“Left to your own devices, you may start a war,” are the words of her father, considering that Maura Stone is about to leave them for a long period of time in Paris. The mother thinks she will get mixed up with Communists, which can...

Traveling to China? Want to learn some Chinese words? AIEEYAAA! Learn Chinese The Hard Way: The English-Chinese Cartoon Dictionary by Larry Feign is not the usual Chinese dictionary, but is more fun and comical and will teach readers how to converse in Chinese. Learning Chinese...

A Year Lost, A Life Gained: Fighting Breast Cancer with Wit, Humor, Friends and a Perky Poodle is an inspirational, entertaining, and informative personal memoir by Suzanne Dalton. I’ve known of women who died from or survived breast cancer, but I never knew the details...

For some reason, Linda Penner's title of A Hitman Is Cheaper Than Divorce! made me think that this book would be a guide for would-be divorcées along the lines of “learn from my mistakes.” Although that turned out not to be the case, what I...

A Doorman's Memoir: Tales of Friendships by Brent Lymer was a very entertaining book. It is filled with eighteen stories of Lymer’s adventures while working as a doorman for several nightclubs. The stories are hilarious and let the reader see how life is...

A Merry Little Bible: A Light-Hearted Retelling of Fifty Stories and Fifty Parables by Car Melo is a sort of Cliffs Notes for the Bible, but with the irreverent humor of a David Sedaris or Samuel Clements. Well-researched with actual Bible references, Car Melo reduces...

A Walk Back Home by Gilbert Garcia is a memoir relating the details of his boyhood, growing up in a Mexican family in the south side of Los Angeles. His story is composed of short vignettes, told from the young boy’s perspective, in the '40s...

Life brings its own ups and downs. We are all faced with several challenges and during these times we need a lift. A Million Smile: 101 True (well, mostly true) Smilemaking Stories by Peter Hartjens is the answer. Peter has compiled a group of stories...

Abby's Road, the Long and Winding Road to Adoption: And how Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped by Michael Curry is much more than just a book with a long and quirky title. The story follows the journey of the author Michael and his wife...

It is a seemingly inexorable law of nature that all human bodies slowly break down as they age, some faster than others. A great deal of time, effort and money is expended in slowing it down, but nothing works for long. All of the things...