Review: Chibi! the Official Mark Crilley How-To-Draw Guide by Mark Crilley

Chibis are a Japanese-style illustrated characters with big heads and small bodies. Chibi! the Official Mark Crilley How-To-Draw Guide is a book that teaches you how to draw them.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
Illustrators (with a manga-style bent) in beginner or intermediate stages of development would benefit from this style.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
Learning new things can be stressful. However, this is a book that tries to make things simple, straight-forward and also inject a bit of humour into the process.

MEMORABLE PASSAGE

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Chibi! the Official Mark Crilley How-To-Draw Guide by Mark Crilley is available to buy on all major online bookstores. Many thanks to Impact Books for review copy.

Review: Archival Quality by Ivy Noelle Weir and Steenz

Archival Quality is a story about a young woman's quest to find her place in the world after a job loss, mental health issues, and many bouts of strange visions of a disturbed ghost whose body was sold in pieces for profit.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
Fans of supernatural tales won't mind this one. There is a tiny plot in there about lesbians, though. Keep away if that rankles your chain.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
I was initially concerned about the illustration style (I believe it looks crude) but was shown the error of my ways few pages down the line. The story is solid and dialogue is natural. The art style grew on me after a while and I came to appreciate its uniqueness. More importantly, this is a story that explores the realities of mental health issues in a way that isn't wishy-washy, neither does it offer any quick fix for it.

MEMORABLE PASSAGE

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Archival Quality by Ivy Noelle Weir and Steenz is available to buy on all major online bookstores.

Many thanks to Oni Press for review copy.

Review: The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton and Lara Love Hardin

The Sun Does Shine is an autobiography of Ray Hinton, a man wrongfully condemned to death for the murder of two people in Alabama, United States. The process of his trial was sketchy and many of the evidence against him did not hold up under proper scrutiny. Ray Hinton spent about 30 years on death row before being finally released in 2015 after a retrial. This book details his experience on death row, the plight of death row inmates and shady details of what the present justice system has come to represent when it comes to poor people, regardless of colour or background.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
I recommend this as a must-read for adults of all ages.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
It reads like a fiction, but its contents are mostly true. The ease of reading makes connection to the story straightforward and its concepts easy to grasp. This book shines a bright light on the state of western democracy and what needs to change.

MEMORABLE PASSAGE

"We all did our time differently. I traveled in my mind. I had a whole, full life in my imagination, and so I didn’t always ache for what I was missing. Some guys never spoke. Some guys never stopped being angry. Some guys prayed to God, and some nurtured a darkness that no man should ever carry. I tried to remember the moments on the row that would make my mama proud. I tried to focus on the moments that held light and laughter. It’s what helped me get through. My case was winding down. I knew that. There was a clock counting down to the day I ran out of time—the day when I got my execution date and had to learn how to live with knowing the date and time of my death. I didn’t want to know. I would rather it be a surprise than have to live out thirty or sixty days seeing the faces of the men practicing for my death.

"It was hard not to spend time wishing for a different life, but I tried not to dwell on all the what-ifs. What if I had never driven off in that car? What if I had taken a job somewhere besides Bruno’s? What if I hadn’t been born poor? What if I’d had Bryan as my lawyer from the start? I was still fighting for my freedom, but it was with a quiet acceptance of what seemed inevitable. They were never going to admit they had put the wrong man on death row. I was never going to walk out of there."

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The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton and Lara Love Hardin is available to buy on all major online bookstores. Many thanks to St Martin'sPress for review copy.

Review: The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships by Suzanne Stabile

The Path Between Us is a relationship guide based on the enneagram. For those who have never heard of enneagram, it is an equivalent of Myer-Briggs personality test, albeit with a spiritual background and more complexity.

WHO WOULD ENJOY IT

People with a love of Myer-Briggs types should be curious about enneagram and how this can work in relationships of all kinds.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT

The flexibility of interpretation that takes into account the complexity of humans is a pull for me. Moreso, the author seems to know her subject very well and brings her experience to bear on how we can use this tool to enhance our relationships at work, home, and the way we see ourselves.

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The Path Between Us: An Enneagram Journey to Healthy Relationships by Suzanne Stabile is available to buy from on all major online bookstores. Many thanks to InterVarsity Press for review copy.

