Cate Baum | Self-Publishing Review

Review: Tilogos: A Treatise on the Origins and Evolution of Language by Sherman P. Bastarache

This book is written by a Canadian mechanic with an interest in the origin of language. He has obviously spent a great amount of his life reading and thinking about this question, not just as a technical quandary but rather a personal one.

As a Christian with no other language knowledge past that of high school, and only English at that, he makes a grand statement with this work but sometimes he doesn’t seem to quite grasp the principle he tries to illustrate, maybe because he has not dedicated time and energy to formally studying the discipline in which he […]

Cate Baum2020-02-21T07:51:46+02:00October 23rd, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Social Science Book Reviews|

Review: Secret of the Songshell (The Spectraland Saga) by Brian Tashima

When you pick up a fantasy genre book for teenagers, you expect Tolkeinesque trekking through rocks and meeting strange hybrid creatures, right? You expect lengthy descriptions of mountains, tunnels and pathways, yes? You expect charm, betrayal, adventure and friendship across species and a hero with the odds against him, don’t you? You get all of this in the first volume of this Saga by Hawaiian author Brian Tashima, but he adds some extra ingredients to make his writing unique.

Firstly, the touch of his Hawaiian culture comes through: There is a laid back, grass roots way that Tashima writes that […]

Cate Baum2014-05-09T21:36:16+02:00October 19th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Fantasy Book Reviews, Young Adult Book Reviews|

Review: Random Rationality: A Rational Guide to an Irrational World by Fourat Janabi

Fourat Janabi’s book is something you want to like to begin with – the biography of the author stating, “I am writer, a co-founder, an entrepreneur, a photographer, an explorer, and an idiot,” a sign that indicates a person on the right side of crazy, and therefore I looked forward to diving into this short and well laid-out work.

Janabi thankfully, given the subject matter, does not talk at the reader. It is written simply in the tone of a man at a dinner party, making profound use of his imaginary orange box. And the subjects are vast, uncomfortable, mutable […]

Cate Baum2019-01-22T17:54:57+02:00October 2nd, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Non-Fiction Book Reviews, Social Science Book Reviews|

Review: After This…An Inspirational Journey for All the Wrong Reasons by Marcus Engel

Marcus Engel was only 18 years old when, as a well-liked sports student on a night out, the car he was in collided broadside with a drunk driver, flinging him from the vehicle and causing eye injuries so severe he lost his sight completely. This book is his autobiographical work describing the journey to accept blindness at the peak of his youth, and the tremendous lessons Marcus learns as he struggles with the inevitable truth: he will now live without sight for the rest of his life.