Brain On! by Deb Smolensky

Brain On!
by Deb Smolensky

ISBN-13: 9781637556641
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Released: August 8, 2023

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
As incredible as your brain is, it hasn’t been upgraded since the beginning of time. Your brain is designed to keep you safe (thank you!), but it’s up to you to expand your operating system to be happy and productive in the office and at home. Fear is the default when you’re not intentional about how you use your brain. This translates to overwhelm, distraction, burnout, and other workplace stressors. In Brain On!, Deb Smolensky serves as your coach to retrain your brain through mental fitness strategies that will help you navigate the ever-changing and uncertain world in which we work


My Review:
Brain On! is about being more aware of how we're reacting to people and situations. The author's goal is for everyone to stay calm and ration and avoid being emotionally hijacked. Made me think of Spock. The advice was very focused on a business setting, and the last third of the book was specifically for leaders, the HR department, and the company culture. The leaders are told that emotions are contagious and that you can remove obstacles for those under you or trigger your workers to shut down, so you need to be constantly "brain on." No pressure there...

I was disappointed that how the brain works was described only in very general terms. She mentioned dozens of books whose ideas she was passing on but didn't refer to scientific studies. This book was also not about mental fitness but self-awareness. Her basic premise was that you're usually 'brain off' (sometimes described as responding to situations as if under threat or controlled by your primitive brain or your subconscious is driving your responses or being overwhelmed or emotionally hijacked) while you want to be 'brain on' (driven by your thinking brain, rationally analyzing at the situation, focused, and energized by what you're doing). The varying definitions of brain off made some of her statements seem absurd, like you can't use your thinking brain at the same time as you're in the threat response, yet you're supposed to use your thinking brain when feeling anxious to see if you have a rational worry.

The first third of the book was about why you need to be 'brain on' due to external and internal obstacles at work, etc. The next part was a detailed, step-by-step description on how to set doable goals so you can stay focused and be productive. She also pointed out how to look for your strengths and what you like to do so you're energize and enjoy your work. A short section talked about "brain fitness" but contained a couple questions to ask to see if you're brain on or off and a phrase to repeat to get 'brain on' again, suggesting naming the emotion you're feeling, and some breathing exercises to calm and focus yourself. She also suggested tips like get a good sleep, take a 20 minute nap, take breaks to move around or talk to a friend. The book wasn't really what I expected or needed, but it might be useful to business leaders.


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.

"Cause Unknown" by Ed Dowd

"Cause Unknown": The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 & 2022
by Ed Dowd

ISBN-13: 9780593197882
Kindle ebook: 381 pages
Publisher: Skyhorse
Released: November 9, 2022

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
2020 saw a spike in deaths in America, smaller than you might imagine during a pandemic, some of which could be attributed to COVID and to initial treatment strategies that were not effective. But then, in 2021, the stats people expected went off the rails. The CEO of the OneAmerica insurance company publicly disclosed that during the third and fourth quarters of 2021, death in people of working age (18–64) was 40 percent higher than it was before the pandemic. Significantly, the majority of the deaths were not attributed to COVID.

A 40 percent increase in deaths is literally earth-shaking. Even a 10 percent increase in excess deaths would have been a 1-in-200-year event. But this was 40 percent.

It isn’t COVID, of course, because we know that COVID is not a significant cause of death in young people. Various stakeholders opine about what could be causing this epidemic of unexpected sudden deaths, but “CAUSE UNKNOWN” doesn’t opine or speculate but just presents the facts and let's you decide.

The book begins with a close look at the actual human reality behind the statistics, and when you see the people who are represented by the dry term Excess Mortality, it’s difficult to accept so many unexpected sudden deaths of young athletes, known to be the healthiest among us. Similarly, when lots of healthy teenagers and young adults die in their sleep without obvious reason, collapse and die on a family outing, or fall down dead while playing sports, that all by itself raises an immediate public health concern. Or at least it used to.

Do you recall seeing these kinds of things occurring during your own life—in junior high? In high school? In college? How many times in your life did you hear of a performer dropping dead on stage in mid-performance? Your own life experience and intuition will tell you that what you’re about to see is not normal. Or at least it wasn’t normal before 2021.


My Review:
"Cause Unknown" focused on the sudden increase in non-COVID deaths that are creating a large rise in Excess Mortality. The author included many pages showing newspaper headlines about healthy young people dying suddenly. These included a web link and QR code so you can go read these articles yourself. Every time something is cited, there's a link so you can read the paper or article or look at the government statistics to make sure the information wasn't taken out of context.

