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
A crash course in big-bucks tort litigation, as rich as any novel on the scene. In the mid-'70s, the small industrial town of Woburn, Mass., found itself afflicted with a plague of biblical dimensions: 12 local children, 8 of them close neighbors, had died (or were dying) of leukemia. The parents suspected the water supply, which was foul-smelling, rusty, and undrinkable, but they had no hard evidence of a link to the cancers. But in 1979, the accidental discovery of carcinogenic industrial wastes in the town's wells led the grieving parents to hire personal-injury lawyer Jan Schlichtmann, new to the profession but intoxicated with the sizable damages he'd won so far. This is magazine journalist Harr's first book, but his complex portrait of Schlichtmann is the work of a master. Egomaniacal, quixotic, workaholic, greedy, altruistic, and naive, Schlichtmann is Everylawyer, and as he allows the Woburn case to consume his practice, he almost loses his license and his life. Harr wisely downplays the dying-children angle, focusing instead on Schlichtmann's case against the two corporate Goliaths who dumped the waste: Beatrice Foods (represented by Jerome Facher of Boston's Hale & Dorr) and W.R. Grace (represented by William Cheeseman of Boston's Foley, Hoag & Eliot). Despite their white- shoe lineage, Facher and Cheeseman play dirty, withholding evidence and repeatedly seeking Schlichtmann's suspension for having filed a ``frivolous'' lawsuit. But the real villain of the story is Federal District Judge Walter J. Skinner, whose personal dislike of Schlichtmann (and camaraderie with Facher) leads him to grant the defense's motion to split the trial into two protracted phases. By the time Judge Skinner submits four incomprehensible questions to be bewildered jury, Woburn's young victims have been forgottenand the whole legal system has suffered a tragic loss. A paranoid legal thriller as readable as Grisham, but important and illuminating. (Film rights to Disney)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-394-56349-2
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.
A bestselling nonfiction writer offers spirited commentary about memoir, the literary form that has become synonymous with her name.
Personal narrative has exploded in popularity over the last 20 years. Yet, as Karr (Lit: A Memoir, 2009, etc.) points out, memoir still struggles to attain literary respectability. “There is a lingering snobbery in the literary world,” she writes, “that wants to disqualify what is broadly called nonfiction from the category of ‘literature.’ ” In this book, Karr offers both an apology for and a sharp-eyed exploration of this form born from her years as a practitioner as well as a distinguished English professor at Syracuse University. She begins by considering classroom “experiments” she has conducted to show the slipperiness of memory and arguing the need to give latitude to writers tackling memoir. Writing with the intent to record what rings true rather than exact is one thing; writing with the intent to lie is another. Voice is another critical aspect of any memoir that manages to endure through time. By examining works by writers as diverse as Frank McCourt and Vladimir Nabokov, Karr demonstrates that it is in fact the very thing by which a great memoir “lives or dies.” Rather than focus on the narrative truism of “show-don’t-tell,” Karr thoughtfully elaborates on what she calls “carnality”—the ability to transform memory into a multisensory experience—for the reader. When wed to a desire to move beyond the traps of ego and render personal “psychic struggle” honestly and without fear, carnality can lead to writing that not only “wring[s] some truth from the godawful mess of a single life,” but also connects deeply with readers. Karr’s sassy Texas wit and her down-to-earth observations about both the memoir form and how to approach it combine to make for lively and inspiring reading.
A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-222306-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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