Father of the Modern Circus 'Billy Buttons' by Steve Ward

Father of the Modern Circus 'Billy Buttons' by Steve Ward ISBN-13: 9781526706874 Paperback: 128 pages Publisher: Pen and Sword History Released: June 29, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from NetGalley:
The ‘modern’ circus was founded by Philip Astley. In April 1768, he pegged out a circular ride on the banks of the river Thames and gave performances of trick riding to a paying audience. He was an accomplished horseman, a military hero and an instinctive showman. Above all, he was an entrepreneur who realised that people would pay good money to be entertained. He created the comic character of Billy Buttons, and other acts were added to his performances: clowns, rope dancers, tumblers and strongmen. The circus, as we might recognise it today, was born.

From his early days as an apprentice cabinetmaker and his military exploits in the 15th Dragoons to the trials and tribulations of establishing himself as a respected performer and his international successes in France and Ireland, this book gives a detailed account of the larger than life figure that was Philip Astley.


My Review:
Father of the Modern Circus 'Billy Buttons' is basically a biography about Philip Astley. The author started with a chapter about how the skills we think of as circus skills have been around for thousands of years. They were used to entertain in courts and at fairs. He then talked about the birth and marriage records he found for Philip Astley and about his military service. Not much is known about his personal life, though.

Most of the book covered 1768 to 1801 and focused on the start and development of his circus. The author quoted the newspaper articles, court records, and advertisements that he found about Astley and then commented on the various entertainments at his shows, the legal battles he faced, etc. The author also talked about Astley's competitors and how things developed into what is typical of a modern circus. Overall, I'd recommend this book to circus fans. The entertainments were usually referred to rather than described in detail, so it may be more enlightening if you've seen similar acts.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

Paint Watercolor Flowers by Birgit O'Connor

Paint Watercolor Flowers by Birgit O'Connor ISBN-13: 9781440349966 Paperback: 144 pages Publisher: North Light Books Released: June 26, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Sunflowers, orchids, daffodils, lilies...your brush can bring these and more to life with Paint Watercolor Flowers. Master watercolorist Birgit O'Connor guides you every step of the way, from selecting essential watercolor supplies, to practicing basic painting techniques, to capturing the unique details of a variety of flowers, to showing them off in striking, color-rich compositions. Learn how to paint nine different flowers, with each demonstration covering important concepts you need for successful results. Friendly, easy-to-follow instructions make flower painting fun and doable for any artist, whether you are new to the medium or simply want to try a subject you haven't painted before.

Detailed instruction on color, value, creating shadows, composition and more
3 negative painting demonstrations
9 start-to-finish flower painting demonstrations exploring topics such as creating backgrounds, layering color, values in white flowers, values in colored flowers and much more
Learn to play with gorgeous color and water effects, expressing yourself with the unparalleled beauty of nature's bouquet


My Review:
Paint Watercolor Flowers teaches beginners how to use watercolor plus how to paint flowers. I wish I had this book back when I first decided to try watercolor because it would have saved me a great deal of frustration. The author not only covered the different watercolor tools and materials, but she explained their characteristics so that the reader can understand why certain materials are more suited to different styles of painting. The text clearly explained the information, and the pictures clearly demonstrated the information or technique. The steps in the demonstrations were clearly explained so that you can successfully follow them. Overall, I'd highly recommend this useful book.

The author started by talking about the various tools and materials. She then talked about watercolor techniques and troubleshooting tips, color theory, and composition (including how to use pictures of flowers to create or inspire a composition). She included 9 step-by-step flower demonstrations, each building upon skills practiced in the previous demonstrations. She's an excellent art teacher.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.

Brush Pen Illustration by Sho Ito

Brush Pen Illustration by Sho Ito ISBN-13: Paperback: 104 pages Publisher: Quarry Books Released: June 26, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Brush pens are a unique medium that comes in hundreds of colors and produces a beautiful, soft, watercolor effect which has had lettering artists buzzing. Now, though, illustrators in all walks of art are incorporating brush pens' into their repertoire as a simple way to include color and motion into their art.

