Attic of Dreams is a rather disjointed memoir. I agree with the points made by IsolBlue in their review. The author comes from a home where alcohol is abused but she is supported by the kind community where she lives in rural Vermont and her extended family. She goes on to college, gets a job and meets her first husband.
After this, I found her timeline hard to follow. Chronology is a guesswork. Money, fundraising and decorating is always an issue. She travels back and forth to Europe yet money is always an is always a problem for her. Her second husband is from a wealthy family and they build their dream home on land that is given to him. They borrow money from her parents. I could not figure her out or have much interest in her life.
This is a book to be sold as a souvenir in the Shelburne Farms gift shop.

Big thank you to the University of Utah Press.
This book is an extensive history of Bears Ears and the area around it.
Andrew Gulliford is a professor of history at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO. But don’t think this is some kind of dry history tome, it is not. Mr. Gulliford makes it clear that he is in love with Bears Ears and the surrounding area and transmits that wholeheartedly to the reader.
I have read other books about this area including those by Dave Roberts (who is referenced here) and visited Mesa Verde National Park and the environs. I am a bit of an enthusiast but have yet to make it to Bears Ears. It is, however, on my bucket list. I will definitely reread this book when I am finally able to visit the Bears Ears. It is a treasure.

This is a fun book to read. Witty, droll, tongue-in-cheek with good advice thrown in.
The authors note that SuperOptimism is best absorbed one wisdom transmission at a time, so that I have been taking my time reading this book.
It can be predictable, the authors are fond of listing examples in multiples of threes with 2 quite reasonable bits of wisdom and one completely off the wall.
Kept me chuckling a bit.

Women in Botany packs a lot of information and science in a small book. For instance; the Linnaean System, cotyledon, photosynthesis, monocot, dicot. There is a glossary.
This book focuses on 6 international women, two of which are modern, the others being historic. Each of them is an inspiration for school age girls. The cover of the book depicts a cartoon image of a girl and I had assumed it was for a younger audience but, in my opinion, this book starts at the 6th grade level. The illustrations are perfect and beautiful.
I received this book as an Early Reviewer and I am grateful to ScienceNaturally.com.

I received this ebook as an early reviewer.
Personally, I turn to Science Fiction when I need escapist literature that also tweaks my brain a little bit. Best of British Science Fiction 2021 does just that.
So often with short story collections, the first two and the last two are the best while all the stories in the middle are mediocre. Not so with this collection of 23 short stories.
My favorite was “Down and Out Under the Tannhauser Gate” by David Gullen. I found it to be original, relevant and humane. The characters are well written and consistent.
“A History of Food Additives in 22nd Century Britain” by Emma Levin was clever and fun. Will look for more from this author.
Thank you NewCon Press for sending me this ebook.

I received this ebook through Early Reviewers. It could have been written by a high school student. Research has been lifted just about word for word from Wikipedia. The photograph of Margaret E. Knight is wrong. It depicts a young woman in the 1940’s; Margaret Knight passed away in 1914. Sloppy! The photograph of Augusta Ada Lovelace (Pinterest referenced as source) is also incorrect. The Bodleian Library states there are only two know photographs of Lovelace and this is neither. Here is a sentence written about Grace Hopper quoted directly from the book: “She was some sort of spokesperson for the changing computer industry in the 1950s.” What kind of writing is this? Was it even proofread? I noted several pronoun errors.
So, no, I cannot recommend this book unless the reader simply uses the table of contents as a list of 16 women inventors.

Shiprock Baby is a crime thriller (written rather lightly) that deals with the very heavy topic of murdered and missing indigenous women - MMIW. The title comes from the birth circumstances of the main character and the book follows her experience as a volunteer with the Navajo Nation MMIW. While giving us the details of a tragic kidnapping of two young Navajo teenagers we also learn of the tangled legal processes between the tribal police and the FBI.

I believe the authors goal in writing this book was to point out the social injustices indigenous women face in their daily lives. I found the main character rather one dimensional but the supporting characters and their dialogue to be more realistic. Also, I noticed a few names lifted from Tony Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee mysteries and maybe some plot devices too. Nevertheless, the author did succeed in raising our awareness of MMIW.

Wake, Sleepy One is a charming and poetic book that both children and adults will enjoy. Lisa Kerr gives us a sweet lesson in botany as well as plant communities. The illustrations are bright and lovely. I am placing it on my bookshelf right next to all my wildflower and California gardening guides.

This book could easily be sold by the California State Parks system as well as native nurseries such as the Theodore Payne Foundation or possibly the Sierra Club.

A big thank you to West Margin Press for sending me this book to review.