Review: Plant-Powered Beauty: The Essential Guide to Using Natural Ingredients for Health, Wellness, and Personal Skincare (with 50-plus Recipes) by Amy Galper and Christina Daigneault

Plant Powered Beauty looks at alternatives to modern, synthetic cosmetics using plant-based but equally effective substitutes.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
Anyone who is alarmed by the harsh effects of chemicals on their skin and is on a quest for alternatives.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
The books goes a great length to explain the setup of ingredients on modern cosmetics and how to approximate the amount of what ingredient was used to manufacture products. Also, there is a section on the benefits certain plants bring to the table and what method of distillation gets the most out of their nutrients. Most important are the recipes which highlight useful plant ingredients and how to mix them up to get the best results.

MEMORABLE PASSAGE

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Plant-Powered Beauty: The Essential Guide to Using Natural Ingredients for Health, Wellness, and Personal Skincare (with 50-plus Recipes) by Amy Galper and Christina Daigneault is available to buy on all major online bookstores. Many thanks to Benbella Books for review copy.

Review: Effortless Living: Wu-Wei and the Spontaneous State of Natural Harmony by Jason Gregory

Effortless Living tries to redefine the essence of Lao Tsu's book, Tao de Ching, stripping it of layers others have put on it over the years.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
People interested and invested in Tao de Ching and its principles would love this book.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
There is a whiff of commercialism and religion about Tao de Ching and Taoist principles in general in today's world. The author goes to a great length removing Tao de Ching from self-help, martial art, and religious strappings to communicate its timeless message about the world, the human self, and the ridiculousness of prescribing rules for people to follow in the bid to live a fulfilled life.

MEMORABLE PASSAGE

Common misconceptions are built around language, especially among those who are spiritually inclined. The way people associate their understanding with certain words, such as consciousness, mind, awareness, perception, ego, self, truth, and God, all cause much confusion, because each word has the ability to change its meaning in correspondence to the growth of the individual. This confusion occurs even among people of the same language. On top of this, there is an immense amount of misinterpretation that is lost in translation from one language to another. In any event, language itself, no matter what dialect, is an inadequate tool for describing the nature of the universe.

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Effortless Living: Wu-Wei and the Spontaneous State of Natural Harmony by Jason Gregory is available to buy on all major online bookstores.

Many thanks to Inner Traditions for review copy.

Review: Forest Bathing - How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Dr. Qing Li

Forest Bathing tries to open our eyes to the wonder of trees in relation our wellbeing. The book shows that by being out, taking walks, exposing ourselves to the air produced by trees, we are strengthening our immune systems, reducing our stress levels, and giving ourselves a chance to live longer.

WHO WOULD ENJOY IT?
Anyone concerned with their health as well as people seeking to know more about the benefits of trees.

IS IT WORTH READING?
This book delves into Japan tradition of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) which entails spending deliberate time among trees and how it can boost health and happiness. The author, who is an expert in forest medicine examines the history of this practice and its scientific benefits. Much time is spent analysing Japanese fauna and its benefits but I believe any reader ought to be able to use the information in this book to uncover the hidden benefits of having trees around our living space.

SAMPLE PASSAGE

 "We are practising what we in Japan call forest-bathing, or shinrin-yoku. Shinrin in Japanese means ‘forest’, and yoku means ‘bath’. So shinrin-yoku means bathing in the forest atmosphere, or taking in the forest through our senses. This is not exercise, or hiking, or jogging. It is simply being in nature, connecting with it through our sense of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Indoors, we tend to use only two senses, our eyes and our ears. Outside is where we can smell the flowers, taste the fresh air, look at the changing colours of the trees, hear the birds singing and feel the breeze on our skin. And when we open up our senses, we begin to connect to the natural world."

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Forest Bathing - How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Dr. Qing Li is available to buy on all major online bookstores. Many thanks to Viking for review copy.

Review: Tomb Raider (Library Edition) by Gail Simone

Tomb Raider (Library Edition) is a compilation of several volumes of Lara Croft's 2014 story series. This tale left off from the end 2013 Tomb Raider game story and explores Lara Croft's journey to Yamatai, the loss of few of her friends while en route and the fallout that follows thereafter.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
Fans of the Tomb Raider franchise would enjoy this. Newcomers with no knowledge of the series would have fun too as they need no prior knowledge of the Tomb Raider lore to make sense of the story.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
Not only is the art gorgeous, but the story is engaging. Almost every aspect of Lara Croft's psyche is fleshed-out and we see how she changes in attitude and thinking with each passing incident. The locations were true to life and dialogue is natural.

MEMORABLE PASSAGE

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Tomb Raider (Library Edition) by Gail Simone is available to buy on all major online bookstores. Many thanks to Dark Horse Comics for review copy.

