Analyzing Books

Tag: books

  • The Energies of Love: Using Energy Medicine to Keep Your Relationship Thriving

    The Energies of Love: Using Energy Medicine to Keep Your Relationship Thriving

    The first book I ever read by husband and wife duo David Feinstein and Donna Eden was Energy Medicine – and I have to say that the book completely blew me away, and transformed my attitude to mental and physical health. I loved that book and raved about it to anyone I could: my dentist; my husband; the man in the grocery store who was coughing his guts up…

    The next book I bought by them, Energy Medicine for Women, was also a five-star hit; as was book number three, The Promise of Energy Psychology, which had EFT guru Gary Craig along for the ride. So when the latest Feinstein/Eden offering came out a few months ago, called The Energies of Love: Using Energy Medicine to Keep Your Relationship Thriving, I was chomping at the bit waiting for Amazon to deliver it already!

    I couldn’t wait for The Energies of Love to transform my marriage, the way Energy Medicine had transformed my approach to healthcare. But while it was still a very entertaining and interesting read, and had the standard mix of Eden’s first-hand ‘energy know-how’ and Feinstein’s superlative breadth of research and engaging writing style, it didn’t quite measure up to its forebears.

    There were still some very interesting ideas in the book, my favorite being the explanation of how oxytocin (the ‘bonding’ hormone) and high-pressure work just don’t really go together, which explains why women need a lot of companionship and R+R to be happy and relaxed, while men actually thrive, hormonally-speaking, on a healthy dose of ‘work pressure’.

    That sparked off a real ‘aha!’ moment for me, about why I’ve watched so many of my female peers crash and burn trying to balance the nurturing self-required for successful motherhood with the aggressive persona often required to succeed in the workplace. And it also helped me to understand why spending time with my young kids was the last thing I felt like doing when I had a full-time career.

    I spent years blaming myself for my inability to juggle stressful work with even more stressful toddlers until this book explained in the clearest of terms that it was really a foregone conclusion, hormonally-speaking, because stress kills oxytocin production, and you need oxytocin to engender that lovin’ feelin’. Phew! What a relief to find I had something properly scientific to blame for my challenges as a working mother.

    So even if that’s the only thing I got out of the book, it was still worth reading it. But in terms of solving my mother-in-law issues, helping my husband to open up, or helping me to connect a little more to my nearest and dearest in real time, the book wasn’t as helpful as I hoped.

    Okay, I know that at least, that first one is probably firmly in the realm of a ‘mission impossible’, but I’ve come to have such high respect for Donna Eden and David Feinstein, that I somehow hoped that they’d still manage to solve that particular problem for me (and everyone else).

    So to sum up: if you’re looking for a different take on why work can energize one-half of the couple while draining the other half; or why women love a deep and meaningful conversation while men typically want to run a mile when they hear the words ‘we need to talk’, The Energies of Love is very helpful.

    If you’ve got difficult in-laws, a huge mortgage or a super- stressful life, this book hasn’t got so much to offer in terms of transforming your ‘energies of love’ – but when you start melting down or acting out with your spouse, at least, you’ll have a better idea what hormone is behind it all.

    Views: 11

  • The Camelot Shadow

    The Camelot Shadow

     A moment later, Will looked up, bleary eyed, to see his friend staring at him. “I suppose I owe you an explanation.”

    “An explanation for starters,” replied Alfred. “Then, you will proceed to tell me exactly how you plan to recover the scabbard.”

    “I’m afraid that may only be possible over my dead body.”

    “At this moment,” said Alfred without even the barest suggestion of a smile, “that hardly seems to high a price.” 

     

    Rating: 3.5 Stars

    Age Recommendation: Adult, potentially Young Adult

    Warnings: Occasional hints at adult subject matter

    Sean Gibson’s The Camelot Shadow presents the story of Lord Alfred Fitzwilliam, who will do anything to save his wife, Ellen, who is dying. When approached about the possibility of King Arthur’s scabbard being preserved and its supposed abilities to heal people, he takes a chance and heads off to search for it. Joining him are his friend William Upton, and two parties both interested in taking the scabbard for their own purposes. Full of mystery and magic, this Victorian Era novel is a new and original take on the legend of King Arthur.

