Category: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

A Review of the Describer’s dictionary by David Grambs

The reason I like this reference so much is that if I don’t find exactly what I’m looking for, I may very well find something I like better. Further, this is the kind of reference you can actually read. Open this book to any chapter (segment) on, say, “hair”. You’ll find several quotes about “hair” that are entertaining and may stir your own creative juices before you even get to the part that that lists adjectives for all kinds of– ahem– tresses, locks, strands, shocks, hanks, coils, tendrils, curls, ringlets or swirls.

A Review of Killing The Food Monster by Jason Stanley

What is a food monster, and why do you want to kill it? According to Dr Jason Stanley, the Food Monster is the compulsion to overeat, and it stems from deep psychological needs arising from early childhood. Approximately 95% of chronically overweight people have a food monster (and some normal weight folk too). If you do have a food monster, Dr Stanley says that most of the control type programs which weight watchers go on will be ineffective or will only work for a short while, because they deal with the symptoms of weight gain, not the cause.

A Review of Ultimate Visual Dictionary

I can’t promise that the Ultimate Visual Dictionary published by DK Publishing, Inc., New York, will cure you of yelling to anyone within hearing distance, “Do you remember what those little petals that sit on the top of a strawberry are called?” but I can tell you that when no one in the house comes running to your aid, you will be really glad to have this reference sitting right on your desk.

A review of Father Lands by Emily Ballou

Throughout the book, the intensity of the emotions are coupled with the tight ‘coming of age’ plot and the very rich details which strongly evoke Milwaukee Wisconsin in the 1970s. Ballou is a poet and her writing is strongly poetic,…