what it means to lose a home—something as relevant today as it was during the time of Alizadeh’s migration.
Category: Non fiction reviews
A review of Smile of a Midsummer Night by Lars Gustafsson and Agneta Blomqvist
In this illuminating book the authors, who happen to be husband and wife, present a personal view of Sweden, a country most of us know very little about. They do this by way of writing several short essays – there are 29 altogether – focusing on different aspects of Sweden and Swedish life.
A review of Heal Your Gut by Lee Holmes
I didn’t realize until reading Heal Your Gut just how critical good gut health is, and how integrated gut health is with overall health. For people who are really suffering with gut issues, and I know from personal experience that this is not fun and can be debilitating, following Holmes’ full protocol can be life changing. For everyone else, this is a very useful resource that will help improve the diet, improve gut function and overall well-being, while providing a treasure trove of easy to follow gut-friendly recipes suitable for the whole family.
A review of The Frugal Book Editor by Carolyn Howard-Johnson
This book fills a very special niche between the dry, technical style manuals and the more user-friendly, kinder-gentler teacher approach. Howard-Johnson’s presentation gives us the feeling that we are seated in her classroom (she is, in fact, a UCLA Writers Program Extension instructor) with the benefit that she will not disappear at the end of the semester.
A review of Casino Women by Susan Chandler and Jill B Jones
It’s pretty rare these days to find something that offers such rich descriptions of the labor forces in the world’s most lucrative industries. The experiences are genuine and highlight themes like intellectual frustration, exploitation, and physical pain, common issues encountered by female workers in casinos, but more importantly, female workers throughout all sectors.
A review of A Short History of Stupid by Bernard Keane and Helen Razer
This is a book that is delightfully vulgar, bravely contrary, openly critical of media, government (especially the current one), the news, television in general, new age clap trap, and pretty much everything else. If they err on the side of being just a little too confident that they’re smarter than the average bear, it’s probably because they are. A Short History of Stupid is a panacea to all the soft serve we’re fed on a regular basis.
A review of Words Without Music by Philip Glass
There is so much to learn here, not just about Glass, but about ourselves—how to live, how to learn, how to create. Towards the end of the book, Glass talks about his work on his Cocteau Trilogy in which he says, of Cocteau, that he “is teaching about creativity in terms of the power of the artist, which we now understand to be the power of transformation” (378) The same can be said of Words Without Music.
A review of Finding Love by Carolyn Martinez
Martinez’ new book, Finding Love Again, is another book full of stories about people who have made a go of love on their second or more attempts. Though the stories are presented without too much editorial interruption, Martinez provides a kind of cumulative wisdom as the book progresses, building up to practical tips to go along with such a wealth of anecdotal advice that it’s hard not to feel like it’s entirely possible to find true love, at any age.
A review of Shameless by Marilyn Churley
Marilyn Churley’s non-fiction work, Shameless, is a mother-child reunion story, and more. The former Ontario (Canada) cabinet minister has written a memoir about the search for the baby she relinquished in 1968, and, as well, a history of the struggle to get the Ontario adoption disclosure law changed. She shows how social mores of the 1960s were hostile to women’s needs, and how men’s concerns delayed the effort to open adoption records to adoptees and birth parents.
A review of Count Me In by Emily White
White’s search for community confirmed her belief, first expressed in Lonely, that social policy affects people’s sense of belonging. Her good experiences at a public pool and community garden were made possible by elected officials of the past who directed tax dollars toward construction of a the community centre that housed the pool and the park that had space for the garden.