Brush pens' style is reminiscent of Chinese brush painting and drawing. They offer a gentle, paint-like quality that replicate watercolor paints without having use paint and brushes. Brush Pen Illustration shows you how to draw things in 2-4 easy steps. Apples, zebras, penguins, flowers, this book shows you how to draw everything under the sun with fun and colorful brush pens.


My Review:
Brush Pen Illustration is a step-by-step drawing book that uses brush pens. The author started by briefly talking about brush pens and paper and then explained some brush pen techniques. Most of the book was 2-4 step demonstrations on how to draw over 200 everyday things, like food (vegetables, fruit, sweets, meals), animals (dogs, cats, and other animals), flowers, zodiac signs, and more.

The objects and animals were drawn with a Chinese brush painting look. The book was also Asian-oriented, so the author choose to demonstrate foods like sushi, which may not be of interest to everyone. During the step-by-step part, the focus was on what strokes to do in what order, so each stroke was numbered.

I now have a better feel for how to create the Chinese brush painting look, and the animal and flower drawings were of interest to me. However, while there's enough instruction to allow you to jump into creating his demonstration objects, I had been expecting a little more discussion about what to look for in brush pens and on using the techniques.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.

The Royal Art of Poison by Eleanor Herman

The Royal Art of Poison by Eleanor Herman ISBN-13: 9781250140869 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: St. Martin's Press Released: June 12, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Hugely entertaining, a work of pop history that traces the use of poison in the royal courts of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Kremlin today. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family’s spoons, tried on their underpants and tested their chamber pots.

Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions. Women wore makeup made with mercury and lead. Men rubbed turds on their bald spots. Physicians prescribed mercury enemas, arsenic skin cream, drinks of lead filings, and potions of human fat and skull, fresh from the executioner. The most gorgeous palaces were little better than filthy latrines. Gazing at gorgeous portraits of centuries past, we don’t see what lies beneath the royal robes and the stench of unwashed bodies; the lice feasting on private parts; and worms nesting in the intestines.

In The Royal Art of Poison, Eleanor Herman combines her unique access to royal archives with cutting-edge forensic discoveries to tell the true story of Europe’s glittering palaces: one of medical bafflement, poisonous cosmetics, ever-present excrement, festering natural illness, and, sometimes, murder


My Review:
The Royal Art of Poison is about how royals and famous people died in the Middle Ages to the present day from many different causes but blamed an enemy using poison. Sometimes they were correct. The author looked at how people died from poorly cooked food, diseases and filthy living conditions, medications and cosmetics containing poisons, or doctors using excessive bleeding, purging, and other treatments. The author also talked about the various antidotes and preventive methods used by royals to avoid being poisoned.

Then she looked at more than 17 specific, famous people who died under suspicion of poisoning--from Henry VII of Luxembourg, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1313 to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1821 plus a list of poisonings in Russia and elsewhere in more recent times. She provided a brief biography of the person, a detailed and gory description of their death as recorded at the time, what the people at the time concluded was the cause of death, and a modern forensic analysis of cause of death. When the conclusion was poisoning, she didn't attempt to guess who did it unless someone confessed to it. Overall, the writing style and information kept my interest, but the details of the deaths were a bit gory for me (though necessary for the forensic analysis).


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.

Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache by Agathe Singer

Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache by Agathe Singer ISBN-13: 9781633224964 Paperback: 128 pages Publisher: Walter Foster Publishing Released: May 1, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Gouache paint has a long history, but it’s often associated with watercolor and multimedia art. Until now, that is! Trendy artists with large social-media followings are reinvigorating gouache, making this the ideal time to add this medium to your toolbox...or start your art journey with it!

