Toward the Double Rainbow (a Hawaii Travel Tale)

Gabriella West’s personal account of a 2005 trip to Hawaii with her girlfriend reads like pages from her diary. Rather than focusing solely on the places and attractions of a vacation like Hawaii, like any explicit travel log or guide book would do, West focuses on how these places make the couple feel. She gives us the emotional connection we often seek while on vacation, whether that be with our lover or with the place itself. The two go for a massage and each have a very different encounter. Her girlfriend is spoken to by a ghost in the guest house they are staying in. They run into two strangers, a couple they’d seen on the plane over, and Gabriella surprisingly admits to them that they’ve been fighting a lot. “That happens here,” one of the men tells her, “It’s a place where feelings emerge, where you have to be real.”

And isn’t it that way with any vacation you share with your significant other? You want it to be a trip that only movies are made of, with fond hand-holding walks on the beach and romantic evenings. You want to reconnect. But you usually end up complaining about the food or fighting about who’s going to drive and who wants to do what. I’ve been there! And that’s why I related to this story so much. Too many times I’ve put the blame on the other person as to why the vacation was ruined, but I still managed to walk away with some great memories and photos to prove it. It wasn’t the trip or the person who made it a learning experience; it was the place and just being there.

Gabriella has the perfect epiphany in the end that really sums up the way trips like this really are for couples: “It seems like we are always surrounded by people who tel us in subtle ways how they see us or who we are. Traveling, we seek acceptance in the eyes of strangers and sometimes we find it. In my experience, though, it’s places and not people who bring out the best in us. A place can be spacious and holding, embracing even, while a person can be judging, rejecting, classifying and labeling. I see that judging person in myself…”

The Doge’s Daughter
.99 cents Amazon Kindle
ASIN: B005MJG4JA
95 KB

After reading Gabriella West’s short story, The Doge’s Daughter, the reader may need a cold shower or a cigarette. Venice, 1600s. West has given us a periodic piece that, though boldly sad, rings true for the way innocent boys with falsetto voices were treated during this time. Just read Anne Rice’s Cry to Heaven for a more heavier look at the world of the castrati.

Young Piero is swept away from his poor family, chosen for the royal court choir. Soon, he is also chosen by the Doge’s young daughter who is about to be married off to a prince. And while the prince is away, his wife will play and she wants Piero to be her lover. Both explore new and exciting realms of their sexuality, as Piero becomes comfortable in matters of his own heart.

West has true talent for creating strong characters, giving them life on the page just as disturbing and true as our own situations that we find ourselves in sometimes. This rings very true in one brief encounter that Piero has with a male visitor to the castle as they discuss their tastes for male or female lovers, ultimately leading to a “satisfying” conclusion for Piero.

A touch of history, a naughty erotic relationship between three partners, and an exploration of a boy and girl gracing into adulthood and love, West treats her adult readers to a hot and worthy read!

The Truth About Jack and Ray
.99 cents Smashwords
ISBN: 0011343060
24 Pages
The Truth About Jack and Ray is a melodramatic memory story. Jack sees a well-established artist named Ray mentioned in a magazine and recognizes a piece of his work on display. Suddenly, Jack remembers a part of his life 40 years earlier when he knew Ray as a struggling artist.

Jack himself was trying to be a writer at the time and moved in with starving artists Ray and Dick. A blustering relationship forms between Jack and Ray with both physical and emotion consequences which play out through the story.

Jack doesn’t “get” Ray’s abstract work, but Ray doesn’t read any of Jack’s work either. Despite Ray’s sporadic physical abuse, Jack still longs for Ray’s attention. Ray’s cockiness and selfish focus on his own work intensifies when Dick sells a piece for $5,000. When Ray’s pieces finally begin to sell, Jack accompanies him on a trip to New York where he begins to accept just how alone in the world he is and how unhealthy his relationship to Ray really is.

Despite the alluring black and white image that represents the cover of this work, the erotica here is extremely light. Ray and Jack’s lovemaking is only briefly mentioned, and even then it is often just suggested. Instead, West gives us a dark glimpse inside the mind of Jack as he processes this memory.  We also pay Ray’s head a visit though it is a tough place to be despite even Jack’s own desire to be in there.

