Blog Archives
Welcome To My World
Dementia disrupts lives with a quiet ferocity, altering routines, straining relationships, and reshaping entire family dynamics. In Welcome to My World, Dr. David Soh Poh Huat offers a deeply personal exploration of this often-misunderstood condition, drawing from his own journey to illuminate the path for others. With practical insight and emotional resonance, the book serves as both a guide and a companion through the uncharted terrain of dementia care.
From the outset, Dr. Soh recounts his own experience supporting a loved one through the progression of dementia. The narrative doesn’t shy away from uncertainty; instead, it leans into it, portraying the disease as a landscape where familiarity gives way to confusion. Yet, even in this unpredictable world, the author maintains a tone of steady compassion. His words offer reassurance, urging readers to hold onto hope, to remain steadfast, and above all, to never forsake those caught in dementia’s grip.
Rather than overwhelm, the book simplifies. Its accessible language and brief format make it an ideal starting point for anyone seeking to understand the condition, whether affected personally, supporting a loved one, or preparing for the unforeseen. It demystifies the experience, reminding readers that they are not alone. Across the globe, countless others are navigating similar struggles and learning invaluable lessons that can ease the emotional burden.
Though not exhaustive in scope, Welcome to My World succeeds in what it sets out to do: introduce the emotional and practical realities of dementia with sincerity and clarity. Dr. Soh invites readers to dig deeper, to continue their exploration beyond the book’s pages, and to begin building a mental and emotional framework equipped for caregiving.
At its core, this book is a gentle yet firm reminder that empathy, preparedness, and presence are essential tools in the fight against dementia. Warnings, affirmations, and grounded advice are delivered with consistency and care, making the work not only informative but genuinely comforting.
Dr. Soh’s contribution arrives at a time when awareness around dementia is more urgent than ever. Welcome to My World is not just a book; it’s an invitation to begin understanding, a call to action to support those whose lives have been forever changed. In learning more, we become better equipped to offer the dignity, patience, and love that every person touched by dementia so deeply deserves.
Pages: 29 | ISBN : 978 981 94 2733 8
Changing Shoes: Staying in the Game with Style, Humor, and Grace
Changing Shoes: Staying in the Game with Style, Humor, and Grace by Tina Sloan is an engaging, heartfelt exploration of aging, life’s transitions, and the power of reinvention, all told through the lens of an actress’s glamorous yet relatable life. Using shoes as a metaphor, Sloan recounts her journey through youth, middle age, and beyond, detailing her career, family, and personal revelations with humor and vulnerability. She encourages women to embrace the inevitability of change with style, grace, and self-respect.
What struck me immediately was Sloan’s candid voice. Her storytelling feels like a warm conversation with an old friend. In the first chapter, she describes a jarring realization in a Manhattan coffee shop: younger women, not her, were the center of attention. Her vulnerability in admitting feelings of invisibility resonates deeply. She reflects on her glamorous past while candidly confronting aging’s physical and emotional realities. Her balance of humor and poignancy here is nothing short of inspiring.
The book’s structure, woven with personal anecdotes and life lessons, is another strength. One particularly touching moment is her memory of Aga Church, a Parisian mentor who taught her to live boldly and stylishly. This tale about shoes as symbols of life’s chapters, some for fun, some for seduction, and others for practicality, adds a whimsical yet profound layer to the narrative. It reminded me of how objects, like shoes, can carry emotional weight and personal history.
Sloan’s honesty about the challenges of aging in a youth-obsessed culture is refreshing. Whether discussing her rejection of plastic surgery or her heartbreak over letting go of youthful clothes, she never sugarcoats. I loved the scene where she reluctantly sends her favorite dresses to her niece after realizing they no longer suit her body. Her wit shines here as she laments, “Watching the UPS man haul my youth away felt like losing a part of myself.”
By the end, Sloan’s message is uplifting: aging doesn’t mean fading away. It means finding new ways to shine. Her advice to “wear your own shoes” to embrace your individuality and authenticity feels both empowering and timeless. Her ability to transform deeply personal struggles into universal lessons makes the book a gem.
I’d recommend Changing Shoes: Staying in the Game with Style, Humor, and Grace to women navigating midlife and beyond or anyone who enjoys reflective yet humorous memoirs. It’s a delightful mix of wisdom, self-deprecation, and inspiration. Sloan reminds us that aging, while challenging, can be a stylish, fulfilling adventure if you wear the right shoes.
Pages: 225 | ASIN : B086BLBFF6
The Secret to Reversing Age
Dale Parkinson’s The Secret to Reversing Age is an inspiring account of one man’s journey to reclaim his health and vitality by reversing his biological age. The book dives into the personal challenges Parkinson faced, including major surgeries, weight gain, and an array of medical conditions, and how he used diet, exercise, and mental resilience to transform his life. The book outlines various strategies such as specific diets, lifestyle changes, and fitness routines aimed at helping readers feel younger and live longer and healthier lives.
