by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 11, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else
Val McDermid covers exactly what’s in the subtitle for this book, and much more. The full title is Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime. Expect plenty about each sub-topic.In Forensics, she explains many (if not all) of the common ways...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 23, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory is an examination of death and the so-called death industry from Caitlin Doughty. By death industry she means how funeral homes, mortuaries, crematories, medical facilities and government agencies like...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 19, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else
Sapiens covers a lot of ground in its 400+ pages, and author Yuval Noah Harari makes it readable. The title’s subheading, “A Brief History of Humankind,” is telling but incomplete. There’s much more than just history here. At the same time, Harari makes clear in the...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 9, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else
Author Jeff Guinn divides The Road to Jonestown into three parts. The final third of the book deals with the Jonestown endgame, which felt most familiar to me. It’s the remaining two-thirds that was new and most interesting. If you’ve ever wondered how a demagogue...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 25, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else
Xanet Pailet is a woman with a cause. She wants everyone to begin Living an Orgasmic Life, and her book offers plenty of ideas and information. Her subtitle, Heal Yourself and Awaken Your Pleasure also gives you some clues about where she’s going with this....
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 23, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else
Anthony Bourdain enters the world of history with his short book, Typhoid Mary. While he’s best known for his memoirs, this is an exposé and social commentary. With typical Tony snark he tells the story of Mary Mallon, christened Typhoid Mary by the press. Mary was an...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 30, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else
Near the end of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, Kory Stamper says, “We don’t just want our words to have meaning, we want them to mean something, and the difference is palpable.” In her book, which is both memoir and exposition, Stamper finds the...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 10, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else
To learn what the latest Michael Pollan book, How to Change Your Mind, is about just check out its subtitle: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence. Pollan creates an epic book. It’s part...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 14, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else
I’ll admit to a fascination with the concept of resilience, so I grabbed up the Advance Reader’s Copy (ARC) of the latest book from Rick Hanson, Ph.D. The full title is long and descriptive: Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness....
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Apr 2, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else
Reflecting back over This Messy Magnificent Life: A Field Guide by Geneen Roth, I think the audiobook didn’t work for me. But, in truth, I won’t be likely to pick up the print copy now that I’ve listened to the audio. I might look for some book tour interviews by...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 12, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else, RESIST: Feminism
In Delusions of Gender, Cordelia Fine, PhD sets out to debunk the prevailing opinions about the male and female genders. The subtitle says it all: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference. She reviews large quantities of studies, articles, and...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 26, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else
Anne Lamott put her writing teacher hat on for Bird by Bird. And what a hat it is! She shares many nuggets of wisdom, instructions, and stories of her own. I listened to the audiobook, narrated expertly by Susan Bennett. Thankfully, I also have a print copy because...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 23, 2017 | LEARN: Everything Else
Physician Gavin Francis truly takes readers on Adventures in Human Being. From stem to stern, tip to toes, Francis picks a vital part of anatomy and verbally dissects it. It’s a fascinating premise for anyone who enjoys information about their body, or who is just...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 16, 2017 | LEARN: Everything Else
In this short book, Lama Surya Das introduces readers to Buddhism, and the process of Awakening the Buddha Within. It is subtitled Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World, which is an accurate description. Lama Surya Das tells how a guy from Long Island ends up in Tibet...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 14, 2017 | LEARN: Everything Else
Part of my business is holistic health coaching, so Giulia Enders’ Gut is my kind of book. The full title is actually Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ. I think that when it was written in 2014, there were many fewer public conversations about...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 2, 2017 | LEARN: Everything Else
No one writes quite like Ray Bradbury. Perhaps that’s an understatement, but as I was reading Zen in the Art of Writing, I was again reminded of his brilliance. He has impeccable control of the English language. But at the same time, his sentences are playful...
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