Cate Baum | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Travels With A Road Dog: Hitchhiking the Roads of the Americas By R.K.

Rajam, named after a distant Indian friend, decides, on a whim of teenage wanderlust to leave it all behind in her small Alabama town and take to the road to follow the hippy festival trail across the country and beyond. Giving away all her “stuff” she takes off to the famous Rainbow gathering and falls in love with the vagabond lifestyle as she hitches with truck drivers, do-gooders and other drivers of questionable motive with only a pan and a tarp to get by and becomes a “road dog”: a hitchhiker living free on the open highways with only her […]

Cate Baum2014-05-09T21:17:07+02:00December 17th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Travel Book Reviews|

Review: Colt O’Brien Grows Up by George M. Cole

The book, a sequel to Colt O’Brien Sees The Light centers around Colt O’Brien, a student who takes an internship as an IT helpdesk assistant as part of his college studies, and follows his career in IT and his personal life as he discovers more about life.

An unusual format is used as emails between Colt and his colleagues head up each section to lead into the next part of the tale. This is a nice touch and could have been used even more.

Having worked in IT development I found the helpdesk scenario and process is well described. I […]

Cate Baum2014-05-09T21:18:15+02:00December 13th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Young Adult Book Reviews|

Review: Points To Ponder: Pathways to Self-Discovery by John D. Mosley

This book is the ponderings on life by pharmacist John D Mosley, a thinker who has written several of these monologue style works on his opinions about life, with handy points to remember at the end of each section.

Written in the Kahlil Gibran style, the book is separated into several themes, including how to make your life better by best action, simplifying goals for focus and how to be aware of those around you and how to cope with diversity in the modern world around us, including what we eat, how we treat each other and how we deal […]

Cate Baum2014-05-09T21:20:38+02:00December 7th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Self-Help Book Reviews|

Review: 5 Core Methods Of Innovation by Sanjeev Sharma

Did you know bees can smell bombs? Or that it could soon be possible to fly from the US to Japan in 30 minutes? Would you like to know exactly how your Kindle works? How could a tree be related to a laptop? Did you know there is a handshake invented to combat Swine Flu? And is SMS more popular in Asia due to people having thinner fingers? Would you like to know how to build a well without going down a hole?

Sanjeev Sharma, a New York-based consultant and US citizen who moved from India in the 90’s, gives […]

Cate Baum2014-05-09T21:21:37+02:00December 5th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Business Book Reviews|

Review: You Are Not A Planet And Other Stories by Sean Manseau

It is not often that I pick up a book of short stories with a song in my heart because the genre is just so damn difficult to get right – and when a writer succeeds he then has to stand against the greats such as H.P. Lovecraft, Saki, Angela Carter, Roald Dahl. Why do I mention these names? Because Sean Manseau, the author of You Are Not A Planet could easily line up against them.

Bijoux grotesques flank classic modern Gothic and stripped fairytale prose to reveal a universe not content to exist, but to thrive with crafted language […]

Cate Baum2014-05-09T21:22:34+02:00December 3rd, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Short Stories Book Reviews|

Review: Destinies in Motion by Liliya V. Galitskaya

Destinies in Motion is an epic adventure fantasy tale written by author and illustrator Liliya V Galitskaya, a Russian seamstress living in Canada.

The story introduces the Vladners, a family whose everyday lives are suddenly changed by events that seem beyond their control. Lana, the daughter of the family decides to take on the quest to discover the truth. But her pet cat Tac knows everything about the mystery and starts to lead her on her journey, and once they begin their quest, transforms himself into a hero.

Reminiscent of the film Labyrinth, Lana must find her baby brother in […]

Cate Baum2014-05-09T21:28:48+02:00November 26th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Fantasy Book Reviews|

Review: Fall by Geoffrey Young

Geoffrey Young’s novel “Fall” is a tempestuous marriage between beautifully crafted prose and a story that leaps time and place to explain exactly why we find our narrator, Paul, a waiter and would-be writer (there is only one letter difference between them, he tells us hopefully) who sits on a fire escape in New York, penning a desperate soliloquy about his fall in life: how did Paul finish up here and why is he so desperate to end it all?

The reader is drawn in immediately by the gorgeous use of language and the compelling description of feelings. We don’t […]

Cate Baum2014-05-09T21:30:51+02:00November 14th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Literary Fiction Book Reviews|

Review: Butt Ugly by Jimmy Glenn

Butt Ugly is a story of “love and baseball.” It is the heart warming tale of the cantankerous Cole Catalpa Junior, born with a deformity to the face that is so hideous people stare and comment all the time. He proves his bullies wrong when he starts pitching his anger out on his father’s barn door with a baseball and this talent for throwing is encouraged by Cole Senior despite Junior’s indifference,” “I’ve got no taste for that game” I told him. ” Regard it as an assignment,” he insisted.” This eventually shoots Junior into the national leagues of pro […]