Non-Fiction Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Review: From Chicken Feet To Crystal Baths by Ian Mote

From Chicken Feet To Crystal Baths by Ian Mote

If Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Small Island is a love letter to the United Kingdom, then Ian Mote’s From Chicken Feet To Crystal Baths is a love letter to China. Most Westerners know little about China, and what we think we know is often wrong or at least badly incomplete. Here, Mote is our friendly, ever cheerful, indefatigable tour guide to the Middle Kingdom.

Besides being just a delightful romp, this book gives readers something travel books rarely do: a sense of the place from the POV of both tourist and resident. Mote takes us to Tiananmen Square and […]

Avery Hurt2019-02-11T09:55:48+02:00September 24th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Travel Book Reviews|

Review: Lazarus by Roderick Wood

Lazarus is the autobiography of Roderick Wood, a fairly typical Englishman spurred into committing his life story to paper after a sudden heart attack in February 2014. This random tragedy had caused him to be declared medically dead for 27 minutes before a successful resuscitation. Following a several-month recovery period from which his family was told he may never function normally again, he defied expectation and found himself back on his feet and full of old memories and new ideas, “activated … from way back”. Both as part of his recovery process, as well as reignited by his experience, the […]

James Grimsby2019-02-11T09:23:23+02:00September 10th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Biography Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Doomed Soul: Reflections of a Man Without Faith by Robert Boomsliter ★★★★★

The delightful, whimsical cover of this book and tongue-in-cheek cover quote (“I am almost certainly going to end up in Hell”) alerts you right away to the fact that you are getting more—far more—than another of the currently popular anti-religion screeds. Boomsliter has tremendous respect, bordering on hero worship, for Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, and Sam Harris. But he wisely takes a slightly different tack in this book. Boomsliter, you see, has a sense of humor (in this he owes more to Christopher Hitchens than the triumvirate mentioned above, although Boomsliter’s wit is just a tad less acerbic than Hitchens’). […]

Cate Baum2015-10-05T03:58:50+02:00September 10th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Atheism Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Religious Book Reviews|

Review: Living Fulfilled by Lisa Thomas-McMillan ★★★★★

Living Fulfilled by Lisa Thomas-McMillan Living Fulfilled: The Infectious Joy of Serving Others is Lisa Thomas-McMillan’s inspirational memoir about helping the plight of America’s hungry that is equal parts harrowing and uplifting. With a decidedly spiritual message, she tells of her life growing up impoverished in Alabama, settling down in Los Angeles, then traveling back to her hometown to help the plight of the poor. She is also a fierce advocate against the death penalty.

What makes Lisa Thomas-McMillan such an effective narrator is that she literally walks the walk. The book is punctuated by two long walks – one in Alabama, and a 900-miled […]

Lysa Grant2019-01-22T15:43:56+02:00September 4th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Lessons From The Edge of Life by Kyle Garlett ★★★★★

Kyle Garlett Kyle Garlett is a four-time cancer survivor, and a survivor of the many illnesses caused by the cancer treatments he has taken off and on since his first cancer appeared when he was a junior in high school. Lessons From The Edge of Life, however, is not a cancer memoir. (I understand that he has written a story of his cancer experience, and though I have not read it, if it is anything like this book, it is a well-written and captivating read.) This book, though, is so much more than that. Here Garlett’s cancer is used only as […]

Cate Baum2015-09-09T08:11:03+02:00August 6th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Self-Help Book Reviews|

Review: She’s All Caught Up by Jamila T. Davis ★★★★★

Jamila This memoir of a childhood and young-adult life spent advancing inexorably toward disaster was written from federal prison. Jamila Davis is currently serving a 151-month sentence for bank fraud. This memoir serves as both cautionary tale (for young people as well as their parents) and sociological profile. The cautionary tale is powerful, the sociological profile perplexing.

After an exciting opening that shows what is to come, the book is an extended flashback of Davis’s childhood, even giving some background on her parents’ origins. The book is well-written and engaging. Davis is a spunky and charming child, and her family is […]

Avery Hurt2019-01-22T18:25:10+02:00July 30th, 2015|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|

Lucid Dreams and the Holy Spirit by Maria Isabel Pita

Lucid Dreams and the Holy Spirit by Maria Isabel Pita Lucid Dreams and the Holy Spirit by Maria Isabel Pita is a fascinating account of one woman’s experiences with lucid dreaming over many years. Describing over 50 dreams, Pita explores the imagery of each dream and the ramifications for her life both personally and spiritually.

The book is not necessarily a handbook on lucid dreaming – telling you how to strengthen your perception in your dreams on a nightly basis. Books about that subject have already been written, as Pita references early on. Instead, Pita goes through her dreams one by one and attempts to disseminate their meaning, often with […]

Henry Baum2015-07-30T04:02:42+02:00July 30th, 2015|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Spirituality Book Reviews|

Writing Behind Bars Part II by Jamila T. Davis

Jamila T Davis is serving more than a decade as an inmate in federal prison. Here, she describes how she started a self-help publishing imprint from behind bars to inspire and changes womens’ lives through writing, in the second of her two-part series on self-publishing from prison.

During my first few months in federal prison, I met a woman named LaTanya Jones; she is a former prisoner and the author of a book entitled “Cannon Love.” At the time, I was extremely depressed and had no clue how I would cope with serving a decade plus sentence behind bars.[…]

Cate Baum2015-07-28T03:05:14+02:00July 28th, 2015|Categories: Features, Interviews|Tags: Non-Fiction Book Reviews|