    Some of you are probably looking at the rating and wondering why a story so interesting would receive a 3.5 out of 5 stars. I don’t have any particular issue with The Camelot Shadow, but there is something to be said for mystery within a story and I feel like this book could have had a bit more of it. The author allows the reader to see each character’s perspective and motivation, which it of course quite interesting. But – except for a few instances – there were several scenes that took away from the question of what would happen down the road. Gibson did a splendid job of avoiding vagueness to the point that it would ruin the plot, but I personally enjoy trying to put all the pieces together and that was not something I necessarily had to do.

    Perhaps the most interesting part for me of The Camelot Shadow was Will’s story and everything that followed it. Once most of the characters involved in the main plot were in the same place, the arc really took off and pulled me back into the story. The sections that held my attention the best were the very beginning, and about halfway through until the end.

    I suppose my main issue was that I felt disconnected from The Camelot Shadow’s characters a lot of the time. Information given in flashback was extremely compelling, and anything offered in description felt very believable. Some of The Camelot Shadow‘s dialogue seemed stiff or provided solely because the plot needed further explanation. When Gibson settled into the story and allowed Alfred and Will to dive towards their goals, everything became far more engaging. Also, once I caught onto which character was which (because at first I was mixing them up left and right), everything became much easier to follow and believe in.

    I also want to mention that the wit and humor in The Camelot Shadow held me, even when the plot grew confusing or when I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Essentially, I came for the plot and stayed for the humor and the drama that follows the story. Some of the language used, as far as vocabulary goes, was a bit beyond me, but it simply reminded me of classics that I would read for my literature classes. Essentially, even if you have some trouble with the beginning of the novel, determine to make it to the middle, because by then, you won’t be able to put it away.

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  • Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

    Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

    “I couldn’t square my grandfather’s idyllic stories with this nightmare house, nor the idea that he’d found refuge here with the sense of disaster that pervaded it. There was more left to explore, but suddenly it seemed like a waste of time; it was impossible that anyone could still be living here, even the most misanthropic recluse. I left the house feeling like I was further than ever from the truth.”

    Rating: 4 stars

    Age Recommendation: Young Adult and up.

    Warnings: Character death, potentially frightening images, cursing.

    Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children has a particularly striking cover and is presented alongside old photos. Some might assume that this would take away from the text, but the pictures only make the text even more engaging. The written descriptions alone, however, are capable of instilling a sense of unease in the reader.

    I, personally, did not feel that this book was very frightening although it is listed as part of the horror genre. Perhaps that is because the main character is a teenager, but it struck me as more of a mystery or even an action novel. The creatures within the story might be rather frightening for younger readers, however, and thus feel more fitting for the genre in question in their opinions.

    Set both in current day as well as during World War 2, Riggs offers a fantasy cast of characters that have fantastic abilities and are capable of time travel toward the past or the present. Jacob, the main character, grew up hearing stories about these people but cannot allow himself to believe that his grandfather is right about them. When tragedy strikes, however, he finds himself making a trip to Wales in order to find out for himself.

    Family issues plague his home life, even beyond everyone thinking his grandfather is mad, and Jacob is required to make difficult decisions after he learns the truth about his grandfather’s past. Riggs creates a lore that is shockingly plausible within the story and allows characters to form believable relationships without any of it feeling forced.

    Potentially the most interesting part of the whole work is that the pictures came first. Riggs collected a variety of strange old photos and fashioned this story around them, and it is extremely creative. If you are open to a mystery, some magic and a lot of time travel, this is quite a page turner.

    Views: 21

  • Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

    Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

    You know, when I first picked up Daniel Goleman’s ground-breaking book Emotional Intelligence, I was sure I was going to love it. I mean, the subject matter was right up my street, the book was full of scientific studies (which the secret nerd in me always finds kind of neat), the book had already been met with two decade’s worth of plaudits and acclaim. So what’s not to like?!

    Strangely, even though it really does have a lot of interesting stuff in it, and it really is packed to the gills with footnotes and scientific research, and actually was written by an award-winning journalist, Emotional Intelligence was not the riveting read I was expecting. I was still glad that I picked it up, and that I made it through to the end, and I really did learn a lot of interesting information about the importance of emotions, and the need for society as a whole to be a lot more in-tune and aware of what we’re all actually feeling.

