That isn’t to say that the recipes in this book produce unattractive and cranky meals–the food generally looks as good as it tastes, but simply that this is the kind of food you can serve and eat everyday, without running…
Category: Non fiction reviews
A review of Coaching the Artist Within by Eric Maisel
What Maisel presents here is a primer on how to live a life worth living. If you’re a blocked artist, Coaching the Artist Within will certainly help you get to the root of what is troubling you, while always spurring…
A review of Jasmine in Her Hair by Huma Siddiqui
This is more than a cookbook, although it does provide over 55 recipes for a wide variety of foods from Siddiqui’s native Pakistan, including appetizers (starters), meat and vegetarian main courses, desserts, rice and bread dishes, sauces and drinks. Each…
A review of Knock Their Socks Off by Mridu Khullar
Although at 130 pages, this isn’t a lengthy book, it is a pleasurable, humorous read full of pithy information designed solely to get the reader writing for the potentially lucrative magazine/freelance article market. Reviewed by Magdalena Ball Knock Their Socks…
A review of Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky by Charles Ginenthal
I was a young man when I read Velikovsky’s books, but I always though, in my mature years, that it was sad for Velikovsky to be denied recognition for his contribution to human understanding by so many prominent scientists, even after he was dead. And I always wondered how justified were his critics in their condemnation of him. This book by Charles Ginenthal: Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky clarifies what happened between Velikovsky and his critics, principally Carl Sagan.
A review of Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy by Henry H Bauer
In my readings, I have seen Velikovsky belittled in many scientific books, and yet, some of his widely ridiculed claims turned out to be correct, like the surface temperature of Venus being 800 °C. Because of the long standing controversy about Velikovsky, Henry Bauer wrote to set the record straight.
A review of Pharaohs and Kings by David M. Rohl
Forty-three years later, David Rohl published Pharaohs and Kings. Rohl, an eminent Egyptologist, spent twenty years examining the basis for the four pillars (or known dates) in Egyptian history. Benefitted by recent archaeological research, particularly by a catch of mummified Apis bulls (considered the sacred dwelling place of gods by the ancient Egyptians and carefully mummified when they died) Rohl and others constructed an unbroken line of dates intermeshing when the bulls were alive with the pharaohs who reigned when the bulls lived.
Cataclysm! Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B.C. by D. S. Allan and J. B. Delair
In the 1940s, a very well educated psychoanalyst, Immaneul Velikovsky, from his own studies of the human mind, felt these ancient myths weren’t 100% fictional after all. They had some similarity to what he was hearing from some of his patients who had suffered from overpowering fear. He studied and compared myths from cultures all over the world, Middle East, Mediterranean, Chinese, Mayan, Aztec, Inca, and others. They all seem to describe the same events. Velikovsky, therefore, thought the planetary orbits had been disturbed during historical times, causing havoc on earth and frightening people who, not knowing better, thought the planets were gods.
review of Write a Book on Anything in 28 Days or Less by Nick Daws
As an outline and motivational guide for writing a first draft, the course delivers reasonable value. However, a first draft is still a long way off the kind of work that needs to be written in order to find a…
A review of Wrong About Japan by Peter Carey
As one would expect from an author who can write well about anything, the book is full of the kind of detail which makes for good travel writing: setting, character, anecdote, and scenery descriptions, but this is much more than…