Like the other books in the Anywhere, Anytime Art series, Gouache explores this medium in a portable, approachable, and contemporary way. Basic painting topics, such as tools and materials, techniques, and color theory, are presented in an easy-to-read, visual style. The subsequent step-by-step projects focus on various subjects that artists can find anywhere, whether they’re home or out and about. Artists can learn to paint their favorite things, including plants, flowers, cats, patterns, and more.


My Review:
Anywhere, Anytime Art: Gouache is a guide to using gouache aimed at people who have never tried it before. The author provided some very basic tips and techniques for using gouache along with some very simple, stylized painting projects to get you experimenting with the medium. The patterns, flowers, birds, and cats in the 12 projects are very basic and easy to do following her instructions because you aren't attempting realism. The author had an encouraging tone and promotes fanciful painting for fun and relaxation. I've been painting with gouache for several years now, so I didn't learn anything new. However, this book could be useful to someone new to gouache or even to painting.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.

Quench by Dana Cohen; Gina Bria

Quench by Dana Cohen; Gina Bria ISBN-13: 9780316515665 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Hachette Books Released: June 12, 2018

Source: ebook ARC review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads
Many of us are dehydrated due to moisture lacking diets, artificial environments, and medications. Yet drinking too much water can flush out vital nutrients and electrolytes. Here is where "gel water" comes in: the water from plants (like cucumber, berries, aloe), which our bodies are designed to truly absorb right down to the cellular level.

Quench offers a five-day jump start plan: hydrating meal plans and the heart of the program, smoothies using the most hydrating and nutrient-packed plants. Another unique feature of their approach is micro-movements-small, simple movements you can make a few times a day that will move water through your fascia, the connective tissue responsible for hydrating our bodies. You will experience more energy, focus, and better digestion within five days.


My Review:
Quench is about hydration through eating plants and through movement. I've been interested in the concept of a fourth phase of water since watching a YouTube TEDX presentation about it. This book used that same material and other information you can easily find on the internet, though she did include some information about fascia that I hadn't heard before.

The authors talked about how your body uses water and how dehydration may be a cause behind various health conditions. They talked about the fourth state of water, which naturally occurs in abundance in foods like fruits and vegetables. They talked about how eating whole fruits and veggies is a good way to hydrate and how movement, even small movements, helps to keep you hydrated. Unfortunately, I often didn't find the descriptions of suggested micro-movements to be clear and the simplistic illustrations didn't clarify things for me.

They also talked about hydration for anti-aging and in special populations, like children and the elderly. They included smoothie, soup, and other hydrating recipes and a 5-day plan of what to eat and drink to be optimally hydrated.

Unfortunately, they would often say one thing in one spot and then say something seemingly contradictory in another spot. For example, one of the authors talked about how great Yerba Mate is for hydration, but it's high in caffeine (which she doesn't mention). Yet they later strongly recommend that you minimize or eliminate tea and coffee due to its caffeine content. But then they talked about a study that shows that up to 4 cups of coffee will not dehydrate you. And they suggested adding a pinch of salt to every glass of water you drink even though salt is dehydrating. So it is a good topic, but the presentation was confusing at times.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.

The China Study Cookbook by LeAnne Campbell, PhD

The China Study Cookbook by LeAnne Campbell, PhD ISBN-13: 9781944648954 Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: BenBella Books Released: June 5, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
With more than 2 million copies sold, The China Study has been hailed as one of the most important health and nutrition books ever published, revealing that the traditional Western diet has led to our modern health crisis and the way to stop widespread growth of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer is through a whole foods, plant-based diet.

This new edition of the bestselling The China Study Cookbook takes the groundbreaking scientific findings of The China Study and puts them on your plate. Written by LeAnne Campbell, daughter of The China Study co-author T. Colin Campbell, PhD, The China Study Cookbook features even more delicious, easily prepared plant-based recipes that promote optimal health—with no added fat and minimal sugar and salt.

