A Hidden Madness

James (Jim) T.R. Jones holds an undergraduate degree with the highest distinctions from the University of Virginia and a law degree with honours from Duke University (the Yale of the south). He's worked for an elite law firm on Wall Street, clerked for a judge in the United States Court of Appeals, taught for a year at the Law School of the University of Chicago, and since 1986 been a member of the faculty of the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. Jim Jones accomplished all of this while dealing with the day-to-day struggles of his bipolar disorder.

Bipolar Disorder (also known as Manic-Depressive Disorder) is a condition in which people go back and forth between periods of very good, irritable and depressive moods. Often these mood swings occur over a short period of time, and can be so severe as to lead to suicidal tendencies.

My Review:

This 319-page memoir is both inspiring and eye-opening. Jim Jones does a wonderful job of telling his story in his voice. (His voice is that of a nerdy, republican-turned-democratic law professor and history buff.) Jim's personality comes through each page - the good, the bad, the selfish, the arrogant, the pompous and the manic. His authentic narrative of his life story is one of the things I like most about the novel. The other thing is his dedication to research; it's very obvious that he approached the writing of this novel with a law professional's reliance on research. As a result the novel is well-research and extremely informative. Jim does a masterful job of intertwining the facts of his diagnosis with his story and his symptoms.

I highly recommend this novel to anyone who has a mental illness or has someone in their life living with a mental illness. Jim does a great job of outlining how he's managed to reach the height of his profession and even outlines how others might achieve the same success. He is diligent in warning that no two people are a like and thus he cannot guarantee that someone who has all of the same opportunities (money and the best care available) as he did, will be as successful.

4/5

About the book:
A Hidden Madness by James T.R. Jones
ISBN: 978-0615571546
Publisher: James T.R. Jones
Date of publish: December 29, 2011
Pages: 336
S.R.P.: $15.95

Giant's Bread

From the book cover:
Giant's Bread is the story that lies behind the revolutionary musical composition, the human suffering it entails, and the life story of the composer - his childhood with his father and mother in the ancestral home that he loves devotedly all his life and the two women who influence his life: the woman he loves, and the woman who loves him.

At last he had to make a final and tragic decision with no time to count the cost. So comes to him the power to create what will be hailed a masterpiece.

Was the price too great to pay? Giant's Bread does not answer that question - it is left to the reader to make his own decision.

My Review:
Giant's Bread by Mary Westmacott has got to be the best Agatha Christie novel I've read thus far. It's in turns thoughtful, straightforward and metaphoric.

A strong prologue really sets up the story. It provides just enough of a sneak peek into the plot of the novel to keep the reader going when the plot hits a dull point. For me that point was when the focus was on music and composition.

The plot (minus the musical and artistic interest) and characters are very Jane-Austen-ish. A various turns I half expected Mr. Darcy to appear as a dinner guest. I was really surprised by the amount of metaphors for man's development throughout the novel. I had never thought of Agatha Christie as being the type of novelist to pull-off metaphors, yet in this novel she does so in a very comfortable and lucid manner.

The novel centres around Vernon Deyre's development. From his childhood at his ancestral home, Abbots Puissant, to the death of his father in the Boer War, his overcoming his hatred of music to discovers that he wants to become a composer, to his love affair and eventual marriage to his childhood friend, Nell, and finally to the tragic decision he makes that frees and inspires him to create his masterpiece.

I can't wait to read the other novels Agatha Christie has written under the pen name Mary Westmacott.

5/5

I Remember Mommy's Smile

Dina Wolfman Baker’s I Remember Mommy’s Smile is one of the best children stories I’ve read in a very long time - both of my girls enjoyed it.

My eight-year-old, Jaya, thought it was sad but definitely a story she’d recommend to a friend. Julianna, my three-year-old, was all about Rachel Nagelberg’s bright, colourful illustrations. Jaya really enjoyed the cut and paste effect of the flowers on each page.

The 11-year-old narrator of this story takes the reader through her experiences learning that her mother is ill, watching her mother die, and then finally after her mother is dead and she must face life without a mother. Baker uses very really terms, she doesn’t sugar coat things and I think that is something that a lot of kids and parents will appreciate. The language she uses is very appropriate, while reading it to my two daughters I found myself holding back tears.

I highly recommend this to all parents/guardians of small children, because death is something that all families are faced with at some point or another.

