The Doula Book: How a Trained Labor Companion Can Help You Have a Shorter, Easier, and Healthier Birth

I read this book while I was pregnant, because it was recommended. I can't say that I figured out why it was recommended. Many folks have commented that it was a great book for those studying to be a doula, but I wasn't.

If you are attempting a natural child birth in a hospital, hire a doula. She lowers your risks for numerous interventions. However, that can be said in one sentence and backed up with a few paragraphs.Buy The Doula Book: How a Trained Labor Companion Can Help You Have a Shorter, Easier, and Healthier Birth!

The Pregnancy Book: Month-by-Month, Everything You Need to Know From America's Baby Experts

I found this book to be 'just OK.' It was published in the 90's and is therefore, fairly outdated. Also, I didn't like how the weeks were referred to in gestational age (two weeks less than how your OB dates your pregnancy). I found this to be confusing and somewhat annoying. Also, most of the information was somewhat basic (nothing I hadn't encountered before).Buy The Pregnancy Book: Month-by-Month, Everything You Need to Know From America's Baby Experts!

The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need

I don't know what all the complaining about this book is over. This was one of the first astrology books that I ever read, and it isn't a bad start. There are far worse books out there on the market than this book. I can think of a dozen that are downright determinental to the profession. The title is simply designed to sell the book. There isn't an only book in the literal sense; astrology students read dozens of books a year. The author wasn't marketing to serious students. She was marking to people who only read astrology at a glance. Parker's is a great textbook but it isn't anywhere near the only book either--it doesn't exist. The only issue that I have with this book is that in my experiance solar charts are useless --you need to find your birth time or have a professional astrologer calculate your unknown time, and beginning students do not understand how to use any emphemeris let alone the brief one in the back of this text. You need to have your chart calculated by www.astro.com or some other free site. The synasty is not helpful either if you are looking for a true comparison between partner's, but honestly, anyone with common sense should recognize that. The descriptions are brief, but they tend to be accurate. There aren't any aspects however, so you aren't getting a full reading. Astrology for the most part is extremely easy. So many people jump into the subject without a sound background and they make a muddle of the whole thing. There are so many people out there in need of a lobectomy because they fail at the basics. The more complicated people make the topic the less concise it ends up becoming--I say that after seeing hundreds of charts and reading hundreds of books. It's just not that hard folks. If you like this stuff read Kevin Burk. His beginner book is better for people who intended to do astrology seriously.Buy The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need!

The Book of Night Women

Lilith doesn't remember her mother or father. She has been raised by a slave, Circe, who pretty much does as she likes on a Jamaican sugar plantation as the century turns from 18th to 19th. The closest thing she has to a father, she thinks, is a slave who has lost his mind, and a few body parts, and who is reduced to living on a chain outside like a pitbull.

Lilith survives under the protection of head house slave Homer, a woman who runs the household with rigor and holds her back straight. She also often speaks in riddles to Lilith, leaving the girl to figure out for herself what evil lurks in every heart. Including, in harrowing episodes, Lilith's own.

That such a child not only survives, but works toward living life on her own terms as best she can, may not seem plausible. But Marlon James, a literature and creative writing professor, makes it believable in his second novel, The Book of Night Women. As her circumstances change, usually drastically and often for the worse, Lilith has little support working her way through the labryinth of feelings that confront a girl who becomes a woman, all the while never knowing true freedom to feel as she would like. Whether it's coming to terms for her feelings toward three important white men in her life or her sisters who seek revenge, Lilith has a lot to consider.

James has written a brutal, earthy and compelling narrative written in a dialect that forces a reader to either let the story flow over or to slow down and ponder what every nuance means not only to his heroine, but also to the reader. There is language certain to offend people, especially those who can't even handle Mark Twain. There is never getting away from the harsh brutality of what slavery means, of the cruel physical and psychological misery that one group of people can do to another group, or one individual to another. The inability of the white people in the story to not understand that they haven't earned loyalty and affection after the whippings and rapings, and worse, is but one part of this massive story that has repercussions to this day.

The beauty of this novel is that the author does not have to stand on a soapbox. The reality of the way people were treated speaks for itself. What James has done is to bring to vivid life the emotions and feelings of characters who are part of it without having a say in their place. And this includes some white characters as well as the slaves. That not many of the characters can handle their fate well does not mean their stories are not worth telling.Buy The Book of Night Women!

Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Classroom in a Book

I bought this because the "Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Revealed" was not yet in print. The CS4 version is so much different than CS3 that I could not bluff my way through it. This book is easy to follow, step-by-step, yet very unsatisfactory since all you do is repeat what it says to do, and sometimes the projects are already built; you are just repeating what has already been done even from the supposed 'start' sites. I find myself zoning out in sheer boredom, it is very difficult to commit to this book. It is not a very good learning tool, and not so hot at reference either, the first thing I tried to look up in the index was not there. It showed up in the text later on as I used the book, but it was never available for quick referral. (Sorry, can't remember what it was I was looking for....) There are no building projects to make you use what you have just learned. For all of these reasons, I am now spending more hard earned cash on "...Revealed" and suggest that you do, too.Buy Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 Classroom in a Book!