Review: War Mother by Fred Van Lente, Roberto de la Torre et. al

War Mother is a fantasy story about a post-apocalyptic community of humans who set up a strange system where an artificially-created woman was the lead-protector, the warrior, and the main provider of the community. The story focuses on the relationship dynamics between this "being" (war mother), the community's inhabitants as well as the threats they face from the outside world.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?

Story-focused fantasy and sci-fi lovers would like this one.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT

The political dynamics of the communities are complex and have potential for more surprises in later volumes.

MEMORABLE PASSAGE

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War Mother by Fred Van Lente,  Roberto de la Torre et al is available to buy from on all major online bookstores. Many thanks to Valiant Entertainment for review copy.

Review: Power of Gentleness - Meditations on the Risk of Living by Anne Dufourmantelle

Power of Gentleness: Meditations on the Risk of Living is an examination of the nature of kindness as well as its relevance in modern world.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
The author's approach to examining kindness is neither overly religious nor philosophical (as I understand it) but anthropological. People with a taste for abstract philosophical thinking combined with tolerance for complex language and thought processes should love this book.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
Kindness is one of those traits that gets dragged in the mud for being more trouble than its worth. There is a perception that being kind opens you up to being scammed, trampled upon, etc. I am happy to see a book that kicks out this view point and defines what kindness is meant to be and what it's not.

WHAT I DO NOT LIKE
Power of Gentleness is translated from French and, though the translators did a good job, I cannot help but think the book flows better in its original language. This English version is not an entertaining read - it is clunky and struggles to convey some of its ideas coherently.

MEMORABLE PASSAGE

"Gentleness incites violence because it doesn’t offer any possible foothold on authority. Dostoyevsky, Melville, Hugo, Flaubert, or the Tolstoy of “Master and Man” utilize it as the elusive force that opposes injustice. So much so that those who embody gentleness are condemned in the eyes of men....

"In the symbolic order as in certain martial arts, gentleness can drive back and defeat evil better than any other response. Nothing can force it or commit others to it. In our day, gentleness is sold to us under its diluted form of mawkishness. By infantilizing it our era denies it. This is how we try to overcome the high demands of its subtlety—no longer by fighting it, but by enfeebling it. Language itself is therefore perverted: what our society intends for the human beings that it crushes 'gently,' it does in the name of the highest values: happiness, truth, security.

"If love and joy have essential affinities with gentleness, is it because childhood holds the enigma? Gentleness shares with childhood a kind of natural community but also a power. It is the secret lining, or where the imaginary joins the real in a space that contains its own secret, making us feel an astonishment from which we can never entirely return."

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Power of Gentleness: Meditations on the Risk of Living by Anne Dufourmantelle will be available to buy on all major online book stores around March 2018?

Many thanks to Fordham University Press for review copy.

Review: Ending the Search - From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness by Dorothy Hunt

Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness is a "treatise" on the nature of spiritual search and how it becomes a dangerous preoccupation when it becomes the goal rather than a means to an end.

WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
Anyone with a love of spiritual literature that is not bound by religious tradition of a specific kind. This means Ending the Search is a book that delves into different aspects of specific religious practices and does not confine itself to a particular one. Though the author has a Christian background and use some of its analogies, a large part of this book, as I understand it, leans heavily towards Zen Buddhism. If this bothers you, please stay clear.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
The author's grasp on the nature of spiritual thirst is masterful. I learnt how even the best of intentions can get hijacked by human nature where being "spiritual" becomes another tool of self-importance with no real benefits to the soul.

WHAT I DO NOT LIKE
While some of the passages are well-written with sublime turns of phrases, a lot of the paragraphs stream of thoughts are clunky and sometimes require a second reading to grasp its meaning. Ending the Search is deceptively hard to breeze-through (deliberately so, I think). It will take a calm and patient spirit to crack its shell.

MEMORABLE PASSAGE

"If you consider yourself a spiritual seeker, what are you searchingfor? What is the deepest longing of your heart? You may have many desires, but what is the deepest one, the one your heart knows is true, even if your mind does not?

"You may believe that you are seeking awakening, enlightenment, Self-realization, or God-realization. Perhaps you are seeking freedom, peace, love, happiness, truth, or an end to suffering. You may imagine that you know who is searching, who will be the “finder,” who will achieve the final goal, and who will be the primary beneficiary. But do you truly know what you are seeking, what is motivating the search, or who it is who is seeking and wants the search to end?"

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Ending the Search: From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness by Dorothy Hunt will be available to buy on all major online book stores by March 2018?

Many thanks to Sounds True Publishing for review copy.