I told the author this piece reminded me of the song “The One That Got Away” by Katy Perry. Like hearing the song, while reading this story I related to it so much in that I remember passages in my own life where I cared deeply about someone but that feeling was not reciprocated. Or the need to be around other artistic people fueled my heart despite their lack of interest in anyone’s work other than their own.

This is, at times, a haunting piece about recollections of the past and the decisions we do and don’t regret.

In Service to the Mouse

In Service to the Mouse by Jack Lindquist with Melinda J. Combs was sent to me as an electronic copy in response to a request for review.

This is a light, loving reminiscence of a career working within one of the most public of public companies in the world. It is the chronicle of a man who touched millions of lives and whose influence is easy to understate standing as he did in the shadows of people who saw themselves as larger than life.

My favorite quote from the book is the last paragraph:

But after my 38-year adventure, the principal player who epitomizes the intangible that made it all important, all worthwhile, was that one little guy with the big black ears, the short red pants, and the white four-fingered gloves: Mickey Mouse. He predated Disneyland, and without him, there never would have been other theme parks throughout the world. In all the Disneylands throughout the world, from Tokyo Disneyland to Paris Disneyland and all the places to surely follow, his presence embodies the heart, the soul, the magic, and the promise of the child that dwells within us all. His appeal is universal — without a political or religious agenda — he is loved and accepted by children, seniors, and the young of heart at every age. He is Walt’s greatest creation and his greatest legacy.

And he is my friend.

Four Stars content, Five Stars everything else.

I would give the book five stars all around based solely on what it contains, but having lived in the shadow of the Mouse most of my adult life, my concern is not with the contents of this worthy history, but rather in what was left out. The book is wonderfully well written. It is easy to read and is suitable for use as a middle school history book. It is organized in a logical order, not always chronologically, but deviating from the strict order of events as necessary to put them in their proper context.

I liked the book and enjoyed reading it. Many of the people were familiar and I had even met a few. I stood on the roof of the building where I worked and watched the two Concorde aircraft land together at McCoy Airport (now Orlando International Airport). It was a magnificent site. No other company in the world could have pulled that off. The building where I worked hosted several off-site events for the Disney organization and I knew many people who worked at Disney. Later I worked there as a contractor in convention support for two years while the cruise ships were being built.

All of which brings me to my concern for what is left out. The story of Walt Disney World is incomplete without reference to the convoluted and often contentious relationships with the neighboring governments of Orange, Osceola, Lake and Polk Counties and the cities of Kissimmee and Orlando. The relationship between Disneyland and Anaheim is explored in detail as it should be. The relationships in Central Florida should have been explored in similar detail.

There are stories about the handshake land deal between Jennings Overstreet and Walt Disney that are as much a part of Disney culture as the Mighty Ducks. There are anecdotes about the construction of the Magic Kingdom and EPCOT that should have been included. It would have been refreshing to hear Jack’s side of these stories. Jack has the opportunity to put to rest many of the urban legends about the design of the Magic Kingdom, and I hope he takes the time in another volume to address these legends. How many times did they repaint the bottom of the channel around Tom Sawyer’s island before they got the right color blue?

People who have not been inside the Disney organization may not understand the attitude that we did wonderful and amazing things merely because we could. And we could. The resources I had at my fingertips amazed me then and amaze me now. We could fill a convention ballroom with plants in a few hours. We could get hundreds of balloons on short notice. We had pyro-technicians on call. We could do evening special boat tours on the Seven Seas Lagoon with choirs and entertainment along the way. These were grand and wondrous projects and we did them because we could.

It is this sense of awe that I feel is most missing from the book. In many ways, Jack was a great enabler who provided the resources we needed and yet, he does not seem to be awed by it all. He should be. This was a grand adventure. While Jack gives us the names and places we need to understand what went right and what went wrong, he understates his own importance in these events and does not leave us awed.

At Disney Event Productions where I worked we had an expression. “Never underestimate the power of Pixie Dust.”

This is a good book. It is a fascinating look inside a visionary organization. You should read it, but I look forward to the next one which I hope will be sprinkled with Pixie Dust.

I fully admit I probably never would have read this book had it not been free.  I also quickly realized I could only handle it in small doses, so I read 2 or 3 of the essays each night and then gave it a rest until I completed it.

