Makes a passionate, though hardly objective, case for using essential oils and looking beyond traditional medicine to...
Essential oils, whose benefits have been largely ignored by doctors in the U.S., offer a path to better health, according to this guide.
Heshelow (Phytoceramides: Anti-Aging at Its Best, 2014, etc.) makes the case for aromatherapy and essential oils in this examination of a misunderstood branch of alternative medicine. She begins with a brief overview of essential oils and how they work, followed by a history of how these substances and their forerunners have been applied over time, going back to the ancient Sumerians and perhaps even earlier. Next is a look at research into the efficacy of essential oils, which may be valuable in relieving pain, reducing anxiety, and killing drug-resistant bacteria, according to some studies. More than four-dozen pages are devoted to listing references to various scientific publications, a helpful resource for those seeking to peruse the research themselves and draw their own conclusions (though this section would function better as an appendix). Yet Heshelow, who owns a company selling monthly essential oils subscription boxes, focuses solely on the positive. Details are often fuzzy, and it’s hard for the lay reader to evaluate the evidence and determine whether the impressive claims should be taken at face value. Nonetheless, the author raises intriguing points, such as the possibility that essential oils could be harnessed to fight MRSA and other superbugs. More eyebrow-raising is the suggestion that human thought can alter the physical properties of the oils. The book is at its best when it steers clear of such claims and focuses on how people can employ the oils in their daily lives. The concluding chapters include a discussion of Heshelow’s favorites and their benefits as well as recipes for using the oils to treat insomnia, headache, stress, cold sores, acne, and other conditions. The author is clearly a true believer in the power of essential oils, and by the book’s end, even skeptical readers may be tempted to give them a try.
Makes a passionate, though hardly objective, case for using essential oils and looking beyond traditional medicine to alternative methods of healing.Pub Date: April 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-65198-8
Page Count: 324
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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