I found Shuang Xuetao’s “Rouge Street” most enjoyable and a very entertaining read. The three novellas in this book circle back on each other with a touch of magical realism that is very well written. The characters were quite compelling and the author develops them in a very accessible way, I liked them all. However, I did have to make a character list for my own reference as the Chinese names were unfamiliar to me and being a rather simple minded reader, I had trouble remembering who was who.
But the writing and translation is just fantastic.
I highly recommend this book and look forward to more translated works by Shuang Xuetao.
Thank you to Henry Holt & Co. for the advance copy.

Thank you, D.J. Herda for a timely book (it’s Women’s History Month) about the great Wilma Mankiller.
Mankiller was born into a large but impoverished family in Oklahoma. It was a happy home until her father decided to participate in the Indian Relocation deal offered by the government. They tragically relocated to San Francisco where they learned to their great regret that the government had deceived them in many ways and they were poorer than ever before. Mankiller eventually married and became involved in the Occupy Alcatraz movement. This marks the beginning of her work to better the lives of her people, the Cherokee . She was a true trailblazer and accomplished much by dedicating traditional Cherokee values and culture into the modern political situation.
I am glad Mr. Herda calls out her ways of accomplishment and fortitude despite a lifetime of poor health.
I stand in awe of Wilma Mankiller.

Yippies - they wanted a revolution with absurdity and fun and they succeeded in getting one. Judy Gumbo (a few years older than me) was out there living the yippie dream and digging it. Right on! She hung out with all the heavies of the time - SDS, Weather Underground, Black Panthers, the Chicago 7. And she writes really well about it.
I have read the memoirs of Tom Hayden and Bill Ayers but enjoyed Ms. Gumbo’s the most. She puts her ego aside and does not hesitate to poke fun at herself. Makes for a very enjoyable read although all three make sure you know everyone in the movement they slept with. But Judy beats them all with a high ranking North Vietnamese official.
I only wonder at the title “Yippie Girl”. She was involved in the early days of the Womens Movement and I would have thought that the twenty something Judy might have objected to calling herself a girl but maybe that’s a yippie thing.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in those crazy times.

Sisters in Art is a gem of a book. I did find the cover photo of the three Bruton sisters a little off-putting as they looked so very patrician. And they did come from wealth as their father was an executive with the American Tobacco Company. They were able to coast through the Depression due to their company stock and real estate holdings in the Oakland area.

However, the sisters were certainly talented artists and the book has many photos of their work. As a fellow Californian, I enjoyed learning about their art and the local artists in Monterey and Carmel by the Sea who were their friends. They were very prolific artists and worked in various mediums.

I only have two negative comments to make about this book and perhaps they are a little petty.First of all, the author, Wendy Van Wyck Good, is very thorough in listing every single positive comment made in any newspaper or art magazine about the Brutons. Every award or honorable mention no matter how small is gushed over. One begins to wonder why their art is not exhibited at MOMA, the Getty, the Louvre, etc. The other comment I have is that in group photos of the sisters, they are never individually named, merely labeled as the Bruton Sisters. I would have liked knowing who was who since the three of them were very similar looking.

But this is a very worthwhile art book overall and I am grateful to the publishers for letting me review it.

Melanie Reid has written an excellent and compelling book about her tragic fall from her horse. Her neck was broken and she is now almost completely paralyzed from the chest down.
Reid is a British journalist and wrote a weekly column about her accident and rehabilitation. She spares no details about her nearly year long hospitalization. We get to know her family, the doctors and nurses who cared for her along with her fellow patients.
This is a book that is hard to put down. So well written and interesting, Reid comes across as a friend I’d like to meet for a cup of coffee.

Tall Poppy Syndrome is basically the premise that anyone who stands out among others and inviting envy and jealousy will have a good chance of being cut down, leveled out. Is this a syndrome or just an aspect of human nature? The bulk of the book is example after example of tall poppies. I found this book extremely tedious and had to set it aside.

Thank you Mint Editions for bringing back this book in a slim affordable format. It was first published in 1916. Rabindranath Tagore was a Nobel Prize winning author and this book is highly readable with appropriate footnotes. One feels desperately for all the characters but it is like a Shakespearian tragedy. Their lives are doomed as their actions or inactions propel them into history. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the beginnings of the Indian Nationalist movement.

I have to admit that when my copy of The Immune Mystery by Anita Kass arrived, I was afraid that I would have trouble with it, that it would be a slog for a lay person such as myself. Well, I was certainly wrong. This book is quite readable and informative.
Dr. Kass had dedicated her life to researching and treating autoimmune diseases, especially rheumatoid arthritis. Sadly, her mother suffered from this terrible disease and it claimed her.
Dr. Kass tells us of her childhood and education in London before moving to Norway and beginning her research. She has won a number of awards and has made it possible for people suffering from autoimmune diseases to have better lives and hope for a cure.
Quite an interesting book!