5/5

About the book:

I Remember Mommy's Smile by Dina Wolfman Baker

ISBN: 978-0615447520

Publisher: Baker's Dozen Press

Date of publish: April 2011

Pages: 45

S.R.P.: $11.95

 About the author:

Dina Baker lost her mother to cancer after a long illness. She wrote this book with the hope of helping other children who are coping with similar situations. In addition to authoring books and essays and running Baker's Dozen Press, Baker is an accomplished public speaker who has been engaged to address numerous audiences regarding I Remember Mommy's Smile-PhD psych candidates studying school psychology, children in child bereavement camp and with general audiences.

For more information on I Remember Mommy's Smile and excerpts from the video, go to www.MommysSmile.com .

Carlette Poussant: Island Girl

From the book cover:
Carlette Poussant is a sweeping story that spans the lifetime of a young girl from Jamaica.
Carlette learned early on that life is not always easy, and everything has a price, but she's taken these hard lessons and gained strength from them. Now, she's returned to Cora's home, a refuge for single pregnant women in New York, where she gave birth to her own son after a failed teenage marriage. She is determined to help the young women there who have fallen prey to the scams of David Portugal.
Carlette met David when she was a struggling single mother with dreams of a career on the stage. An unscrupulous con artist posing as a producer, David cast her in a play, only to trick her into his bed. It didn't take long for Carlette to discover David's dark side, but the damage had already been done. Now he's moved on in search of more naive victims in Cora's home.
Will Carlette's efforts put an end to his deceptions?

My Review
I came across this book at my local library. I decided to give it a try because it's labeled as a romance and the heroine is a Jamaican girl - you don't see that often. This book was one of the worse books I've read since I started this blog.

So many discrepancies between the actual story and the synopsis on the book cover...

• Carlette Poussant is by no means a 'sweeping story'. So many details are brushed over and painted with such little detail, it felt more like someone was telling me a story that they heard from someone else, who heard it from someone else, and so a lot of important details got left out.
• Carlette doesn't learn any lessons early or later on in life. She ends the story the same naive girl she was when the story began, despite being almost 30 years older. When she returns to Cora's home she is seeking refuge herself, she doesn't save anyone from David Portugal and is not in the least bit worried about saving anyone from him. She's simply trying to escape the memories of the abuse she suffered at his hand.
• When Carlette met David she was a single mother but she wasn't struggling. She had pawned Ricky Jr. off on Cora in order to try and achieve her life goal of becoming an actress (in the hundred so pages leading up her decision to leave Ricky Jr. with Cora to pursue acting it was never mentioned that she had such a dream). David doesn't go to Cora's home seeking his victims. Through some weird and very unrealistic coincident all of his victims end up at Cora's home after being abused by him.
• Carlette doesn't put any effort into stopping David's deceptions. It's all Cora and Ginger. Once they get the ball rolling then she hops on board to testify at David's court case - just like all of David's other victims.

Leola Charles should have just called this novel Carlette Poussant (stop, period - that's it) because there is very little island flavour in this novel. The time spent in Jamaica is so beige the reader really doesn't get a feel for island living. This novel could have been set just about anywhere. And when Ms. Charles does try to inflect some island dialect into the speech she fails miserably. It was so appalling I did a Google search on Ms. Charles to find out her background. From what I could tell she's from Rochester, New York and most likely has not spent any significant amount of time in Jamaica or around Jamaicans. Whatever happened to writing about what you know or at the very least doing research?

The plot is all over the place. It's suppose to be Carlette's story but then at times it gets taken over by minor characters. There's zero romance in this novel. The relationships between Carlette and Ricky Sr. and Ricky Jr. and Theresa are far from what I would consider romance. The characters aren't developed in enough detail for the reader to really understand them and identify their actions as romantic. In developing her plot, Ms. Charles did a lot of telling and not enough showing.


1/5

The Appeal of Stalking

Billy Freeman is a pompous jerk and a stalker.

This 202-page novel by financial advisor turned author, Stan Talbott, centres around Billy Freeman’s acrimonious relationship with his ex-wife, Diane Downer. Diane is the mother of his three grown children and grandmother of his six-year-old grandson, Tristan.

Despite the fact that they’ve been divorced for over 10 years and Diane has remarried twice, Billy can’t seem to resist finding reasons to contact her. He’s either trying to protect his son’s business, trying to get his grandson (who’s temporary in Downer’s custody) placed in kindergarten instead of grade one or trying to prove crimes that Diane allegedly committed in the past. His involvement in all of these scenarios seem designed to allow him to continue his negative relationship with Diane.