From the get-go, Parkinson’s casual, conversational tone makes the book relatable. I felt like I was sitting across from an old friend, listening to his life story over coffee. His anecdotes about overcoming health struggles, like the “purgatory” of surgeries and illnesses, were honest and unfiltered. For instance, he humorously reflects on his experience with obesity, recalling a mortifying moment when he overheard someone call him “that old fat guy.” Moments like these make his journey personal, showing how far he’s come from the depths of frustration to the heights of personal achievement. The Secret to Reversing Age is a raw and human story of redemption.
Parkinson circles back to the same motivational themes several times. His approach to diet, particularly the Keto, Mediterranean, and Paleo options, is well-researched and practical, but his enthusiasm for each can come off as overzealous at points. However, his deep dive into the science of aging, like his discussion on telomere shortening and mitochondrial function, is intriguing and adds substance to the broader and motivational theme of the book.
One of the most compelling aspects of the book is Parkinson’s vulnerability in sharing his battle with prostate cancer and other serious health issues. His willingness to joke about something as daunting as cancer, like when he recounts his doctor’s inappropriate but oddly comforting humor, gives the book a unique balance between gravity and light-heartedness. It’s this blend that kept me hooked, even when the subject matter got heavy. He’s real, and that’s something I think many health books lack.
The Secret to Reversing Age is for anyone who feels like their best years are behind them, especially those over 50. If you’re looking for a straight-talking, no-nonsense guide to revitalizing your life with humor and practicality, I think this book delivers. It’s not just for fitness buffs but for anyone stuck in a rut who needs a push to start their own reinvention journey.
Pages: 272 | ASIN : B0DBRFD359
Dancing Between the Raindrops: A Daughter’s Reflections on Love and Loss
Dancing Between The Raindrops: A Daughter’s Reflections On Love And Loss by Lisa Braxton is the memoir of Lisa’s family, the love and joy throughout the years as well as the hardships, challenges, grief, and loss that come with being a part of a union as strong as the nuclear family. In this book, Lisa reminisces on her being a painfully shy child growing up in Connecticut, her mother’s writing talent and aspirations, becoming aware of and dealing with racism from a young age, taking care of and losing both parents to cancer as well as dealing with breast cancer herself, and so much more. This heartfelt book is a reflection and an homage to the beauty of life and being human, the basic human needs, emotions, and desires, and the fact that the good and the bad are both essential parts of life.
Lisa writes in a beautiful tone, expressing undeniable gratitude and love towards her family members on each page of the book. Her honesty and raw emotions are what set her work apart from similar memoirs. Reading this piece felt like a lifelong friend sitting down for a coffee and telling me about all the stuff I’ve missed out on from the last time we saw each other. It deals with a lot of sensitive topics, including taking care of an elderly parent when they most need you, grief from losing a loved one, and being discriminated against on a racial level, to name a few.
Each chapter being a story of its own makes the book and its message even more powerful and real. One of the stories that touched me the most early on in the book was one of Lisa’s first times dealing with racism in school. Someone had told the African-American kids to go back to where they came from, and just reading about the way Lisa felt at that moment was heartbreaking. She explains that she felt confused because, yes, she has African ancestry, but how can she go back to a place she had never been to? Furthermore, her parents and grandparents were all born and lived in the U.S. The confusion in that little girl’s mind is something that will stick with me as a reader for a long time.
I highly recommend Lisa Braxton’s Dancing Between The Raindrops: A Daughter’s Reflections On Love And Loss to anyone looking for a poignant and touching memoir. The book is a heartwarming tribute to the universal experience of love and loss.
Pages: 155 | ASIN : B0CW1N2JWN
My Days with Emma
Author Paul Dunion’s inspirational book deals with mindful aging and teaches readers to accept gracefully that life happens to all of us, not the other way around. Although our ego loves to believe we are in control, we forget how much of life is actually not in our control. Death is the only constant, and life is but a journey toward this final destination. The only way to stop being afraid of the mysterious and unpredictable nature of life is to relinquish this assumption of being the one doing the aging and instead realize how it is our lives that age us. With a candid yet philosophical style, the narrator discusses the ordeals one has to face in becoming an elder.
My Days With Emma certainly puts the spotlight on Emma as a tribute and a genuine expression of the author’s gratitude for her contribution in enabling and encouraging him on a path of soulful aging, and understandably so, since Emma plays a significant role in Dunion’s life as both his spiritual mentor and life coach. But, although the book is centered on the theme of aging, it is not necessarily a book for the older generations. This is what makes it so fascinating. The narrator talks about his own fears and insecurities, but as a reader, irrespective of our age, we can relate to his experiences because aging can be relative.