Thank you Arrowsmith Press for this wonderful book. A bit of a mix-up in shipping but I feel it reached me exactly when it was meant to. Douglas Penick begins this book with a cancer scare that changes his life experience. He is in his seventies and was a student of Chogyuam Trungpa Rinpoche. Many of the essays in this book have appeared previously in Tricycle and Shambhala Sun Magazines. They are excellent. Mr. Penick addresses fear and aging concerns in a very accessible and meaningful way for me.
The early life of the Buddha is here. The Four Noble Truths are presented quite clearly. Short biographies of Buddhist sages from the not too distant past are also included.
Examples from the authors life and that of his friends and family tie all these teachings together most profoundly and poetically. I have underlined quite a few passages that held deep meaning for me.
This book is so relevant in our times now with more than 500,000 lives lost to Covid in the US. I highly recommend The Age of Waiting.

Face addresses women's concerns with aging. This is very much a book geared to white women with expendable incomes in the United States. On the first page, Ms. Bateman explains how she has always admired the looks of older European actresses. I feel this book has a limited audience.
However, it is well written and does have an important and valid message. I am interested in how coming out of Covid quarantines will affect women's pursuit of youth. I assume that as long as youth continues to be marketed to women that nothing will change. Too bad!

This was a most enjoyable book, artistic and poetic.I would love to see Tommye McClure Scanlin's current exhibition.

Fruit Rot is a very compelling book, a modern fable about morals and choices. When I finished it, I read it again. It's a small book, every word counts and I wanted to see if I had missed anything. I tried not to judge the main characters harshly and wondered what I would do in their place. James R. Gapinski is a very imaginative author and I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to get their brain tweaked for a little while or perhaps longer.

This book made me cringe. The author goes on a week long silent meditation retreat near Joshua Tree. It is held in a nice retreat center and taught by well known and respected Dharma teachers. She shares a room with another woman. Unfortunately, Ms. Howd is ill with what she thinks is strep throat. She suffers and learns from her suffering. What I learned from her suffering is that not once does she consider that all the coughing and sneezing she does at the retreat could be infecting others. She is aware that the noises she is making may be annoying since it is a silent retreat but germs apparently do not occur to her at. all.
Obviously, this retreat was held pre-Covid but, still.

Like most people in the world, I was an avid watcher of the rescue efforts of the Thai boys soccer team who were trapped in a cave for 10 days. It seemed like a miracle that all 13 members were found alive and rescued and it certainly touched me deeply. Christina Soontornvat's well researched book vividly brought those feelings back to me. This book is written so clearly and offered so much background information that it was a joy to read. Thank you Ms. Soontornvat for your excellent book!

What a fun book this is, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Fast paced, full of historical figures doing and saying improbable things, it requires the reader to suspend their belief in reality and just go with the flow. Norman Lock has given us a great book to read during these troubled times.

This book is Nicca Ray's own story about her self-absorbed substance abusing parents. She had very little contact with her father and seems confused in remembering him. I found it to be a difficult tedious read with many inconsistencies. Was this book edited at all?? Nicca Ray has a story to tell but trying to find it in this book is just about impossible.

This is the first book I have read in the new "noir" genre and found that I enjoyed it quite a bit. A good selection of stories just long enough and not too violently or sexually graphic. Would be a good book to take on a plane.

I quite enjoyed this book. Mark Horrell has a light fun touch in his writing making the reader feel as if he were a friend. He also gives us brief historical information on the different mountain treks/climbs he has been on and the colorful people he has met along the way. I feel he is quite honest in his assessment of his own and others achievements. This is not "disaster porn" but a well written adventure book. I look forward to reading more by this author and I do follow his blog.

I loved everything about this book. Written with the younger generation in mind, the author makes it personal explaining his favorites and why. We can look at the "old masters" with a contemporary and hip eye and enjoy them. The collage illustrations by Martin O'Neill are fabulous and fun. I could look at them forever. This book would be a great gift for anyone beginning their journey with classical music or just enjoys great collage! I gave it 5 stars easily.

Rocket Out of the Park is a level 2 reader for 5-8 year olds. A nice story about accepting diversity and what is important to other people. Not really about science but I'm glad it was a woman who showed Dot and her friends how to build rockets.
The illustrations are done in great primary colors and the text is appropriate for the ages intended.

Delicious!

Matt McCarthy is a staff physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. This book is primarily focused on his work with a clinical trial of a new antibiotic. The author covers a lot of territory including a brief history of antibiotics, how they are developed and, in some cases, why Big Pharma is not interested in creating new and better antibiotics to fight the emergence of "Superbugs" that have become immune to the current drugs available. We also get to meet his wonderful colleague, Dr. Tom Walsh. I found this book to be an enthralling page turner. The information is written in an accessible style that is easy to understand and keeps the reader interested. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the current medical establishment.