A wordy overview of complex concepts that’s not for the casual reader.
A voluminous, detailed text on ayurvedic alternative medicine, astrology, yoga, and other related subjects.
In his latest book, herbalist and astrologer Bhattacharyya (Tepid Blue, 2016, etc.) asserts that “astrology, herbal wellness,” and other alternative practices “can narrow down [health] predictions accurately, confirm a diagnosis and offer supplements to a cure prescribed by a registered-practitioner on a multitude of mind and health problems.” The author bases his approach on the ideas of the “ancestors,” referring to those who studied and practiced astrology, ayurveda, and Chinese medicine in the past. He describes a holistic approach to wellness that takes into account not only physical well-being, but also emotional and mental health, diet, and even the seasons. Much of the book is devoted to astrology, which the author frames as “an extra pair of eyes” that can help one evaluate a malady and inform caregiving decisions. (The titular term “AquaPisces” refers to a “changeover” from the astrological Pisces era to the Aquarius era.) The book also includes many remedies, including massage, the consumption of herbs and other foods, and music therapy. Explanatory text makes use of colorful stories and occasional, useful metaphors (“Mantras mention the secret depths where medicines are found in the oceans. Metaphor of knowledge as ocean is a common occurrence in the [ancient Indian] Vedas”). Unfortunately, the presentation of information isn’t always reader-friendly. For example, the book is filled with terms that will likely be unfamiliar to most Western readers, including the various types of “dosha” (biological humors) and their numerous subtypes. At one point, the author notes in a story that “the intrigued students felt lost in the labyrinth of words and wellness verbiages”—a phrase that aptly describes the experience of readers of this book, as well, who may need to employ lengthy, intense study to fully comprehend and digest all of its information. There are quite a few tables and diagrams, but a glossary would have been helpful.
A wordy overview of complex concepts that’s not for the casual reader.Pub Date: July 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9978887-1-3
Page Count: 494
Publisher: Devb Inc
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.
A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray, who died in 2019.
In the latest entry in the publisher’s Little Histories series, Carey, an emeritus professor at Oxford whose books include What Good Are the Arts? and The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, offers a quick definition of poetry—“relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special”—before diving in to poetry’s vast history. In most chapters, the author deals with only a few writers, but as the narrative progresses, he finds himself forced to deal with far more than a handful. In his chapter on 20th-century political poets, for example, he talks about 14 writers in seven pages. Carey displays a determination to inform us about who the best poets were—and what their best poems were. The word “greatest” appears continually; Chaucer was “the greatest medieval English poet,” and Langston Hughes was “the greatest male poet” of the Harlem Renaissance. For readers who need a refresher—or suggestions for the nightstand—Carey provides the best-known names and the most celebrated poems, including Paradise Lost (about which the author has written extensively), “Kubla Khan,” “Ozymandias,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which “changed the course of English poetry.” Carey explains some poetic technique (Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm”) and pauses occasionally to provide autobiographical tidbits—e.g., John Masefield, who wrote the famous “Sea Fever,” “hated the sea.” We learn, as well, about the sexuality of some poets (Auden was bisexual), and, especially later on, Carey discusses the demons that drove some of them, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath among them. Refreshingly, he includes many women in the volume—all the way back to Sappho—and has especially kind words for Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, who share a chapter.
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23222-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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