    But there was something about the book’s style, like a cut-and-come-again cake, that didn’t really work for me. I was expecting a narrative that led me on from one ‘big’ idea to the next and concluded with some earth-shattering ideas for how to really fix the world (and ourselves, while we’re at it.)

    Instead, the book slid from one subject to another, with very little in the way of any real connective material between the different parts. Individually, every chapter was interesting and worth reading. Collectively, there was nothing pulling me on to read more, or read further, which is why this book took me over a month to complete.

    The material was weighty-enough, and had the stamp of being well-researched and witnessed, but the writing style was a little too ‘light’ for me, and the information I was learning didn’t really bed-down, or take root properly.

    Now, in fairness the book was written two decades’ ago, and it really could be that so many of its ‘groundbreaking’ ideas have become so commonplace now that they’ve lost most of their shock value. ‘Old hat’ is never as interesting to read about as the latest news and innovations, so maybe if I’d read it when I was 12, that would have made all the difference in the world.

    But honestly? I’m not convinced.

    In terms of defining emotional intelligence, how its lack is contributing to the breakdown of society, and general ideas about what needs to happen in the ‘ideal world’, author Daniel Goleman did a great job of pulling together the material, and it’s definitely a good reference work for anyone remotely interested in, or connected to, the realm of emotional intelligence in a professional sense.

    But if you’re looking for something that gives you a scientific basis for holistic health approaches, real-life stories that have the power to move you, and prose that’s a stonking good read – stick to Bernie Siegel.

    *Rivka Levy’s latest book, ‘Talk to God and Fix Your Health: The Real Reasons Why We Get Sick and How to Stay Healthy’ is out in 2016.

    Views: 6

  • The Night Circus

    The Night Circus

    Rating: 5 Stars

    Age Appropriateness: Upper Young Adult readers and above.

    Warnings: Rare instances of strong language, some dark and adult themes, character death.

     

    “’It is important,’ the man in the grey suit interrupts. ‘Someone needs to tell those tales. When battles are fought and won and lost, when pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There’s magic in that.’ … ‘There are many different kinds of magic, after all.’” 

    The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, has received a large number of rave reviews. It tells the story of two children, Celia and Marco, who are trained for the majority of their lives in magic. This training, they learn very early, is meant to prepare them for a challenge in which they will face off with an unknown opponent (each other). The circus itself is created as the novel goes on, and is the intended venue for this challenge. Full of mystery, romance and magic, this dark and hauntingly beautiful fantasy is unlike anything I’ve read before.

    The novel is divided into five parts, each with chapters and subsections. The subsections are describing a different timeline to the rest of the novel. Throughout the main chapters, a specific date is given, while the subsections lack a certain year or month, and the narrator in those portions directly addresses the reader, as though they are in the circus themselves. The novel opens with one of these subsections and immediately grabs the reader’s interest. From there, the novel switches to the omniscient third person and follows a whole cast of eccentric and fantastical characters.

    For the majority of the book, the reader is as in the dark about the big “challenge” that awaits the two main characters, and it only keeps you all the more interested. JJ Abrams, acclaimed movie director, once said that a story must have “mystery boxes” for the viewer (or, in this case, reader) to uncover as they go. There must always be a mystery to keep them interested, and Morgenstern has absolutely accomplished this.

    Although the novel is not particularly fast-paced at the start, it can feel like it when the descriptions of magic and the grandeur of the circus take place. Equally, the way characters move within the story is explained so well that it’s almost as though you’re watching everything take place rather than reading about it. As someone who tends to imagine everything in her head as she reads, this is utterly brilliant in my opinion.

    Easily as interesting as the central plot is an undercurrent of information about a boy named Bailey, whose story happens at a different time than most of Celia and Marco’s. Towards the latter end of the novel, however, the two timelines begin to converge and everything rapidly picks up pace, making it nearly impossible to put the book down.

    The packaging of the book, similarly, is beautiful. The cover itself, even for the paperback edition (which is the version I read), is exquisitely crafted, and the inside of the book has been anything but neglected. In short, the book itself is as beautiful as the story and objects described within it.

    Although the timeline can be confusing at first, it is not terribly difficult to put the pieces of the story together as you go along. So long as uncovering a mystery is, in your opinion, interesting – and if you find magic, circuses, or love stories to be worth your time – then this book needs to find its way to the top of your “to-be-read” list.

    Views: 10