Non-Fiction | Self-Publishing Review

Please Stay by Greg Payan

Please Stay: A Brain Bleed, A Life In The Balance, A Love Story by Greg Payan tells the story of the random and almost fatal brain aneurysm suffered by the author’s wife, Holly, a 39-year old college professor, showing life’s fragility, but also its potential for great strength.

The book is touching and engrossing, and much more than a memoir of an illness. Constructed through actual email correspondence, the reader is unaware just what might happen next, offering a harrowing but compelling account of this tragic experience. Woven together with Greg’s own heartfelt recounting of that time in his life, […]

SPR2018-06-15T10:06:10+02:00June 15th, 2018|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Health, Memoir, Non-Fiction|

Review: Tai Solarin: Africa’s Greatest Educationist and Humanist by Dele Babalola

A former student writes a paean to his teacher, a visionary educator who strove to improve conditions at every level in his home country of Nigeria in Tai Solarin: Africa’s Greatest Educationist and Humanist.

When Dele Babalola attended Mayflower School, he was at first concerned that the place was too “bush,” and indeed, living conditions were bare-bones, with a rigorous curriculum and a rule: “obey first, before complaining.” Babalola quickly recognized that at Mayflower, the brainchild of charismatic headmaster and founder Tai Solarin, education was foremost.

Babalola would bond with Solarin when both were reading the works of Nigerian […]

Barbara Scott2018-08-20T11:36:02+02:00April 29th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Africa, Biography, Dele Babalola, Education, Non-Fiction|

Surviving the Twenties Transformation by K.L. Martin

Surviving the Twenties Transformation: Empower Your Soul and Change Your Life by K. L. Martin is an informative and passionate work of self-help aimed at millennials looking to enhance or begin a relationship with God. Concentrating on practical issues that affect people in their twenties, such as money, family, friends, and other core issues, Martin’s emphasis is on helping people in their twenties find their spiritual center and strength.

K.L. Martin’s book has a clear line that runs through it: beginning with everyday issues that are unique to millennials, it then moves on to ideas of the self and the […]

SPR2018-05-09T10:19:35+02:00April 24th, 2018|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Non-Fiction, Self-Help, Spirituality|

Operation Troy: The Reinvention of You by Christina Namakorn

Whether you’re lost and desperate or comfortably on track in life, anyone can enjoy “reinvention,” as described in Operation Troy: The Reinvention of You, an enthusiastic self-help manual by Australian author and professional mentor, Christina Namakorn.

Using the language of war (Troy, ammunition, mission) is purposeful for Namakorn, who states: we may all sometimes find ourselves at war with ourselves, and are all potential leaders and soldiers in that battle. There are four stages of reinvention: Acceptance, Forgiveness, Improvement, and Enjoyment.

The author suggests missions to accomplish reinvention: Alpha (Me-time), Beta (exploring topics of personal interest), Gamma (examining beliefs), […]

Barbara Scott2018-05-09T10:19:42+02:00April 8th, 2018|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Non-Fiction, Self-Help|

The Fog of Faith by Dr. Leona Stucky

In an emotionally charged memoir, The Fog of Faith: Surviving My Impotent God, author Dr. Leona Stucky suggests that religion may indeed offer hope, though not always in the ways we expect.

Raised in a Mennonite farming community, and one of seven children, the author began questioning religion in her late teens. Her loving mother contracted MS, becoming wheelchair-bound, and her father struggled to cope without his wife’s participation; farm work was grueling, and money was scarce. Stucky tried repeatedly to escape her abusive and threatening boyfriend, discovering that the law often sided with her abuser. She felt hopeless, […]

Barbara Scott2018-05-09T10:16:12+02:00April 4th, 2018|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Memoir, Non-Fiction, Religion|

Beyond Borders by Ngozi Iwuoha

Beyond Borders by Ngozi Iwuoha is a touching story of belonging, identity, and family. Borders can separate us and time can keep us apart, but what keeps us together, as shown touchingly by Iwuoha, is love.

Iwuoha tells the narrative with a distance and breeze that at first might catch the reader off guard, but it is clear the effect Iwuoha intended. By keeping the reader at arm’s length, the reader is able to feel what Valeria feels – almost as if life is experienced from behind a pane of glass – clear yet detached and devoid of some vital […]

SPR2018-05-09T10:16:26+02:00March 16th, 2018|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Memoir, Non-Fiction|

Review: A Beautiful Morning by Ashley Ellington Brown

A Beautiful Morning: How a Morning Ritual Can Feed Your Soul and Transform Your Life is an inspiring and practical guidebook about the most important moment of the day – the morning – which can establish a person’s mood and sense of well-being for the rest of the day.

Author Ashley Ellington Brown was inspired to create this guidebook through an insight that spontaneously occurred to her as she was in the midst of her newly instituted morning ritual – “basking in sunshine and birdsong.” She decided to contact women whose work she admires – life coaches, authors, teachers, and […]

Barbara Scott2018-05-09T10:19:49+02:00March 7th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Non-Fiction, Self-Help, Spirituality|

Review: Confessions of a Bar Brat by Judith A. Boggess

Growing up too fast is a reality that many people must face, but for Judith Boggess, the author of Confessions of a Bar Brat: Growing Up in Rosendale, New York, adulthood was forced on her at a particularly young age. Falling asleep to the raucous sounds of a bar beneath you isn’t ideal for the maintenance of childhood innocence, and this memoir tells the visceral, and often disturbing truth of what it was like growing up in that strange place during a tumultuous time.

Boggess is an unflinchingly honest narrator of her own life, depicting the constant challenge of […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2018-05-09T10:16:33+02:00February 14th, 2018|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir, Non-Fiction|