Showing posts with label non-fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label non-fiction. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2015
Clothes & Fashion Sticker Book
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief Society.
Review: "Verily I say unto you, all those who receive my gospel are sons and daughters in my kingdom." Doctrine and Covenants 25:1
When I first started reading this I expected it to be very dry and to tell me the things that I already know about church history. I wasn't really expecting to get anything from it but it was a free book so I decided to read it. What an amazing book this is. I'm getting teary eyed just thinking about it again.
It is about the history of Relief Society. For those of you who are not LDS (members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - often referred to as Mormons), the Relief Society is the women in the church. This book tells how the Relief Society started and what they did. It talks about how the women of the Church brought relief to others in need and how they adapted what they did to fit the needs of the times and the people. What an amazing history the Relief Society has!
Friday, November 18, 2011
Flashback Friday: Mothering with Spiritual Power by Debra Woods
Review: This book bases it's inspiring advice off of twenty five scriptures from the Book of Mormon. It shows that the answers to parenting questions and challenges can be found in the scriptures.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Burmese Refugees: Letters from the Thai-Burma Border edited by TF Rhoden and TLS Rhoden
Review: TF Rhoden taught English to the refugees. He gave them an assignment to write a few paragraphs about themselves but what he was handed in was far from what he expected. He edited them enough for the reader to understand them but they are not perfect b/c Rhoden felt it was important to keep the writers "voice" in the letters. I love it like that. It seemed more real. These people went through so much.
I love the way that it's organized. The Rhoden brothers were very careful to make sure that someone like me, who knows nothing about what's going on over in Asia, understands what happens in this story and can follow the struggles and events that happen. It is very moving and makes me so grateful for my life and for my country. A few of the students were learning English to get to the USA because of how well our government runs, apparently. I hear people complain about our government all the time but compared to areas like this, we truly are blessed. I am so glad that I read this book because it gave me a better perspective of my situation. My house is small, money is tight, some days my children drive me up the wall but I truly am blessed and have it so easy. I am very grateful that Rhoden decided to share these letters with the world.
Editor: There is really so much information on these two that I'm just going to give you links. They truly have the background to put this books together. http://www.wix.com/tfrhoden/books and http://www.wix.com/tlsrhoden/1
Rating: **** Four Stars
I received a complimentary copy of this book through the Goodreads Advanced Readers program for my honest review.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
The Lost City of Z
Review: This is a fascinating study of one of the most amazing mysteries of the 20th century, the disappearance of British Explorer Percy Fawcett in his search for a "lost city" in the Amazon Jungle. It also discusses some of the hundreds of people who have become obsessed with the story of the lost city and/ or Fawcett's disappearance and risked their lives to find both. The author, David Grann, is one such individual.
I don't usually enjoy non-fiction books as they tend to be dry and drab. Yet David weaves a remarkable story, building your own obsession with the city, the events going on at the time and taking a personal look into Mr. Fawcett, making us care about this time-lost individual and wonder what really happened.
The Author: David Grann is a journalist who has been working for The New Yorker since 2003. He has two books under his belt, The Lost City of Z and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession. He has earned several awards, been published in multiple papers and is an excellent writer. For more information, see his website at
http://www.davidgrann.com/
Rating: **** Four Stars
Writer, reader, entertainment junkie. Follow this Angell's life as I share my writing, thoughts on entertainment, and occasionally my wonky world view.
Monday, September 12, 2011
You Don't Sweat Much for a Fat Girl by Celia Rivenbark
Review: This is a collection of essays the author put together to make light of life. She includes everything from cooking to talk show hosts, from reality television to elderly people and their bathroom breaks. She has no boundaries.
I found it to be very funny. I literally laughed out loud for most of the book. There was a lot of profanity and slang used in here. Some of the slang lost me. Ha! Yes, that's embarrassing but it did. I had to say things a couple of times or say them aloud to figure out what it was supposed to be. Also, there were a lot of jokes about television and I am not really a TV person, I am more of a book person (obviously). We don't even get any type of television in our house. The only thing we watch is Netflix so I was fairly lost on those topics. Yeah, that's embarrassing too. This would be fun for someone who is more into what's going in the world and doesn't mind the use of some profanity. The book wasn't completely engrossed in it but it was enough to make me uncomfortable but you can ask anyone I know and realize that it doesn't take much for that to happen. Overall, I enjoyed the book. I was just a bit lost for parts of it and cringed with the language but it was laugh out loud funny! :)
Rating: *** Three Stars
I received a complimentary copy through Goodreads Advanced Readers program for an honest review.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Creative Exercises to Inspire by Heidi Angell
Review: This is a fabulous guide to discover one's creativity. I had the opportunity to read an advanced reader's copy it was tons of fun. It only took me a couple of hours to read but it gave me lots of ideas of activities to do with my kids and to help me find my own creativity that is sometimes hidden deep inside somewhere. It's available through Amazon for the Kindle and Barnes and Noble for the Nook.
