Memoir Book Reviews | Self-Publishing Review

Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah by Neill McKee

A former volunteer for CUSO (Canadian University Service Overseas) recalls those halcyon years living and working in Sabah, Borneo in the entertaining travel memoir Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah.

Author Neill McKee vividly describes his escalating culture shock as he encounters “the East” in its many aspects: sights, smells and, notably, sweltering temperatures. In the sleepy village of Kota Belud, he learns Malay and teaches various subjects in English to students barely fluent in that language, often with no textbooks. Humorously imagining exotic Borneo as the model for Tolkien’s Middle Earth, he and his friends found the […]

SPR2019-02-13T10:36:52+02:00February 12th, 2019|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Travel Book Reviews|

Review: Is God in That Bottle Cap? A Search for Truth by John D. Sambalino

In Is God in That Bottle Cap? A Search for Truth, a lawyer writes about spirituality in an engaging combination of autobiography and philosophical treatise.

Beginning as a child who resisted having to eat fish on Friday, to his adulthood as a world-traveler who sees that God is found not so much in precepts as in experience, John D. Sambalino has always been seeking truth, and so conveys a sense of exploration that is fortunately free from self-congratulation. The first glimmers of this search came with his interest in martial arts and the understanding that such physical practices have […]

SPR2019-03-18T12:08:23+02:00February 7th, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Spirituality Book Reviews|

Review: A Chicken in the Wind and How He Grew by Frank South

Life can be messy and complicated – throw ADHD into the mix and you’ve got A Chicken in the Wind and How He Grew: Stories from an ADHD Dad, a spirited memoir by Frank South.

During his lifetime, South has held many “former” titles: a former English teacher for adjudicated teens, a former Off-Broadway playwright, a former television writer and producer, and a former alcoholic. He writes about what he knows – life as an adult struggling and coping with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, commonly referred to as ADHD.

Together with his loving (and somewhat long-suffering) wife Margaret, they […]

Marta Cheng2020-05-20T05:16:54+02:00January 29th, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews|

Review: Rideshares, Wrecks and Sex by Joe. F. N. Schmo

In Rideshares, Wrecks and Sex: Confessions of a Convicted Uber Driver by author Joe. F. N. Schmo – a bold pseudonym in any genre – readers are given a front-seat view to the madness that can unfold between the doors of an Uber ride.

The interesting twist in this non-fiction tale is that the author is not your average ride-share driver: he is a convicted felon with a lot to lose, but knows that Uber may be a good game in town for a steady income that he can control. Gainful employment for ex-felons can be few and far between, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2019-03-04T11:56:46+02:00January 15th, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|

On the Margin of the Sky by Dee Plecic

Dee Plecic’s autobiographical account of life in a war-torn city presents a world where racism and religious tyranny gradually replaced multiculturalism and tolerance is an amazing tale of one woman’s endurance.

In 1992, the city of Sarajevo, the capital of the Balkan country Bosnia and Herzegovina, fell under siege in the Bosnian War. The center of a multi-ethnic, multi-national power struggle among Serbs, Croatians, and Bosnians erupted, bringing the term “ethnic cleansing” into modern-day vocabulary. The author lived in Sarajevo during much of that time, and describes the daily conditions in harrowing detail: snipers firing on people getting water at […]

SPR2018-07-05T12:41:04+02:00July 2nd, 2018|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|

From Hell to Happiness by Christopher Cooper

Sorrow and hope are equally mixed in From Hell to Happiness: How to Heal When Your Loved One Is Terminal, an inspiring memoir about life with a cancer sufferer by Christopher Cooper.

Cooper and his wife Jenn were enjoying a happy, successful life in their early 30s, with two sons and good career prospects. Then Jenn was diagnosed with a serious form of cancer and the long-term outlook was grim: even with heavy chemo treatments and surgery, she might likely have a fatal recurrence of the disease.

Cooper describes his day-to-day struggles: how to tell the boys what was […]

SPR2018-06-19T09:31:44+02:00June 19th, 2018|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Health Book Reviews, Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|

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 Book Reviews, Memoir Book Reviews, Non-Fiction Book Reviews|

The Traps That Satan Laid by Danica Ked

Australian author Danica Ked chronicles the demonic visitations that filled her life as she battled with schizophrenia in The Traps That Satan Laid: Overcoming the Devil and Other Demons in the Power of Jesus Christ.

At age seven the author began to have seizures and blackouts. By her teens she began exploring a “daydream world.” Satanic beings threatened to kill her, tempted her with lust, or overwhelmed her with secular influences. Yet she often heard hymns or the voice of God, who several times saved her, she believes, from sin or death. She was once consigned to a locked […]

SPR2018-06-15T09:29:19+02:00June 15th, 2018|Categories: New Releases|Tags: Memoir Book Reviews, Religion Book Reviews|