The book is composed of essays and dated blog posts from various mystery, horror, and other genre writers – a few which have recently been making a big name in the self-publishing market after crossing over from traditional publishing. J.A. Konrath is one such name who has a few essays and rants included.

Various topics include time management, being disciplined, writing what you want to read, persistence, success, premise, free lancing, research, bad habits, point of view, structure, dialogue, self-promotion and more. There’s also a section on the business aspect with lots of information on agents, query letters, and publishing.

Much of it becomes repetitive and is information we’ve all heard before, and practically every other essay mentions Stephen King.

Several of the blog posts date themselves to 2009, so it’s old information where Ebook technology is concerned, although I did like Konrath’s piece about how well he’d been doing on his own on Kindle back then. Check out his blog to see how he’s done since then!

My favorites, and the ones I found most informative, were Robert Kroese’s “Write the Novel You Want To Read,” Konrath’s mantra about staying on track and tips on getting into print, Nicholson’s bit on bad habits of highly ineffective writers, and David J. Montgomery’s “Morrell’s Point of View.”

Nicholson also writes a good piece on how to choose good character names. Alexandria Sokoloff has a brilliant piece on imagery. Montgomery also pays homage to the book reviewer and the respect they deserve in another essay. And MJ Rose has a superb piece about E-Publishing even though it is dated 2009.

Hyperlinks to each author’s website or blog can be found at the end of each essay, along with nice bios of each near the end. So, the book is a good starting point for novice writers seeking out sage advice and a road map as to where to get other good information and tips on the web. Sadly, 16% of the Ebook is a laundry list of Nicholson’s own work, blurbs for a dozen or so of his books, and hyperlinks to Amazon to purchase all of it.

Though several essays preach about good formatting and editing, the book suffers from a small lack of each, but nothing too distracting overall.

Worthless Boy: A Memoir

Imagine being the outsider amongst a dozen siblings.  You are the one who is eager to fit in and be a good worker like your older brothers, but you are labeled “worthless” by your father.  You yearn for the attention of your mother, but she is too busy raising your younger siblings and attending to the family household.

Imagine being this child in an Amish household, eager for the attention that a young blossoming mind deserves, but lost in a world of religious stronghold and misunderstanding.

This was the childhood of Orva Schrock, and this book, Worthless Boy, is his memoir.  Divided into 2 parts consisting of just seven chapters over 81 pages, Schrock wastes not a word painting a picture of a troubled and disturbed childhood, a boy yearning for the attention of his parents but getting most persecution instead.

The book begins with this sentence: I was born as fuel for hell, or so was the deepest metaphysical understanding I was capable of.

Part 1 of the book begins when Orva is three and traces several concrete moments throughout his childhood and teen years. He longed for the attention of his father, but got mostly verbal and physical abuse which resulted in quite a bit of mental anguish which led to Orva becoming quite the young rowdy boy who acts out for attention.

Add to this the “hardcore” religious beliefs of his Amish upbringing and the move of his large family for better work to keep the family fed. Part 1 ends at his ninth grade year of school, which was also the end of his formal education.

Part 2 is a quick glimpse into the 50 years that have passed as Orva reflects on the death of his father, and spends one whole chapter quoting from various books he has read and which made him a stronger man.

Though the book is very heart wrenching, and impeccably polished when it comes to editing and formatting, it is more of a long essay and carries quite a hefty price for a book that is under 100 pages and hard cover.  But, our stories are not always full of detail with long drawn out pictures. Such is the joy of self-publishing, and this is Orva’s story.

Yes China!

In 1949, China’s peasantry, more than 80% of the population, was still largely individualistic, illiterate, superstitious and lived in extreme poverty. Fast forward to the early 21st century and we may understand how much China has changed in the sixty-three years since then.  Today, more than 90% are literate and learning English is mandatory in China’s public schools.

“Yes China” by Clark Nielsen is an honest memoir written by a young American going to China to teach English in an alien and foreign culture. Nielsen pulls no punches in describing himself and his experiences teaching ESL in China, and is not shy when it comes to scorching himself and his former religion in the process.

In fact, his vivid descriptions of teaching in China reminded me of my three decades as an English and Journalism teacher in US public schools.

