If you are a serious cook, you will find this recipe book too basic, and will probably know most of the recipes. If, however, you haven’t fully mastered the art of cooking, and are looking for accessible recipes which can…
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Despite the handicap noted above, I had the delightful experience of having the book “catch” for me on the plane. I don’t know about other readers, but with me this is almost never a gradual process. One minute I am dutifully reading along, wondering if the book at hand is really worth the effort; then all of a sudden I realize that I am immersed in the novel and would not even think of stopping.
A review of 365 Ways to Do Less, Have More, and Feel Good by Pamela Allardice
There are a myriad of self-help books on the market. There are books to help you lose weight, books to help you think more positively; to feel stronger; have better relationships; dress better; use make up better, and anything else you can think of. 365 Ways to Do less, Have More, and Feel Good by Pamela Allardice covers everything, in easily digestible bites – one for each day of the year. Each day corresponds to the calender, making this a good book for New Years resolutions – just resolve to do one good thing for yourself each day of the year.
A Review of How You Can Be Your Own Publisher by Judy Meininger
The basic thesis is anyone can self-publish, and that there is significant money to be saved, and you can greatly increase your profit margin, by taking on the tasks of printing, promoting, and distributing your book yourself.
Taming Your Kitchen: A Review of Donna Hay’s Off the Shelf: Cooking From the Pantry
You know that feeling. It is 5:30pm, everyone is expecting dinner, and you have nothing to cook, no food in the house, and no ideas. Enter Donna Hay, with her bestselling book Off the Shelf. The book contains a range of meals attractive enough for guests, based entirely on simple and readily available cupboard ingredients. If you follow Hay’s advice, and shopping list, you will be prepared for most food situations, including drop in visitors, special occasions, and fast family meals.
Zero decibels Quiet: Simone Lazaroo’s The Australian Fiance
The Australian Fiance is a deeply moving novel. Not so much because of its story, which has moments of intensity, but is primarily, a simple story of love and loss. Rather, it is the exquisite language, the poetic transcendence affected by Lazaroo’s narrative which draws the reader into the character of the Eurasian woman, submerged with her, until we are also nameless, nationless, simultaneously guilty and innocent, soft and hard, lost and found.
A Review of The Joy of Weight Loss: A Spiritual Guide to Easy Fitness by Norris Chumley
Chumley’s own story is poignant enough, and his early diet, quite astonishing, involving something like 30,000 calories a day (on a very rough calculation), including pints of ice cream, frequent in between meal visits to fast food chains for multiple…
Longer, Leaner, and Taller: A Review of Pilates by Lesley Ackland
The exercises are simple, and not very different from other types of callisthenics, although they draw from Yoga a focus on breathing, and on slow, controlled movements done perfectly, in an attempt to integrate mind and body. The book covers the origins and philosophy behind Pilates, including the use of things like creative visualisation, breathing, control over the specific body parts being conditioned, flow, precision, and coordination.
A review of The Poetry of Business by Tracy Repchuk
This would be a great tool for a conferencing, teambuilding, or ideally, a career development session, and the simple but innovative exercises coupled with the poetic focus would provide a refreshing change, especially if done with the help of a trained facilitator, to the usual teambuilding fodder. As a stimulus to breaking though a career rut, and opening the door to self-awareness and examination, it’s ideal.
A review of My Arthritic Heart by Liz Hall-Downs
While Hall-Downs makes it clear in the preface that My Arthritic Heart is an autobiographical account of her struggles with Rheumatoid Arthritis, the poetry, like all good poetry, transcends its subject. In the intense immediacy of the words, Rheumatoid Arthritis becomes every chronic disease; every feeling of marginalisation; every expression of poverty; the sense of being not good enough, not pretty enough, not fit enough.