This is a glorious book, packed with information and insight and luxuriously detailed reproductions, which you’ll undoubtedly want to dip into always. It overflows with rapturous beauty
Category: Non fiction reviews
A review of The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
There is no easy answer here but the key lies in what he calls the habit loop: a cue leading to a routine (the learned behaviour itself) in order to obtain a reward. Belief is also important: the belief that you really can change, if you put your mind to it. Belief enables you to overcome the inevitable crises and avoid relapse.
A review of Risk Savvy By Gerd Gigerenzer
The thrust of the book is that you can use such straightforward rules to cope with and take control of almost any real-world situation, from choosing how to invest your money, to picking a spouse, to deciding what to order from a restaurant menu.
A review of Faber & Faber Poetry Diary 2015
The book is a nice, pocket-book friendly hardcover, with thick, high quality pages, and an elastic to mark the week. The book has a week to a view, with enough room to record (in small writing) activities and appointments for each day (though not enough to write a poem, should you be sufficiently inspired – you’ll need another notebook for that). Each week there is a new poem, starting with Simon Armitage’s “Poetry”, and finishing with Stevie Smith’s “Not Waving Drowning”. The diary also features full colour images of book covers and a Faber poetry chronology.
A review of Unlock Your Style by Nikki Parkinson
There are a few things I really like about this book. The first is that Nikki Parkinson targets the advice in this book to real women, and uses women models who are a variety of ages, shapes and sizes. The second is the warm, down-to-earth, non-judgemental tone that is always focused on feeling good over dictates.
A review of Phoning Home: Essays by Jacob M. Appel
Subject matter for these often humorous, always provocative compositions show-case the writer’s New York City childhood, his often whimsical family, his Jewish culture, life in general and more. There is something in Phoning Home: Essays for every reader. The tales portray the writer’s inimitable voice, a merging of nostalgia and insights, mitigated through his education including degrees in ethics, law and medicine. Appel is a man who questions, learns and seeks more answers.
A review of Timepieces Masterpieces of Chronometry by David Christianson
I found this work to be abundantly filled with scientific information presented in a straight forward, effortlessly read manner. I enjoyed reading the book, and envisioning the evolution of time pieces from earliest days to the present.
A review of Monday Morning Motivation by David Cottrell
Right from the dust jacket protecting the cover and continuing through the pages of the copy, David Cottrell’s Monday Morning Motivation provides the reader with much to contemplate about leadership and how to encourage optimistic energy as is found in the most effective organizations
A review of Active Literacy Across the Curriculum by Heidi Hayes Jacobs
As a classroom teacher I read with interest that Hayes notes the fulfilment of that need is complicated by learning standards established at the state level that are written as if all children are confident in standard English usage. Hayes states what teachers have known for years; every standardized test, whether a state or national instrument is principally a reading test. If the test taker is not a skilled reader, with a broad vocabulary filled with standard English words, then the test taker is going to face problems with the language used in the test; including words like determine, summarize, select and more.
A review of The Twelfth Raven by Doris Brett
One ordinary evening when Doris Brett and her husband Martin went out dancing, the normally super-sharp Martin became confused. After struggling to put sentences together, an ambulance was called, and, in Doris’ own words, “so it begins.” Martin ends up having a massive stroke, suffering extensive damage to the left frontal lobe, which leaves him unable to talk, walk (never mind dance) and eat on his own.