In the late 1970s, I worked as a substitute teacher and the descriptions of the first classes Nielsen taught reminded me too much of the American grade school, then middle school and eventually high school students I taught 1975 – 2005.

For example, in 1977, I was a substitute teacher in Southern California and as the fifth-grade students I taught one day—and never to see again—flooded into the classroom at the beginning of school, one boy saw me, squealed “Sub!” and then started to chase and pummel other students while knocking over desks as if having a substitute teacher was a ticket to mayhem.

I suspect that the young Chinese students Nielsen first taught may have had similar thoughts when they saw his foreign face.

Like Nielsen, I had classes I loved to teach and others I hated to face each day, and this went on for the thirty years I was a classroom teacher.

I hate to say this but the old phrase, “kids will be kids” has a ring of truth to it even though I hate hearing it since many parents seem to use it as an excuse to do nothing to correct unacceptable behavior.

From Nielsen’s vivid descriptions of the behavior of Chinese grade-school students, I discovered that there is little difference between America’s children and China’s — it seems that “kids will be kids” in any country/culture  if the parents allow them to behave as if they were wild animals and/or barbarians.

However, similar to my experience as a teacher, Nielsen also found gold in some of his students. In fact, the last semester he taught in China, he fought back tears as he said goodbye to one of his good classes.

There are also vivid scenes, from his foreign perspective, of what it must be like to live and work in a developing country where more than a billion people still live in poverty.  Before 1949, the average life span in China was age thirty-five. When Nielsen arrived to teach ESL, that number had changed drastically. Today, the average lifespan is 73, and less than 3% live in severe poverty.

China is a developing country on steroids and Nielsen’s experiences in China reflect that. For this reason, when wanting to discover what it is like to move from a Western culture such as America’s to an alien and foreign land, it is best to read more than one memoir on that subject for a better perspective.

http://www.amazon.com/Rebel-Cause-Janet-Elaine-Smith/dp/1935188143/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333046697&sr=1-1

For example, I found “Yes China” an interesting contrast to Janet Elaine Smith’s memoir, “Rebel With a Cause”. While Nielson rejected and abandons his Mormon religion, Smith went abroad to spend nine years as an evangelical missionary in Venezuela. She was not a Mormon and her motives were almost the exact opposite of Nielsen’s.

Before becoming an expatriate, Smith worked with Native Americans and Latinos in the US, so the culture shock was not as great, and Nielsen did not work with people living in extreme poverty as Smith did.

However, Smith was not prepared for the extreme poverty of most of the people the mission she was with were serving, and, unlike Nielsen, she used teaching English to become more of a part of the culture.

Smith was “warned” by her superiors not to minister to the wealthy class, as they would never accept the gospel. Nielsen probably worked mostly with children of middle class and wealth parents in urban China.

When Smith was approached by a bank president, a physician, a teacher and a government officer to teach them English, she took the open door as a “sign” from God and defied the orders and held free English classes out of her home.

For a richer experience and to understand the culture she was living in, she exchanged the English lessons for Spanish classes to help her learn the local vernacular of Spanish and the customs of the Venezuelan people—something Nielsen and most Western/American ESL teachers in China do not do. Instead, they arrive in China ready to criticize anything different that does not fit the Western lifestyle they are used to.

For Smith, this different attitude paid off. Later, when Smith needed help for paper work, cashing checks, medical care, etc. Venezuelans were available to help her, while her American Evangelical overseers struggled trying to find such help.

Although Nielsen meets his future wife in China—a Chinese citizen—and they both live in Utah today, I doubt that he truly understood or embraced the Chinese culture as Smith did in Venezuela due to the differences in how they approached their experiences as expatriates teaching English in a foreign land—a developing and/or third world country, which is very different from being a citizen in North America.  In Smith’s memoir, I do not sense the love-hate relationship that Nielsen had with China. He seems to have no purpose for going there to teach English other than some need to rebel and escape Mormon Utah where he grew up.

In fact, Nielsen’s passages that paint an unflattering picture of Mormonism reveal his true motive for going to China. I felt as if Nielsen fled to China to escape the reaction of his Mormon friends and peers after he let them know he wasn’t going to go out as a missionary, which is expected of all Mormons, and in spite of himself, once he arrived in China, he found more acceptance from the Chinese than he did in Utah. After all, he came home with a Chinese wife and that was not the reason he went to China.