Rating: **** Four Stars
Monday, July 25, 2011
Where Will You Go from Here? by Valorie Burton
Review/Synopsis: When flipping through this book, the first thing that caught my eye was a quote by John Wooden which reads, "Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out." I loved that quote and it is really what most of the book is about. The author wants the reader to learn to get out of his or her own "ditch" by doing it the right way and not just leaping out of the ditch to land in something even more treacherous.The author leads the reader through steps using examples of tragedies and struggles in other people's lives with scriptures and better ways to think to get the reader out of the slump and get back on his or her feet.
As I was reading this book and all the struggles other people went through, I kept thinking to myself, "I don't really have any major struggles." So, then I started thinking about the things that stress me out from day to day and I realized this applies to those as well. I can use the same steps here and make a stressful day with a toddler a better day or turn an incredibly busy day into a... well, still busy and stressful but I will have a better view of the situation while going through my day. I found myself constantly thinking of her five steps introduced in the beginning of the book just to get me through my day to day activities as a mom and realized how much easier it is. I thought this was a fun book with excellent advice!
Author: If you are wondering if she has the education to back up the information she puts in the books -- I am going to say the answer to that is YES! She has a BA from Florida State University, a masters degree in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, a masters degree in journalism from Florida A & M University. She is also a PCC (Professional Certified Coach) and and member of the International Coach Federation, National Speakers Association and the National Association of Black Journalists. She currently lives in Atlanta, GA. This is her most recent of six books. To learn more about hValorie Burton and the motivational programs she has available or to receive her newsletter then click here (http://www.valorieburton.com/).
Rating: **** Four Stars
Rank my review below to be entered to win a free copy of this book from the publisher!!!
I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review
Friday, June 24, 2011
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Author: Gilbert is an award winning author for both fiction and non-fiction. Her book, Eat Pray Love spent 57 weeks in the number 1 spot of the NY Times paperback bestsellers list.
Synopsis: Elizabeth Gilbert had the "American Dream" life. She had a husband, a fabulous house and a great career but she wasn't happy. This book follows her journey to find happiness as she travels the world to discover the balance she needs in her life.
Review: I found this book pretty dull, honestly. The author was very clever and had some great lines but overall I was bored reading it. I also felt that the author was very selfish. I mean, it's important to find happiness, I agree. But, in that search for happiness is it okay to walk on other people and to cost them their happiness? I felt that in her journey she had no concern for others. It was her journey and no one else mattered. Also, the language in this was a bit intense. It wasn't that common but she used the F word often and G**D*** several times. Let me just say, this one isn't a book I'll be recommending to my friends.
Rating: ** Two Stars
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
The Children You Want with the Kids You Have by Marie Ricks
Author: Marie has been teaching organization since 1986. Since she has created many programs and written a few books on organization and teaching kids. She currently lives in UT and manages a website -- houseoforder.com.
Synopsis: This book is designed to teach your children to work, obey and be independent.
Review: This book provided some excellent plans on how to teach your children to do chores. I loved those. There is even a list of chores that are appropriate for certain ages. I loved it and learned that my children can be doing more and my house has been staying so much cleaner since I discovered this. There are some things that bugged me a little about the book. Mainly the section on obedience. She says to call your children and if they obey the first time then you give them a treat. Gradually, you get farther and farther away from the child until they learn to come the first time. This just reminded me so much of dog training so it was a little hard to think of doing it with my kids. Once I got over that part and just pretended it wasn't in there, there was a lot of excellent information in the book and ways to help my home run a little more smoothly. At the end are some sections on sharing, being kind, and being grateful... there are others but I can't remember right now. Anyways, these chapters just felt like fillers, as if she was trying to get a certain number of pages or something. These were all very logical and takes common sense to figure out how to do. There was some really great information in this book with some great ideas on teaching children to do their chores. There are also a lot of strange ideas that I just had to take with a grain of salt and move on. I think the good parts were totally worth skipping over the not so good parts though.