The author mainly looked at young athletes (how often did they used to die versus in 2021 and 2022), young people dying in their sleep, younger medical professionals and famous people dying suddenly. He also looked at when the COVID shots were mandated compared to when the sudden deaths increased, the USA government's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting Systems for the COVID shots compared to previous vaccines, how other countries have stopped giving the shots to young people, and how disability claims have gone up. The data is convincing that we need to do something about this rather than just pretending it's not happening. I'd recommend this book to everyone.


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.

Palette Knife Painting by Lisa Elley

Palette Knife Painting
by Lisa Elley

ISBN-13: 9780760382165
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Walter Foster Publishing
Released: May 23, 2023

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from NetGalley:
Learn how to create your own Deep Impasto® masterpieces using a palette knife and oil paints with this book featuring tips, techniques, and 8 complete step-by-step projects. Professional artist Lisa Elley works from her studio in the San Francisco Bay Area with the purpose of inspiring and bringing joy to people through her art. In Palette Knife Painting: Deep Impasto, Lisa shares her techniques with you through easy-to-follow step-by-step projects.

Also included in the book are:
Primers on the best palette knives and paints to use
Color mixing and color theory instructions
Beautiful, textured artwork that seems to lift off the page

Palette Knife Painting: Deep Impasto is ideal for artists of all skill levels looking to learn to paint and scrape with oil paint.


My Review:
Palette Knife Painting is an art instruction book on how to paint with palette knifes to create 3D, Deep Impasto paintings. The author used oil paints, but you can also use certain acrylic paints. The author started out with the basics like materials and supplies and the basic techniques used when painting with palette knifes. She had 8 step-by-step projects (wave, ocean shore, several flowers, trees, windowsill) that practiced these techniques. While the directions and pictures were good enough for me to feel confident in trying them, I also felt like it'd be easier to understand how to use a palette knife for painting if I could see it on video. Happily, she does have some short videos on YouTube that show these techniques. Overall, I'd recommend this book to artist interested in learning palette knife painting, especially in using really thick paint to create a 3D 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.

Fifty Shades of Gray Matter by Teresella Gondolo, MD

Fifty Shades of Gray Matter
by Teresella Gondolo, MD

ISBN-13: 9781639887798
Paperback: 382 pages
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Released: May 2, 2023

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Neurology is more than treating headaches and strokes. The brain, which has produced all of mankind's art and literature and inventions, can also conjure monsters and nightmares and sexual predators. It can upend lives with a myriad of chemical neurotransmitters coursing through millions of synapses. Each brain is its own unique world, its own reality. The brain can be a confining prison, or a dizzying and limitless cosmos.


My Review:
Fifty Shades of Gray Matter describes a series of cases showing the type of people that visit a neurologist. It's not really a scientific look at the brain but more philosophical musing about how brain disorders affect people. The book had short chapters, each featuring a different patient and their family, as the disorder affected others. She gave some background on the people and why they came to her then briefly gave her diagnosis of what was wrong and what medicine she prescribed. Some of the problems were caused by medication. The more scientific information of the brain was relegated to a few pages in the back, briefly describing a few of the mentioned diseases in terms of what's gone wrong in the brain. While interesting in it's way, I'd expected more of a focus on the brain than on the people.


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.

Living in Early Victorian London by Michael Alpert

Living in Early Victorian London
by Michael Alpert

ISBN-13: 9781399060844
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
Released: April 30, 2023

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
London in the 1840s was sprawling and smoke-filled, a city of extreme wealth and abject poverty. Some streets were elegant with brilliantly gas-lit shop windows full of expensive items, while others were narrow, fetid, muddy, and in many cases foul with refuse and human filth. Railways, stations and sidings were devouring whole districts and creating acres of slums or ‘rookeries’ into which the poor of the city were jammed and where crime, disease and prostitution were rife.

The most sensational crime of the epoch, the murder of Patrick O’Connor by Frederick and Maria Manning, filled the press in the summer and autumn of 1849. Michael Alpert uses the trial record of this murder, accompanied by numerous other contemporary sources, among them journalism, diaries and fiction, to show how day-to-day lives, birth, death, sickness, work, shopping, cooking, and buying clothes, were lived in the crowded, noisy capital in the early decades of Victoria’s reign. These sources illustrate how ordinary people lived in London, their incomes, entertainments, religious practice, reading and education, their hopes and anxieties. Life in Early Victorian London reveals how ordinary people like the Mannings and thousands of others experienced their multifaceted lives in the capital.