The Path Book I: Spirit and Mind

What becomes obvious almost immediately with The Path (Book 1 – Spirit and Mind), is that the author, Eric A. Smith, has embarked on a monster project of generalist education … who are we, what came before us, how did we get here, what are we doing, what are we like, what does it all mean, and where are we going, etc?

At time of writing, I am unaware how many other ‘books’ there will be in The Path’s series … I know there is at least one more to come – The Path (Book 2 – Mind and Body). What the author is undertaking here is massive in scale, and this review should be read and understood within the context of the fact there is more to come in The Path series. This review however, is obviously confined to the materials in Book 1.

In short, an extraordinary amount of diverse information on matters from history to biology to cosmology to quantum physics to psychology to philosophy – and much more besides – has been compiled and referenced into the 567 pages known as Book 1.

The writing is for the most part fluid, conversational, and the text has been well proofed; there are very few errors, other than perhaps a bit of repetition of some (key?) themes from time to time. Perhaps this repetition is deliberate … I don’t know. The main problem I have with the work, is that it is promoted as being a life-changing and/or revelatory transformational kind of manifesto, but comes across more as an almost unending series of scientific (and other) observations (admittedly backed up with referenced experimental data – but much of which would be fairly arcane reading/viewing to those who are not already enthusiasts in these fields).

Consequently I found myself genuinely wondering – who is the demographic audience for this book? Who is going to buy The Path? Although I still have no clear answer to that question, I am fairly certain that it would be an invaluable reference book series to have for any child who was undergoing home-schooling (with a motivated parent). Or as a book of general (higher) educational interest for an accelerated or gifted student in order that they be able to more quickly locate their preferred subjects (outside of their own school’s hours and curriculum). I can easily imagine this huge tome with hundreds of multi-colored (for various themes) Post-It Notes clinging to its pages, with an enthusiastic parent forever pulling it off the shelf to illustrate one point or another to (not so little) Johnny/Janet. This by no means implies the author’s tone and style is childish … it is not … far from it.

Certainly nobody is going to be worse off for spending time on The Path. There is a dazzling array of facts and interesting information, which having been compiled in this way, means that people might stumble across things in this format, which they may otherwise not have in the usual course of their intellectual wanderings. However, that is about the highest point for me. Those same folks might indeed give up before they reach those sections which might otherwise have been of singular interest for them – simply because of the sheer volume of information – some of which will likely be dull to many readers because of the dryness and level of detail incorporated in the accompanying experimental data/diagrams.

In closing, while I take my hat off to Mr. Smith for the immensity of the task and the amount of research he has clearly undertaken here, I find it difficult to rhapsodize about The Path. Perhaps it will pick up speed and a more cohesive sense of purpose in Book 2. I hope so, because this is important stuff, and he clearly has a passion for the task. Having said that, for me this is currently a 3 stars out of 5 piece of work. I would have liked to rate it higher, due to the amount of work I know this book has entailed, but at this point I am unable to. I hope Mr. Smith takes these (positive and constructive) criticisms into account as he edits, arranges and finalizes the manuscript for Book 2 of The Path.

The 100 Best Ways to Stop Aging & Stay Young  

We are raised in a society that encourages us to not age, stay young, and live longer.  That if we can find that magic potion, the world will open up for us because we will not get old- because, if you get old, it is all over.  Media bombards us with images and ideas that youth is equal to life, love and happiness.  Staying young-looking is what you should want to do, because getting old flat-out sucks.  With all this being drilled into us, it is great to see a book like The 100 Best Ways to Stop Aging & Stay Young, which promotes not the idea that getting old is undesirable, but that living a healthy life is the key to living a fuller life.

The book delivers a lot of advice that most of us have already heard many times, but what makes it relevant is that it lays it all out in an easy to understand way.  Maranan not only spouts the rhetoric, but explains why each idea is important, and how it is easily achieved and incorporated into anyone’s life.  Each chapter tackles one area of your life, such as brain health, bone and joint health, and the health of your immune system.  With the easy layout, it makes it easy to understand how each of the areas are connected, as well.

With some great advice and tips, such as how weight training builds bone density, supports healthy metabolism, and helps maintains a healthy energy level, the concepts become easily attainable.  Learning why it important to eat avocados, take a Vitamin D supplement, and lower sugar intake all seem to be common sense, but understanding the why and how behind it is what makes this book stand out.