Told via a mainly first person narrative (Billy occasionally turns the narration over to his youngest daughter, Faith. Faith is a recovering substance abuser, and the only one of Billy’s children who still maintains contact with him.).

If this story is meant to be a satirical take on stalking, Stan Talbott has done an excellent job! Billy Freeman fits the profile of a stalker completely, despite his attempts to prove otherwise. He comes across as delusional about his relationships. Everyone, except is ex-wife, two of his kids and law enforcement, thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread. Women can’t help but throw themselves at him. I didn’t believe most of the conversations retold in Billy’s narrative. I think when people say one thing, he hears something completely different.

Sadly, I don’t think the author intended this book as satire, as it appears to be Stan Talbott’s own story loosely veiled.

I can’t in good conscious recommend The Appeal of Stalking. It made me want to throw up on several occasions. It’s like reading a very poorly written male fantasy.

1.5/5

About the book:

The Appeal of Stalking by Stan Talbott

ISBN:978-1457506369

Publisher: Dog Ear Publishing

Date of publish: November 2011

Pages: 202

S.R.P.: $14.99

The Murder at the Vicarage

From the book cover
When Colonel Protheroe is found dead from a single gun-shot wound to the head, none of his neighbours in the village of St. Mary’s Mead is much surprised. So many people wished this local official would say farewell – if not quite so permanently. Murder at the Vicarage marks the debut of Agatha Christie’s unflappable and much beloved female detective, Miss Jane Marple, who’s keen insight into human nature and intricate knowledge of the goings on in St. Mary’s Mead land her at the very center of the investigation. Scandal lurks just under the quiet surface of this English village, and suspects abound, including the vicar, his young and flirtatious wife, and Mrs. Protheroe and her lover, the artist Lawrence Redding. Everyone, it seems, has something to hide. With the local police stymied, it is up to Miss Marple to root out the killer.

-------

My review
It took me almost two weeks to get to the end of this mystery. I’m usually able to get through Agatha Christie’s novels in two or three days (keep in mind I work full-time and have a husband and two young kids). Anyways, I think the reason it took me so long to get through this book is the choice of narrators. I found the vicar extremely boring with a very flat way of telling the story. I would have much rather had Miss Marple narrate the story, but I guess Agatha Christie just doesn’t roll like that – her detectives always have a sidekick who narrators, with the exception of Tommy and Tuppence.

Anyways, back to Murder at the Vicarage, it follows much of the same plot twists as The Mysterious Affair at Styles. The most obvious suspects are cleared early on in the investigation and then later proven guilty. This murder mystery left me feeling rather indifferent.

2.5/5

Sofia's Rainbow

Set in Istanbul, Sofia's Rainbow by Lina Simoli is the story of six-year-old Sofia's quest to relieve her loneliness. Geared towards children 5 years and older, it attempts to teach a message of tolerance and acceptance.

Sofia considers a rainbow her only friend and spends hours on a terrace waiting for a rainbow to appear so she can climb it. One day she comes across a stray cat who's just had babies, and with her father's permission takes one home. As Sofia gets to know Incir (pronounced In-jir) she learns that he's not like most cats - he's afraid of heights and likes to eat figs. Sofia bullies and shuns him when he refuses to wait on the terrace with her for a rainbow to appear.

When a rainbow does appear, Sofia finds herself in unexpected danger. Incir conquers his fears to her rescue.

I read Sofia's Rainbow to my two daughters (ages 3 and 7 years old). The three-year-old didn't really get much of what was going on but she did enjoyed Laura's Furlan's illustrations. My seven-year-old got the plot but found it a bit too rambling. When asked if she'd recommend it to a friend she was very hesitant. For my part, I think Sofia's Rainbow has a lot to offer children. Because it's set in Istanbul, North American kids learn not only about tolerance and acceptance but they get a tiny snap shot of life in another country.

3/5

How to find this book:
Sofia's Rainbow by Lina Simoni , Illustrated by Laura Furlan
ISBN: 978-1-937700-00-3
Publisher: Moonleaf Publishing, LLC
Date of publication: December 5, 2011 (Paperback); February 20, 2012 (ebook)
Pages: 48
Paperback price: $14.99