Inside, discover time-tested favorites and brand new dishes: Breakfast Home-Fry Hash, Fabulous Sweet Potato Enchiladas, No-Bake Peanut Butter Bars, Cheese(less) Cake, Chipotle Quinoa Salad, Green Banana Cassava Soup, Spinach Mushroom Eggplant Rolls, Yucca con Cebollas, and more!

Filled with helpful tips on substitutions, keeping foods nutrient-rich, The China Study Cookbook shows you how to transform your health and the health of your entire family, while contributing to the health of your community and the world—all while enjoying incredible, delicious meals.


My Review:
The China Study Cookbook is a whole food, plant-based (vegan) cookbook with recipes that use no added fat and lower amounts of sugar and salt. Most of the recipes were for 4-6 people and were fairly easy to make. The author started by talking about why she eats a whole food, plant-based diet, about the program she runs, and cooking tips like substitutes for animal products (dairy, eggs) and oil.

There were recipes for 13 breads and muffins (and fruit butters), 23 recipes for breakfast dishes (coffee cake, jams, french toast, crepes, smoothies, oatmeal, granola, pancakes, etc.), 27 recipes for appetizers and salads, 15 recipes for soups, 20 recipes for sandwiches and wraps, 30 recipes for entrees (burritos, pasta, stew, etc.), 25 recipes for sides (beans, beets, corn, sauces, etc.), 23 recipes for deserts (pies, cakes, cookies, etc.)

I've tried a few of the recipes and enjoyed them. Overall, I'd recommend this cookbook to people who are interested in adding more whole-food, plant-based meals to their diet.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.

The Life and Times of Sherlock Holmes, Volume Two by Liese Sherwood-Fabre

The Life and Times of Sherlock Holmes Volume Two by Liese Sherwood-Fabre ISBN-13: 9780998411248 ebook: 98 pages Publisher: Little Elm Press, LLC Released: May 13, 2018

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from NetGalley:
Fans of Sherlock Holmes, Victorian England, and history in general will all find interesting tidbits to carry away. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle references many everyday Victorian activities and aspects that are lost on the twenty-first century reader. These short essays provide modern readers a better understanding of Victorian England and greater insight into the world of Sherlock Holmes. His cases take on richer meaning when the reader grasps the subtilties of such details as the blue ribbon mentioned in “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box,” the doss houses Shinwell Johnson knew about, or how one contracted brain fever.

Originally published in Sherlockian newsletters across the world, these short essays carry the reader back to London, 1895 and the world of the most famous consulting detective. Topics covered include:

Horse racing, The Victorian Wedding, Boxing, The Temperance Movement, Fencing, London Smog, Brain Fever, Circuses, The Port of Dundee, Doss Houses, Vampires, Bradshaw’s Companion, Bicycles and the New Woman, Clergymen, Public Houses, Microscopes and Magnifying Glasses, Governesses, Ciphers and Codes, Eton, Cambridge and Oxford, The Art of Disguise, Typewriters, Brief History of Tea.


My Review:
The Life and Times of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of 24 short essays on the historical context of things mentioned in Sherlock Holmes stories. Each essay was inspired by a comment or incident in a Sherlock Holmes story, and we're told where the essay topic is mentioned. We're then given a brief history or background information on the topic. Sports were given a brief overview from origin to modern day, but other topics focused primarily on Victorian times. The footnotes show that most of the information was found online or in a small number of books about Victorian England, so you could look up much of this information for yourself if so motivated. However, it is an interesting and informative read.

Topics covered include Horse racing, Victorian Wedding Traditions, Boxing, Temperance Movement, Fencing, London Smog, Brain Fever, Turkish Baths, Circuses, The Port of Dundee, Lodging in Workhouses or Doss Houses, Vampires, Bradshaw’s Companion, Women Bicycling and Working, Vicars and Rectors, Public Houses, Microscopes and Magnifying Glasses, Governesses, Ciphers and Codes, Eton, Cambridge and Oxford, Principles of Disguise, Typewriters, Coffee and Tea.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.