The title of The 100 Best Ways to Stop Aging & Stay Young is a bit deceiving, as Mananan does not buy into the younger is better ideology.  Instead, it could have been more aptly named The 100 Best Ways to Be Healthy & Live Longer, as she focuses on living a life that allows one to be healthier and more active, rather than dwelling on the number of one’s age.  Regardless of the title, this book is a good resource to lead one on the right path of a healthy, long life.  There is a lot of information that is easy to access and understand, and is a great reference to remind us how to get and stay on track.  Instead of sorting through piles of magazines, pick up this book as an easy go-to source in your quest to understand the building blocks to a healthier life.

Book Description:

More than just a few ideas about gardening and raising chickens, THE URBAN FARM HANDBOOK uses stories, charts, grocery lists, recipes, and calendars to inform and instruct. As busy urbanites who have learned how to do everything from making cheese and curing meat to collaborating with neighbors on a food bartering system, the authors share their own food journeys along with those of local producers and consumers who are changing the food systems in the Pacific Northwest.

Review:

I won a copy of this book from a GoodReads give away.  Had I explored it a bit more before signing up for the raffle, I probably would have had second thoughts.  Upon receiving it, I thumbed through it quickly to browse the photographs and was surprisingly shocked at the instructional pages on how to slaughter chickens and pigs. That extremity aside, the rest of the book is a plethora of good information when it comes to urban gardening.

There is a ton of basic information for the small avid gardener like me which includes planting and tending to a year-round vegetable garden, making your own compost, maximizing small spaces, raising backyard animals for eggs and milk, and preserving foods (canning, drying, freezing, pickling, and fermenting).

For those on a higher level, there is information about creating a direct farmer-to-consumer connection, setting up “buying clubs” with other local farmers, creating cold storage for roots and squashes, learning about city farming permits, and making your own soaps and cleaners.

The book itself caters to the Pacific Northwest when it comes to locales and resources, but its wealth of lists, photographs, and home-production recipes makes it a good resource for anyone living in the city with even a flower box  reserved for vegetables or herbs. There truly is something here for everyone – young or old, novice or experienced.  If you have an interest in at-home sustainable living, this handbook is for you.

Reviewed by Gail Bradney

One month after her husband-to-be proposed to Dr. Diana Denholm, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. She married him, and for the next 11 years until his death she was his primary caregiver as he suffered through surgery, chemo, and congestive heart failure, followed by a heart transplant, skin cancer, a choking disorder, Parkinson’s, and many more dire conditions—ranging from gout to osteoarthritis—too numerous to name here. Upon hearing this story, is it so wrong to feel sympathy for the wife?

Now working as a medical psychotherapist, Dr. Denholm has become a pioneering thought leader in the field of caregivers’ health. In a new book, The Caregiving Wife’s Handbook (Hunter House Publishers, December 2011, ISBN: 978-0-89793-605-7), Dr. Denholm draws from her own experiences and interviews with six real-life caregiving wives. She shares strategies, inspiration, and stories of success designed to help women struggling with the multiple challenges of being a caregiver to a husband or partner with a serious long-term illness.

And there are many such women—more than 30 million women are caregivers for an ill loved one. When that dying loved one is your husband or partner, the day-to-day matters of life get to be a challenge: your role in their care, your self-care, your ongoing lives, household management, sleep, sex, changes and strains on your marriages, and current and future finances, to name just a few.

Although there’s a lot of information and help available for those “final days” and the grieving afterward, this is the rare book that offers practical written instructions for making life and marriage work during the long months and years wives face as a caregiver.

Dr. Denholm’s approach is refreshingly realistic and practical. It’s not written from a rah-rah cheerleader’s perspective. She doesn’t try to tell her readers to be upbeat and positive. On the contrary—she advises them to acknowledge and embrace all of their emotions, including difficult ones such as anger, guilt, annoyance, grief, stress, and resentment. And she doesn’t shy away from hot-button topics, nor does she pretend that it’s going to be easy to tell him he shouldn’t drive anymore, or that you need to discuss funeral arrangements, or that you’d like to go away with friends for the weekend. Instead, she offers readers creative ideas and lots of practical tools wives can use to deal with the most common issues women face when their husbands suffer from a protracted illness.

