Aussie Author Dr. Bob Rich Reviews The Power of Good People

Title: The power of good people

Authors: Para Paheer and Alison Corke

Publisher: Wild Dingo Press http://wilddingopress.com.au

ISBN: 9780648066323

Reviewer: Dr Bob Rich https://bobrich18.wordpress.com

As I am writing this review, the current government of my country is committing its worst crime against humanity to date. 602 men have been deprived of water in a tropical location, denied food and all other amenities, and exposed to very real danger of murder and mutilation.

These men have committed no crime, but have been imprisoned without trial, in some cases for many years. If Para had sought refuge in Australia a few years later, he might well be among them.

These are the refugees in Australia’s illegal concentration camp on Manus Island. After a sleepless night, I have sent various politicians, including the Minister for Inhumanity, and the Prime Minister, this message: “You are committing a crime against humanity. If any of those 602 men die, you will be guilty of murder.”

What else can I do?

Only what Para and Alison are doing: our best to change people’s perception of asylum seekers. Refugees like I was, like Para is, are just... people. We tend to be those with courage, intelligence and initiative, who manage to escape impossible situations when others succumb. When accepted, we benefit our new home in many ways. Look at the record of high achievers who once were refugees.

The writing in this book is very powerful. Ali’s voice is calm, factual, avoids hysteria, and is all the more compelling for this. She narrates Para’s life, with him figuring there in a great many quotes so that he quickly becomes a real live person to the reader: a boy then young man to admire.

I’ve read other stories of trauma, such as Anne Frank’s Diary, The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif, and I am Malala. This book belongs up there with them.

MORE ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Dr Bob Rich is an author. Read more about what he calls "my best book at http://bobswriting.com/guardian.html. Subscribe to his eclectic newsletter at

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 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. Of particular interest to readers of this blog is her most recent How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically (http://bit.ly/GreatBkReviews ) that covers 325 jam-packed pages covering everithing from Amazon vine to writing reviews for profit and promotion. 

This blog is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

An Uncomfortably Close Look at the Prescription Drug Abuse Epidemic

THE BITTER TASTE OF DYING

A memoir

by Jason Smith

ISBN-10: 0996402012

ISBN-13: 978-0996402019

Web site: authorjasonsmith.com

Available on Amazon

Available at iBooks

Reviewed by Christa Wojciechowski originally on MySweetDelirium.com

Just a few years ago, Jason Smith was lying in his bathtub, the blood slowly draining from his slit wrists. Now he is here to tell us how he reached the point of suicide after his long, dark descent into prescription opiate abuse. The Bitter Taste Dying is a story of resurrection told by an author who has literally come back from the black grip of death.

Today’s junkies are not just on the street corner anymore. Big Pharma are the suppliers, and doctors are the pushers, cultivating (perhaps inadvertently, but that’s debatable) a massive population of addicts from all demographics.

After a severe car accident, Smith has back surgery and is given a perpetual menu of painkillers and muscle relaxers by his physicians. It doesn’t take long for the high schooler to realize that by taking more than the recommended dosage, he could obtain the warm, euphoric mental and physical comfort only opiates can bring. But all too soon he also discovers the pangs of withdrawal whenever his medication runs out.

If anyone has difficulty understanding what an addict feels like, Smith describes it with painful accuracy.

“You know that feeling of having your head held under water, the last of your oxygen depleted, where very fiber of your being screams at you to get to the surface for more air? That’s the feeling of needing more drugs…”

As Smith grows into a man, his addiction grows to mammoth proportions and he must go through heroic efforts to keep himself in pills and Fentanyl patches. Smith tells the story in an approachable, conversational tone that may have you laughing out loud at some parts. As horrendous as it is watching how far he would go and how morally low he would sink to get more drugs, it’s difficult not to marvel at his ingenuity and boldness.

At the same time, Smith writes with tender honesty and cutting unabashedness that is rare in any writer, much less any human being. The reader immediately feels very close to him, making his shocking confessions feel like blows.

The Bitter Taste of Dying is an important book that underscores the urgency with which society has to address the prescription drug abuse epidemic. It allows us to watch with uncomfortable closeness how easy it is to develop an addiction to pain medication and how quickly and mercilessly it can devour one’s entire life.

From aspiring football star to international criminal, Smith shows us step by step how opiate addiction can happen to anyone you know, and very likely destroy them. Most importantly, The Bitter Taste of Dying reveals the light at the end of the tunnel–even the most hopeless addict can make it out alive.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Smith is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, whose work has been published extensively in both online and print media. Jason Smith is also the Creative Director of TheRealEdition.com, a recently launched website that allows addicts, recovering addicts, and their loved ones to publish their stories of addiction. Jason currently lives in northern California with his wife Megan and two children, Jaden and Isabella.

The Bitter Taste of Dying was released July 6th, 2015 by Thought Catalog and available in Kindle, iBooks, and his website http://authorjasonsmith.com.

