I'm Not Single, I Have a Dog by Susan Hartzler

 It is not easy being single in a married environment. And the choices we make in our dating life sometimes are not the best. If you are  willing to settle for anything in pants because you have a poor self image then you deserve  what you get.

Susan Hartzler thought herself a good judge of character. But she didn't seem to be too good when it came to men. Put friends or dogs in front of her and she does fine. Yet when it came to mates, here she lacked.

Her first attempt was an abuser. Her second lasted a bit longer, but he didn't like dogs. He lasted longer because he met a need in her life to care for someone else. But he was not a provider.

This is the story of a woman seeking love. It has the subtitle Dating Tales from the Bark Side.. 

She had a childhood of abuse so she carried that in to her choice of men. But the story ends happily. It seems the dogs she had in the journey to discover herself and find acceptance as a single woman paid off.

Hartzler is open about herself and her story. It wasn't an easy life, but she made it.

This is a delightful book. The point is that we may disappoint one another, but dogs never do that to us.

This book is published by McFarland & Company. I am sure you can find it in your local bookstore, Amazon carries everything, so I would think you can find it there. Or you can easily find it by searching for it online. Or maybe your local library will have a copy. 

Happy reading..

Hungry For More by Adrienne Youdim M.D.

 The New Year is here now, and I can bet one of your resolutions is to lose weight. We may start out with good intentions, but soon we need more than just the good intentions. We need a change of behavior. Something Doctor Youdim refers to as a hunger.

"Food security gets ingrained not only in our thoughts but also in our genes," she says. 

We all hunger for more out of life that manifests in  our actions which influence how we sleep. eat, work--all cone down to choice.

Dr. Youdim offers stories of patients she deals with as a nutrition specialist and puts each case under a category she refers to as a hunger. This book is not a diet book with meal plans. Oh, no. There is some psychology behind  her tales, all true. She shares her journey as well as the journey of those who come consult with her. 

The writing is a bit disjointed, but since I am not seeking a diet plan at the moment, I may have not completely understood  the thesis. But don't  let that stop you from reading it. For those who wish to know they aren't alone in the area of weight gain, and perhaps wish to consider why they need to reconsider it is possibly a unrealized need or hunger that keeps them from  attaining their vision, perhaps this is tghe book for you.

The author states "The current weight loss culture is based on fear, false promises and judgement serving up what is simply untrue--that weight is matter, trick and quick fixes."

She also has said "In the many years of doing this work, rarely  have I encountered a human whose emotions did not inform their eating."

This book can be ordered from Amazon should you wish to secure it.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

 This book is on the best read list of the New York Books list. That sentence is redundant I know. But as I see it, it has a reason to be. It is a good tale.

What is there were a library that contained all the books concerning life choices you could have made during your life time. Call this library The Midnight Library and it is located between life and death  Each book there concerns a life you would have experienced had you chosen a certain way. 

For example, had you stayed in that band you were in at some point in your life, or you had chosen that profession over another? Would it be a satisfying decision?

in this book we are presented with Nora Seed. She wants to die. Her life has been one full of regret and misery. She feels has has let everyone down, including herself. 

She finds herself between life and death in The  Midnight Library. Time has stopped. She finds a librarian there and books. And a book of regrets. The librarian tells her she has a choice now. Each book in the library contains a different life if she had done things differently. She is allowed to sample books and experience a new choice. But time is running out. She can go a number of infinite ways. But time is short. She can undo her regrets. But by doing so she puts the library in extreme danger.

The book reminds me a bit, not entirely , of the books of Charles Williams who wrote in his novels of the two  universes, spiritual and mundane, going on at the same time. But not completely. Or of C.S. Lewis The Great Divorce. But not quite that either. It is  familiar to those two.

Nora grows through her choices. She finds the peace she was looking for..

I recommend this book. It presents a story about the choices that go into a life well lived. It is worth your time to read with a cup of coffee. it is published by Viking and runs about $26.00. Try to find it in your library (not the Midnight Library) and enjoy. Or locate it, if you want to pay for it, at your local bookstore.

A Beginner's Guide To America by Roya Hakakian

 "Think of America as a bus" the author concludes. 

This book is written by an Immigrant from Iran, so the insights are real. The struggle to learn the new language, to  adapt to the form of commerce, this is real. Adjustment is a journey .That may be what the author was getting at when she likened America to a bus. It can take you anyplace you want to go. But only if you wish to travel. There is no free lunch. "No one will inject you into the American story. You must do it yourself"

This is a book people, not just the immigrants, should read. Since America is a melting pot in that we are not mono-ethnic, it will help the nonimmigrant to understand why the immigrant is having trouble with sentence structure and social habits., 

It is not that they don't want to be normal, but that they are filtering events through a filter of their past.

I personally found the chapter, The Diaspora., to be instructive. Hakakian, having  settled in the United States in 1989 walks us through the texture of life in a new place with its' complexity, She doesn't just talk about  the impact of the immigrant but the Asian, the Black, the alien,

She states that "beautiful landscape does not always make for happy nations. The people who envision just societies  and those who work to build them do."