Early Victorian London lived on the cusp of great improvements, but it was a city which in some aspects was mediaeval. Its inhabitants enjoyed the benefit of the Penny Post and the omnibus, and they were protected to some extent by a police force. The Mannings fled their crime on the railway, were trapped by the recently-invented telegraph and arrested by ‘detectives’ (a new concept and word), but they were hanged in public as murderers had been for centuries, watched by a baying, drunken and swearing mob.


My Review:
Living in Early Victorian London described life in London between 1837 and the early 1850s. The author started by using journals and articles from the time to describe London, from the docks to the richer areas to the slums. The book was loosely organized around the trial records of a certain murder. Some of the details about dress, food, furnishings, etc. come from court trial records, but also newspaper ads, diaries, and fiction written at the time. The book covered a wide variety of topics and included details about things like how much different jobs might earn compared to how much certain items cost. It covered things like what types of food or housing a poor laborer could afford compared to the middle class, second-hand clothing, sanitary conditions and sickness, the mail system, transportation, education, police, crime, and trials.

It's full of interesting information, but I sometimes felt like I'd need to use a search function to find things in the future since the author tended to jump around within a chapter. Overall, I'd recommend this book to those wanting details about London for novel research or those just plain curious.


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.

Beginner's Guide to Safely Foraging for Wild Mushrooms by Karen Stephenson

Beginner's Guide to Safely Foraging for Wild Mushrooms
by Karen Stephenson

ISBN-13: 9781685393878
Paperback: 134 pages
Publisher: Rockridge Press
Released: November 15, 2022

Source: a review copy from the publisher through Amazon Vine.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
There are thousands of mushroom species native to the woods, fields, and forests of North America, but how do you know which are safe to eat? This beginner’s guide will help you discover the diverse and fascinating world of mushrooms and where to find them, so you can enjoy nature’s bounty. Get down and dirty with this safe guide to mushroom foraging.


My Review:
Beginner's Guide to Safely Foraging for Wild Mushrooms is aimed at beginners to foraging wild mushrooms. The author generally picked mushrooms that don't have unsafe, similar-looking mushrooms. However, she did include identification information and pictures for the really poisonous ones, too, to help you avoid them. She started with some basic information about mushrooms and the different parts used for identification (with pictures, so you can see the differences). She also talked about foraging for mushrooms and how to collect, process, use or store them. She then had identification sections for 11 easy-to-spot, 4 medium difficulty, and 5 hard to spot wild mushrooms. The identification pages had a picture of the mushroom and information on the name, type, description, habitat, where to find it, when to harvest, look-alikes (and how to tell them apart), taste profile, keys to positive ID, spore print ID, and tips on foraging and storage. Overall, this seems like a good beginners guide.


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.

Container Food Gardening by Pamela Farley

Container Food Gardening
by Pamela Farley

ISBN-13: 9780760378137
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Cool Springs Press
Released: March 7, 2023

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Growing your own fresh food in containers is a great way to begin your gardening journey! Container gardens can take up as much or as little room as you’d like. They’re portable, so you can locate them wherever conditions are optimal for plant growth. And, you can grow just about any veggie in pots, as long as you have the right container, the right soil blend, and the right care tips. In these pages, author Pam Farley of BrownThumbMama.com lines the path to container food gardening success in clear, simple steps.

Not only will you learn how to get started, you’ll also discover what size container you need for each different veggie, why filling the pot with the perfect soil blend matters so much, when to fertilize and how often to water, where to locate your container food garden for optimum production, what to do if problems arise and how to fix them, and tips for everything from staking and pruning your veggie plants to knowing when it’s time to harvest.


My Review:
Container Food Gardening is a gardening book for beginners. It started with basics like step-by-step illustrated instructions for planting a seed or transplanting a seedling. The author also provided the basics for container food gardening, like what size of container to use for different plants, what types of fruits and veggies grow well in containers, how much soil is needed for the various sizes of containers, and the different types of container materials. She also suggested different plant combinations for a larger container, like an herbal mix or a "spaghetti sauce" or "salad greens" garden. She then covered preparing repurposed containers (disinfecting, adding drainage holes, etc.), where to put the containers (considering sun, wind, buildings creating microclimates), how and when to water (with troubleshooting tips), what type of potting mix to get (or make your own), choosing and using fertilizers, mulch, and soil amendments, and troubleshooting plant, insect, and animal problems. A least half of the book was pictures of various container gardens, demonstrations of how to do something, or illustrations of the suggested gardens, mulches, etc. Overall, I'd recommend this book, especially to first-time gardeners interested in container gardening.


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.