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FIT FOR LIFE

THINK IT, DO IT, BE IT!

An approachable fitness guide with sound health tips.

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Moor-Doucette (Change Your Thinking, Change Your Body, 2015) shares her secrets on how to look and feel great into your 70s and beyond in this fitness guide.

Inspired by a friend, Moor-Doucette decided to attempt to limit the effects of aging on her body by improving her diet, working out, and focusing her mind with affirmations and visualizations. “All of this would ultimately translate into an inspired and unique training regimen, leading to a succession of Bikini Diva contest wins.” That’s pretty impressive considering the author began all this when she was 68. She was so successful she started working as a life coach and fitness guru; this book represents her accumulated knowledge and advice. The guide contains everything from detailed workout routines and dieting recommendations (down to the nitty-gritty of sugar and coffee substitutes) to mind-improving activities like meditation and journaling. There are beauty tips, including how to make your own skin-care products, including facial scrubs and masks using bananas, papaya, avocado, etc. Though Moor-Doucette writes from her own perspective—and therefore provides advice for those who have passed the age of retirement—the majority of the information pertains to everyone and will be helpful for fitness-minded readers of any age. The prose is highly conversational, and her guidance, which frequently builds on her personal experience, reads as pleasantly neighborly: “We have a stationary bike on our patio that we use when we can’t get to the gym, or just want to ride while watching some TV. My one hundred and three-year-old mother uses it two or three times a week when she doesn’t go into use the bikes at the senior center.” The book’s formatting is a bit basic and monochrome, and though there are a few illustrations breaking up the text, they could be more frequent and inviting. Overall, older readers, in particular, will enjoy these practical, cost-efficient health strategies, most of which can be implemented into daily or weekly routines with little interruption.

An approachable fitness guide with sound health tips.

Pub Date: July 30, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-945949-86-9

Page Count: 212

Publisher: Waterside Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019

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NUTCRACKER

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

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: 0670717797

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

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