The book is easy to read.  It is 216 + pages. It may not be a classic. Not all books have to be. But you can sense she loves her adopted country and would not change it. Well, she wouldn't stay silent either. She seems to believe the answer to our problems we see is a simple devotion to  America's founding father's principles.  And for her that would include speaking up and letting your voice be heard.  Something she couldn't do back in Iran.

This book can be found in a local bookstore and  is priced at $27.00. Or maybe your local library will have a copy you can borrow.

A Good Time to be Born by Perri Klass

 

Infant Mortality is an issue we should be concerned about. Our author is a professor of Journalism and Pediatrics at New York University, co-director of NYU Florence, and national director of Reach out and read. She writes a daily column, The Checkout for the New York Times.  She has chosen to write this book on infant mortality and the struggle to bring down the occurrence thorough proper methods brought about through struggle and learning.
It used to be accepted that each family had a few deaths of young ones. For example, if the child had a case of diarrhea the thought was to get the problem handled by dehydrating the kid. We now know diarrhea causes loss of hydration and we should stabilize the hydration level loss caused by the rapid release of moisture. It took some time before the doctor’s understood what was happening.
Or the diseases the child got from drinking milk which had been sitting around collecting bacteria. Until someone discovered if you pasteurized the milk it got rid of the harmful elements and was okay. Before that some mothers breast fed and alternated with the unpasteurized milk product. Or the summer diarrhea because of the microbes in the water supply, water which had been mixed with sewer water – this was before proper sanitation practices came about.
There was a lot to learn and be transmitted before we saw a decrease of infant mortality.
Klass only handles mortality in children since she is trained in pediatrics. But that is enough to let us see we have come a far way since the days of acceptance of mortality of at least one member in the family unit, normally the infant, because of uncontrollable diseases of that time.
Today we have vaccines to help us.
The subtitle is How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future. It is very professionally written and researched. It has photos and drawings used as illustrations which are a great addition.
I recommend this book. It will help a person to understand the history of infant mortality, the steps taken up to the present day 2020 and the pandemic we are in.
I would suggest even if you don’t buy this book you should see if your local library has a copy and can get it for you to read and return so another can benefit from reading it.

"What The Hell Do You Have to Lose?" by Juan Williams

 I am going to start this review by telling you this is a book you should read. It is a book that educated me as to what is going on concerning rights of blacks in the United States. 

Don't turn me off.   It is not just that. It also concerns the political handling of civil rights.

Recall the statement made by our President Trump when he told the black voters who were supporting democrats that they were opening themselves up to bad schools, high crime and higher unemployment that they should join his campaign for "What the hell do you have to lose?"

 This book attempts to answer that. And I feel it does a good job. It is not an easy book  to read and Williams does not sugar coat his analysis .

He starts by tracing the Civil Rights problem way back to the start which would be during the civil war when the black was not allowed  to read or learn things, being thought being intellectually incapable. And then the treatment after the freeing.

I feel the white population fort eh most part don't know the history of the black person whose history intersects and strives to melt with European History.

What we have is a story of alternate universes. There are radicals in both groups who deny it or are ignorant at best. I feel the movement known as Black Lives Matter could have been avoided if the Europeans in American government had paid attention to the history steam of other nationalities, but not to the extent they blend and disappear.

By ignoring the other histories, we have enabled the so called supremacy of both groups to emerge.

Williams looks at the issue in six areas. Voting rights, Education, Public Accommodations, Black Voices, Employment, and lastly, Housing. He doesn't shout or blamer. He just states the facts.

I may have already said it. This is not an easy read if you are looking for something that will calm you.

It has the subtitle "Trump's War on Civil Rights".  When we are asked what is Trump doing for the blacks  in America? we must answer with Williams, he is ignoring it. His banner for the 2016 election was to Make America Great. And now it seems to be Make America Great Again. Does that mean, turn the system back  to before the civil rights movement or even  to the civil rights of the days of the civil war?

I will allow you to come to your own conclusion after you  read the book. 

It is published by the Hachette Book Group. The copyright is 2018. And it retails for $27.00.

Another Way To Relax

 So far I have populated this blog posting with book recommendations. Some books, I hope, are the ones you are looking to read. And then-- maybe not so eager to spend time reading. 

Most of the entries have been political. That is just the way it was for a while as the season for elections of government offices came up. And in the future I may do more.

My interests have also lately been drawn to good movies. And rather than start a whole new discussion blog on it, I decided to layer it in to my book blog.

So here you have it. A slight turn in direction, but I hope a worthwhile one.

Because of the virus running around and people having to bundle up at home and not go out as much, and this means to theaters, I would like to direct you to streaming movies. And not just the Hollywood action films and the slice and dice films. No, I decided I would offer streaming movies from a place called Crossflix which offers wholesome Christian themes. 

Something the whole family can watch together. 

Violence-- sex-- blood- gore-- don't belong in your mind nor that of your children. Click the link today or the banner and start streaming good material in your home.

This is an affiliate deal which means when you use my link and go in a buy I will get a commission for sending you there.

So go in and get good movies and documentaries streamed to you.