The Traditional Home Herbal Apothecary by Aida Higgins

The Traditional Home Herbal Apothecary
by Aida Higgins

ISBN-13: 9227979298703
ebook: 352 pages
Publisher: Illustrata Books
Released: March 26, 2025

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
For centuries, traditional herbal medicine has been used to heal, energize, and restore the body—yet modern healthcare has largely forgotten these powerful remedies. That’s why The Traditional Home Herbal Apothecary was created—to bring ancient wisdom and science-backed herbal solutions together in one easy-to-follow guide. Written by herbal enthusiast Aida Higgins, this book empowers you to reclaim your health naturally, whether you’re a complete beginner or an experienced herbal enthusiast.

Packed with over 300+ herbal remedy recipes, it provides you with the knowledge and confidence to create your own home herbal apothecary—a treasure trove of natural solutions to treat pain, boost energy, improve immunity, and more. Restore balance in digestion, strengthen immunity, support liver health, balance hormones, detox naturally, and much more. Master the art of crafting teas, tinctures, balms, oils, tonics, and more using simple, natural ingredients. This book breaks it all down into simple, easy steps, showing you exactly how to create powerful remedies from everyday ingredients.


My Review:
The Traditional Home Herbal Apothecary is a beginner's guide to make-it-yourself herbal remedies, including teas, simple balms, etc. The author is an 'herbal enthusiast' and so mostly gave some basic information and a lot of recipes. Each chapter covered a specific body system (like digestion, hormonal imbalances, etc.). She provided some information about common problems in that system along with 3 herbs that are often used for that problem. Some herbs, like ginger or turmeric, are suggested for a number of problems. Many of the recommended herbs are common and easy to get, but a few herbs were more expensive and harder to find. I've read many herbal books and have used herbs for years, and I didn't really get much out of this brief introduction to some useful herbs.

It seemed like about half of the book was recipes. For each subsection of a chapter (as in, for each problem), there would be 6 herbal recipes. Often, these recipes would include herbs that hadn't been mentioned yet, and I'm not sure if all of those herbs were even covered. In the Kindle version, each recipe was a graphic instead of a text, and the text in the graphic ran off the side of the screen. This made it hard to read the recipes. The recipes were also back-to-back pages of graphics, which made it hard to move to the next page. This may have been fixed in the final Kindle version, or it might not be a problem on Kindles with the wider screen, but it was a problem for me. The recipes looked fairly simple to follow, but the above problems mean that I haven't tried any and can't comment on how they taste or if the instructions are simple to follow or not.


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 Grounding Companion by Donna Raskin

The Grounding Companion
by Donna Raskin

ISBN-13: 9780760393109
Hardback: 160 pages
Publisher: Fair Winds Press
Released: February 4, 2025

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
The Grounding Companion is your practical guide to using nature as medicine. This compact and gifty reference gives you the fascinating science of grounding and simple grounding practices you can use anywhere, anytime to reap the benefits of this powerful practice.

Electromagnetism and health: the benefits of being outside
The top grounding locations around the world: the earth’s key energy points
Grounding foods and practices
Methods and techniques for grounding: forest bathing to yoga and meditation



My Review:
The Grounding Companion is about 'grounding oneself' in the sense of being aware of the moment you're in and your body, preferably while touching something from nature. It's not about what is popularly called earthing or grounding: putting your bare skin against the grass or dirt, walking barefoot along a seashore or in a creek, etc.

The first chapter described how the body is electrically-based and how man-made EMFs can be harmful. Despite being the chapter on the science behind grounding, only one scientific research article was briefly referred to on the benefits of grounding. The book's definition of a "free radical" doesn't match what I understood it to be nor what a subsequent search of medical websites described it as. Despite some 'science' terms, I felt like the author didn't really understand the topic.

Chapter 2 was on grounding techniques, like have live plants on your desk or touch a stone (while inside) or put your feet on the floor. The author stated that actual contact with the earth/ground is not necessary. In fact, one technique could be done while lying in bed. The techniques are short, breathing-and-movement based meditations 'grounding' you in the moment and in your body to help you deal with anxiety or panic attacks.

The author did mention grounding mats and erroneously stated that "...the mat conducts electricity to your feet through a grounding wire that you plug into an outlet. Some mats come with special adapters to ensure that the electricity is properly grounded." Actually, no electricity is involved and all grounding mats only attach to the ground in the outlet, thus are grounded. There were enough science-based errors up to this point that I just gave up on the book. I can't recommend it.


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 Cure for Women by Lydia Reeder

The Cure for Women
by Lydia Reeder

ISBN-13: 9781250284457
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Released: December 3, 2024

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
After Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to graduate from medical school, more women demanded a chance to study medicine. Barred entrance to universities like Harvard, women built their own first-rate medical schools and hospitals. Their success spurred a chilling backlash from elite, white male physicians who were obsessed with eugenics and the propagation of the white race. Distorting Darwin’s evolution theory, these haughty physicians proclaimed in bestselling books that women should never be allowed to attend college or enter a profession because their menstrual cycles made them perpetually sick. Motherhood was their constitution and duty.

Into the midst of this turmoil marched tiny, dynamic Mary Putnam Jacobi, daughter of New York publisher George Palmer Putnam and the first woman to be accepted into the world-renowned Sorbonne medical school in Paris. As one of the best-educated doctors in the world, she returned to New York for the fight to prove the opposition wrong. Aided by other prominent women physicians and suffragists, Jacobi conducted the first-ever data-backed, scientific research on women's reproductive biology. The results of her studies shook the foundations of medical science and higher education. Full of larger than life characters and cinematically written, The Cure for Women documents the birth of a sexist science still haunting us today as the fight for control of women’s bodies and lives continues.


My Review:
The Cure for Women is about the first women doctors in America, the men who opposed them, and the fight for women to be accepted at male medical schools. It's more about what the author felt about the various people and events than quotes of what the women themselves said. The information about Mary Putnam Jacobi only took up about a third of the book. The book started by telling about the Blackwell sisters and a couple of other prominent women doctors, then we got into Mary's life. But the author tended to digress and give biographies and backstories for anyone new introduced into the story. For example, there's a chapter detailing a male doctor's 'rest cure' for women which also told details about several woman who took his cure, one dying afterward and the others finally breaking free of all male restraints to live healthy lives.

I hadn't expected so many biographies beyond Mary's and felt like they slowed the pacing and sometimes didn't even have to do with Mary's interesting story. Also, the author portrayed men as controlling, manipulative, childishly hateful, and basically willing to torture and subjugate women to achieve their own goals. She's convinced me that some of the main male opponents were pretty horrible people, but the supportive men were barely mentioned.

As Mary apparently published a lot of her research, and a number of the women doctors were the first to do things that other schools and hospitals later picked up, I'd expected more of a focus on what they accomplished. I was fascinated by Mary's innovative research showing that the menstrual cycle did not indicate that a woman was 'in heat' nor was it a sign of reoccurring weakness. Instead, this book was written as an epic battle between clever, independent women and white supremist males determined to force women back into a role of baby-making machines.


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.