Specifically, she presents a six-step process to help women problem solve with their husbands. It’s a model she developed and has used successfully with her therapy clients. It helps them prioritize their “issues”—in other words, figure out which topics are best left unsaid or shared only with a close friend, and which ones need to be worked out one-on-one with the husband. It gives them a toolkit of communication tips and techniques to make “the talk” easier. And it enables them to learn a method for coming to “Understandings” with their husbands on everything from in-law interference to cleaning his ostomy bag.

There’s a whole section of the book devoted to the big C—in this case not cancer, but codependency. Dr. Denholm helps wives take an honest look at whether their actions are keeping the husband weak or are in fact appropriate to his real needs and abilities. And she shows how she and others have navigated around the most common obstacles, including driving, eating, sex, hygiene, and financial and legal matters. Readers also learn how to bring more balance, fun, and free time into their life as caregiving wife.

Although the intended audience for this book is wives, Denholm’s ultimate aim is to help husbands and wives work through the hardships of long-term illness so they can regain their love, respect, and compassion for each other. Yes, caregiving can destroy lives and marriages, but it can also be a cathartic driver of change and growth. That’s her big message.

Dr. Denholm believes two partners can and should both take responsibility for keeping the marriage healthy, even if the husband may be dying. Her approach teaches women “compassionate empowerment.” She says it is possible to have a healthy marriage with a husband who is gravely ill. When the caregiving wife is ready to be honest with herself and her husband, Dr. Denholm’s book will give her the tools, tips, and structure to do it.

Cooking for one is not something most people want to try to tackle.  That’s why there’s a plethora of frozen dinners, right?  Sure, we say to ourselves, “This year I will really make the effort to cook special meals for myself and treat my body to the healthy food it deserves.”  Somehow, though, the idea seems to fall by the wayside before it even gets started.  “It’s too hard to make a meal just for one person,” “I end up wasting so much of what I make,” “Why spend time cooking just for me?,” or “I just don’t know what to make for just me.”

The excuses most of us make as single people are limitless what it comes to cooking for ourselves.  Maybe we don’t want to think about what it means to cook for just one, or maybe we’ve spent years cooking for a family and now sizing it down is just a difficult concept.  With so much convenience food at our disposal, it also makes us lazy in our decision-making when it comes to food.  Stephanie Bostic if determined to pull us out of the singleton’s food rut into which many have fallen.

In One Bowl: Simple Healthy Recipes for One, Bostic not only makes it easy for the newbie cook, but for the experienced as well.  What too often seems a daunting task, is made simple and attainable in this step-by-step cookbook for the single life.  From several ways to cook an egg, what utensils are necessary and which are just convenient, and what you need in your pantry, this guide keeps it basic, but with flair.

None of the recipes in One Bowl are time-consuming or overwhelming, which make them easy to implement in everyday life.  As a bonus, every recipe can easily be doubled to accommodate company, as well.  Most of the dishes center on fresh ingredients, but can be easily translated into canned or frozen options when fresh is not available.  Recipes like Southwest Frittata and Plum Duck Breast give fancier options of what can be done in single serving size, while most of the other recipes keep it a bit more simple, such as Breakfast Parfait and English Muffin Pizzas.

One Bowl not only is a great tool for simple, healthy meals, but teaches how to add flavor to every dish using an array of spices and sauces.  Bostic gives us recipes to easily whip up peanut sauce, vinaigrettes, and other toppings, as well as a spice how-to.  From basil to turmeric, there is a handy chart of how to use the spices, when to use them, and how much- taking the guesswork out of the world of seasonings.

With worksheets, nutrition and portion guides, and attainable recipes, Bostic separates herself from many cookbook authors by making honest, easy food without being pretentious.  It is too often we buy a cookbook, then place it on a shelf to be forgotten with the rest because the offerings are too pricey, not readily available, or above the average skill level in the kitchen.  She not only teaches us just how easy it is to cook for one, but shows us that learning to feed oneself it essential to the healthy life we all deserve.  Whether you are a bachelor/ette, a single retiree that has always cooked for a family, or someone who’s partner is often traveling or working different shifts, One Bowl will fit easily into your kitchen.