THE DIET DROPOUT'S GUIDE TO NATURAL WEIGHT LOSS by Stan Spencer, PhD

Fine Life Books
Riverside, CA
Genre: Health & Fitness
Rating: Very Good
ISBN: 9780983571704, $11.95, 131 pp.

Quoting from the back cover:

“ NO HYPE. NO FLUFF. This slim book is packed with myth-busting facts and practical advice.

“YOU WILL LEARN

-The truth about common weight loss myths

-The secret to losing weight and keeping it off

-Why ‘fat genes’ can’t keep you from being thin

-How to naturally boost your metabolism

-How to calm cravings and quit emotional eating

-How to keep a slip from becoming a binge

-How to eat less without going hungry

-How to get more exercise and enjoy it

-And much more...

“With this book you will create your own weight loss plan–your easiest path to naturally thin. Take your first steps on the path today and LEAVE DIETING BEHIND FOREVER.”

I like slim, little books packed with the facts you need to know. Dr. Spencer has put together a realistic program for you to consider in ten well-organized chapters. We all have read many books on dieting, and. I think Dr. Spencer’s Chapter 3 - Emotional Eating - presents a helpful key to the problem of overeating and eating properly. Learn to meditate, relax and focus, and you will find your desire for food lessens.

This little books doesn’t provide you with any miracle plan...just common sense eating and taking control of your life and eating habits. It is well-written and well-edited...a very professional presentation, easy to read, easy to understand.

Thank you Dr. Spencer for your contribution to this global problem.

Kaye Trout - September 23, 2012

RIME OF THE ANCIENT UNDERWRITER by Jim Salmon

How I Stowed the Day Job and Went to Sea
Hobblebush Books
Brookline, New Hampshire
Genre: Travel Adventure
Rating: Excellent
ISBN: 9780984592142, $ 18.95, 288 pp.

Quoting from the back cover:

“A circumnavigation wasn’t a desire, it was a need. Like Thoreau, I would not ‘when I come to die, discover that I had not lived.’”

“Jim Salmon found out when he quit his job as an insurance executive and signed onto a three-masted barque for a nineteen-month circumnavigation of the globe. Here now is an account of his voyage of discovery aboard the Picton Castle out of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The world voyage was the subject of a popular, sixteen-part series on Canadian cable television called Tall Ship Chronicles.

“Jim weathered storms at sea and stormy relations aboard ship, tramped through a steamy Panamanian jungle, climbed the rarified summit of Kilimanjaro, and tracked wildlife on the high plains of East Africa and the Australian Outback. There are pirates and a mutiny, but mostly his account is about people, places, and the human condition as seen through the eyes of a corporate exec turned seafarer.”

A most excellent read! I thoroughly enjoyed Jim’s account of his adventures and travels. Rime of the Ancient Underwriter is well-written, well-edited and well worth reading. I had a unique perspective from which to enjoy Jim’s tale. I, too, was an underwriter at one time, for Fireman’s Fund American Life. I, too, was involved in delivering yachts: cooking, shopping in foreign ports, standing watch, working the lines–worked the port stern line through the Panama Canal. The Picton Castle stopped at ports with which I was familiar, and the bars are still in the same places.

For those of us who don’t have the driving need to circumnavigate the world, we can enjoy such an experience vicariously through the trials, tribulations, adventures, misadventures, good and bad times as recounted by this gifted author, Jim Salmon.

You won’t be disappointed.

Kaye Trout - September 5, 2012