Jason Smith is available for interviews, contributions, and appearances. To schedule a media event, order books, or request review copies, please contact christawojo at gmail.com.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Christa Wojciechowski is an author and freelance internet marketer living in Panama. You can visit her blog at christawojo.com and follow her on Twitter at @christawojo.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

True Sobriety Info Done with "Brightness"

Title: Sober is the New Black

Author: Rachel Black
Web site: www.soberisthenewrachelblack.blogspot.co.uk
Category: Self help, Addiction, Alcohol, Memoir
ASIN: B00HZIGNLU
Buy the e-book here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HZIGNLU

 

Reviewed by Anna Buttimore B.A.Hons Administrator, originally for the spring 2015 issue of Law Care News

 

Sober is the New Black by Rachel Black shows very effectively how alcohol can insidiously, destructively and completely take over a life. Throughout it powerfully juxtaposes events in the author's life--business conferences, family holidays, book club meetings--when she was drinking, and after she stopped. There's always a risk with this sort of personal memoir that it can become egocentric and dull, but this one avoids that on two counts. First, because Rachel will resonate with so many readers as a typical working mother, someone they can relate to. Second, because it doesn't go too deeply into aspects of her life (we never learn the names of her children or her Other Half, or what job she does) and stays firmly focussed on the subject of alcohol.




I particularly liked the metaphor where the author compares lifelong abstinence with her mortgage. Both are burdens which look huge and terrifying when viewed as a whole, but are manageable and life-affirming on a day-to-day basis. The book well written, interesting and not overlong, but for me its best feature is the overriding optimism and delight on every page. If it has one message, it's that the sober life is wonderful. Rachel was evidently taken by surprise to find how much better everything, from social events to Christmas, is when you're not focusing solely on wine and how to drink as much of it as possible without anyone noticing. That brightness and assurance shines throughout the book and lifts it above other "sobriety memoirs”.

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rachel Black is also the author of‘Fashionable and Fabulous’. Read her blog here.

Join her on Twitter @SoberRachel.



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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

"Minta Forever" Strong Statement on Abuse

Title: Minta Forever
Author: Jean Campion
ISBN-10: 1932738371
ISBN-13: 978-1932738377
Pages: 192
Price $15.95 Amazon
Publisher Western Reflections Publishing Company
951 N. Highway 149, Lake City, Colorado 81235
P.O. Box 1149, Lake City, Colorado 81235
E-mail: westref@montrose.net
1-970-944-0110, 1-800-993-4490 (orders) 1-970-944-0273 (fax)

Reviewed by Connie Gotsch, author of A Mouth Full of Shell and Snap Me a Future and featured in The Complete Writer's Journal --www.redenginepress.com



Some authors go for the sleaze when they write on the theme of domestic abuse, dwelling on physical and sexual aspects until the reader wonders if the book’s a novel or a nursing text. At the end of the story, the heroine puts all the trauma behind her and prepares to head for the altar with some handsome man who rescues her. Her abuser either languishes permanently in jail, or lies under a grave stone.

In real life, abusers destroy their victims mentally as well as physically, and the victims often have no easy way out of the situation. If they do get rid of the abuser, they can’t find peace. The abuser might leave a victim alone, but there’s always the fear that he might come back, because abusers do not go to jail forever. Sometimes they don’t go at all, and just find another woman to batter

Southern Colorado author, Jean Campion knows this, and she recreates the real life abuse scenario in her novel Minta Forever, published by Western Reflections Publishing Company.


Pushed by well-meaning parents, Ella Jane Morgan Skaggs’ finds herself married to the abusive but wealthy farmer, Edmond. He does all the psychological things abusers do, including separating her from family and friends, and berating her at every chance. He brings her to his home town to live, where she knows no one. Worse, when he appears in public with her, he treats her well, so anyone she would ask for help would not believe she needs it.

When Ella decides to escape, she faces the dilemma of all abused women: where to go? Finally aided by a cousin, she gets a teaching job in a one-room school in a small Colorado town. Now the cousin and her husband are in danger of Edmond, as are the people in the town where Ella has taken refuge, under the new name of Minta Mayfield.

From page one of Minta Forever, Campion sets up a cat-and-mouse game between the husband and wife, highlighting the psychological abuse, and suggesting the physical and sexual aspects just enough for the reader to grasp.

Once escaped, Ella/Minta, spends a lot of time wondering in her journal if Edmond will find her, and what that will mean to her new community/ Any real life abused woman faces the same questions.

Around the abuse theme, Campion presents a good picture of how one-room schools operated in Colorado in the early 1920s. She grew up in a family of educators and heard tales of one-room schools and the people who taught in them. The novel began as a research project on one-room schools in La Plata County, Colorado, and the author found plenty of descriptive material to make Ella/Minta’s daily activities and surroundings believable. At no time, however, does she wallow in education history for its own sake. Every single historical mention relates to plot, action, character, or theme of the story.

Of course as Ella/Minta worries about Edmond’s return, the reader does, too, and Campion cleverly creates several heart-stopping moments when Edmond might be lurking in the shadows; and an explosive scene when he finally is.

People in town react as one might expect. Some support Ella/Minta. Some want her fired as a bad example to the students. Campion explores the ideas of forgiveness as supporters outvote the non-supporters.

A final twist in the plot puts Ella/Minta in the dilemma of real life abuse victims. Is she safe from Edmond, or is she not? What decisions should she make about what she does next, based on not knowing for sure if she’s safe?

Forever Minta raises provocative questions, and without being overly graphic, reminds everybody how hideous domestic abuse and violence is. The story also points out that there are no easy choices for an abused woman. She has make the best one with the information she has and hope it’s right.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, founder of Authors' Coalition (www.authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com). It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews and reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page.