Rating: *** Three Stars
Friday, April 1, 2011
Women of the Book of Mormon by Heather B. Moore
Author: "Heather B. Moore is the award-winning author of several historical novels which are set in Ancient Arabia and Mesoamerica. She is not old and doesn’t remember the time period, so google.com has become a great friend. Although she has spent several years living in the Middle East, she prefers to forget the smells. Heather writes under the pen name H.B. Moore so that men will buy her books. She is also the author of one non-fiction book, which took her much too long to research and write, so she is back to novel writing (when she isn’t clipping 2-for-1 coupons).
Heather graduated from Brigham Young University with a major in Fashion Merchandising and minor in Business Management—which has absolutely nothing to do with writing novels. But at least she can balance a mean checkbook and color-coordinate her kids’ school clothes." (Info cam from here.)
Synopsis: Heather B. Moore explores the lives of women in the Book of Mormon. It's an opportunity to learn about the lifestyle and people of Ancient America to see what they went through and to better apply it to our lives today.
Review: I loved reading about the women in the Book of Mormon. I saw this book and thought, "How can she write an entire book on the women? There aren't very many!!" But, she did. She actually wrote about the unnamed women in it and the women mentioned just briefly in it who are described more in the Bible. The women covered were Sariah, Eve, Mary, Sarah, Twenty-four Lamanite Daughters, Queen of King Lamoni, Abish, Isabel, Mother of the Two-Thousand Stripling Warriors, Daughter of Jared, and the Wife of Mormon. It was an opportunity to read between the lines and to see what these women went through. The artwork in it is absolutely beautiful too. Obviously, it was a very clean read. ;)
Rating: ***** Five Stars
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein
Author:
Synopsis: This book discusses the way that girls are being sexualized now. It discusses how girls transform from sweet princesses to demanding, selfish divas. Granted, not all girls do this but a large percentage of them seem to and this book goes into the way media and home life play a part in the psychology of the girls in today's society.
Review:
The title to this book caught my attention while I was walking through Books-A-Million. I came back home and looked it up on my NookColor and found out I could buy the e-book for less than half the price so I got it. It’s a very interesting read written like a blog post with its funny anecdotes thrown in randomly. I love blogs so I didn’t mind it even though others may. This book is about the princess phenomenon that is dominating our female society. This, ‘give-me-now attitude’ and ‘need for attention’ and ‘desire to be beautiful’ and that ‘if you’re not the center of attention and always beautiful then you won’t get your man’ view that seems to be taking over the pre-tween, tween and teen girls. Very interesting!
One quote says, “Princesses avoid female bonding. Their goals are to be saved by a prince, get married, and be taken care of for the rest of their lives. Their value derives largely from their appearance. They are rabid materialists… And yet… parents cannot resist them.”
One point that it brought up was really interesting. It discussed how boys are often complimented on their intelligence. For example, “You are so smart!” But girls are often complimented on their beauty, “You are so pretty.” “You are beautiful.” What are we implying to our children? This really hit home b/c as I observed my own actions I realized that this was true with my own interactions with my son and daughter. I have fixed this however. :)
“Gender [roles] really is all a bunch of socially constructed hooey.”
In it was a section that showed the difference in girls priorities in the last 100 years. Below are two New Year’s resolutions from two teenage girls. The first was in the turn of the nineteenth century:
“‘Resolved: to think before speaking. To work seriously. To be self-restrained in conversations and actions. Not to let my thoughts wander. To be dignified. Interest myself more in others.’
And the contemporary girl:
‘I will try to make myself better in any way I possibly can… I will lose weight, get new lenses, already got new haircut, good makeup, new clothes and accessories.’”
This book covered the affects of internet use in girls today, Miley Cyrus and other big name girls that end up being our daughters’ idols and the real examples they set for our girls. Something I found interesting was that a lot of these girls had no imagination. That is something that I want to make sure that my kids have -- an imagination. I found some fun toys called Papo Figurines (mentioned in the book). There are princesses in them but there are TONS of others. They aren’t too expensive and they require children to use their imaginations. I really like the idea of getting them for my kids.
Anyways, if you have a daughter then I TOTALLY recommend reading this book. It was tons of fun and gave me a good view of how the media plays a role on my daughter growing up too fast and becoming self-centered. I want my children to have empathy, an imagination, and want to better themselves from the inside out. Hopefully I will be able to help guide them in the right ways so they can be their best! :)
Rating: ***** FIVE Stars
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