Saturday, January 8, 2011

The Everything Birthing book

Not that I will ever have kids, I have decided LONG ago that I am an inny not an outy... Okay, now that you know my deepest female thingies I shall continue..

I purchased this book as a gift, and couldn't help crack the cover. This book says that it will inform you of the various options available to you for child birth so you can be informed. The book is hefty in its page count, over 300 pages, and even though the information is informative, it repeats itself, I am not sure why the author does this. However, if you removed all of the repeated information, then you would be able to shave off at least a hundred pages.

Editing is semi problematic, in my copy the use of their and there, and the use of then and than are sometimes crossed. This to me is a basis English issue and one that should have been caught. The book is laid out in a common sense manner, and I admit if I was preggo, I would find the information inside helpful.

So the book has some editing issues. Yes...
So the book repeats itself. Yes...

Can I honestly recommend it? Yes... There is a ton of information in here, and I can as a reader and yes reviewer get over some of the more problematic issues. However even though I think the book is "good" I cannot give it any higher than...

3 Stars

Concise history of the Crusades

Thomas Madden's newest book promises the reader to be a concise and accurate history of one of the most misunderstood, and twisted parts of the worlds history.

Well... He delivers.. Sort of...

Although he very clearly and also in an interesting way, explains medieval history, the period, the little interesting tidbits that open ones eyes to what it was truly like back then. I feel also he uses this very good, and accurate accounting od that interesting period, as way way to deliver his version of why some who are Muslim do not like Christians.

He makes huge comparisons from past to present, and although some of them do stick, most of them are more some weird type of attempt to explain away the modern diversities between Christians and Muslims.

Editing is spot on, the book is well laid out, well presented. He has done a lot of research and that shows. Overall the book is really interesting, and he would gather top marks if were not for his pulling out the soap box to stand on with this book.

Overall he gets a solid.

4 Stars