It is not uncommon among us to compare ourselves with the younger members of a circle, be it in our professional life or social life. We often compare and then feel bitter about their success or victories when we associate their gains with their youth because, unlike other factors, we have no control over our age. This simple truth often leaves us feeling profoundly disillusioned and defeated. Yet, the fact that the knowledge and wisdom we gather over the years can be an invaluable resource that we can use to help others, in turn, doesn’t easily cross our minds. This is where Dunion steps in with his book to remind us. It gives the kind of validation and reassurance that we all deserve from time to time about our own worth in other people’s lives.
Pages: 214 | ISBN : 1639885714
I’m Done Aging for Good
I’m Done Aging for Good: How to Live Long and Healthy with an Age-Reversing Diet is the book you need if your goal is to lead a long, healthy, and fulfilling life. As a reader, you get advice from a health expert on what works and what does not work. As the author writes, I like that he encourages the reader to explore foods and not just restrict themselves to restrictive diets. You can enjoy all kinds of meals and still live a healthy life. This educational book is full of useful advice and health notes that can help you and your family. By the end of the reading, you will have changed your diet and your perception of food. Author Frederick Sabido’s advice comes from a professional point of view and also adds personal experiences that have helped him.
We all grow old every day, and the author is here to share with you how to age gracefully through what you consume. Frederick Sabido starts his discussions by writing about the causes and effects of aging and why we age as humans. I appreciate the author’s comprehensive approach when discussing this subject, as he delves further into sub-topics that will help the reader understand better what he is talking about. The author touches on cognitive decline and male vs. female fertility decline after a certain age, among other topics. The author then discusses issues like memory loss, mutations, and oxidative stress, among other causes of aging.
Other topics covered through the chapters include sexual health, the skin, hair, anti-aging foods, the significance of vitamins in the body, how to overcome aging, and finding time for Pilates. Frederick Sabido’s book is the ultimate health guide as the author writes about topics that will help you take care of all organs in the body. The author does not just talk about outer organs but also shares knowledge that will get you to improve kidney health, your heart, liver, lungs, and other organs. The author rarely uses technical terms when discussing topics and ensures that he has included definitions for vocabulary that may not be common knowledge. I like that the author ended the book by talking about injury recovery. The notes on recovery tips for injuries are as important as the notes on dieting.
I’m Done Aging for Good is a must-have if you care about your health. Some of the major lessons in the book will make you look and feel young and improve your lifestyle. This is an important read for anyone interested in nutrition, vitamins, and healthy lifestyles.
Pages: 145 | ASIN : B0B6GS7X83
Making Your Mark | Leaving a Legacy | And then… A Grand Exit That’ll Have Their Tongues Waggin’
Have you ever wondered whether you will have an impact on the world? An experience that, even after our departure, will live on in everyone’s memory? Than Making Your Mark, Leaving a Legacy, And then… A Grand Exit That’ll Have Their Tongues Waggin, by Peter Davidson, speaks about just that phenomenon! It comes with an abundance of ideas, such as starting a collection you can leave for those close to you or succeeding. Some may even consider you a hoarder during the process but giving your children or grandchildren your prized coin collection, season tickets, or concert tickets could be a tremendous amount of fun. It would really be of great importance for your legacy in the long run. Peter Davidson gives ideas from hypothetical situations and real-life examples to leave your mark.
A section of the book includes the celebration of life party and a final farewell for Timothy A. B. Smythe, leaving everyone who knew Timothy and Timothy himself with a smile. It was the best section of the book. Recognizing that his days were numbered, he organized a “Living Wake” with the support of his friends and family. Then, soon after his passing, a wild celebration honored everything about his life. The coffin was modeled after Timothy A.B. Smythe’s favorite vehicle. The entire ceremony was emotional and touching. This scene would leave you in tears.
A great book is presented here. It does a great job of making light of a very horrible circumstance. The author sets out to help readers prepare for what will eventually come and to make the best of the situation, even presenting ways to make it a time to remember for family and friends that remain. A few noteworthy aspects of this book include the author’s constant encouragement to readers to always see the positive.
Overall, the book is enjoyable to read and offers readers a little push to ensure they make a “Grand Exit.” One of those few keepsakes that kept me happy all the way to the finish. I’d give it a perfect score and suggest this book to everyone who has a handle on life and is searching for the next big step.
Pages: 287 | ASIN : B0B3W5YTYZ
An Irresponsible Teenage Scamp
Iolanthe Woulff Author Interview
STAINER follows Ben Steiner, a Jewish Columbia undergrad who is a decent person but wishes to be “in” with the “in crowd.” What was the initial idea behind this story and how did that transform as you were writing the novel?
Since I wrote the book forty years ago, I must confess that I cannot precisely recollect what the initial idea was. I just sat down and started scribbling (longhand, on legal yellow sheets) and eventually the novel emerged. However, as I explain in my Author’s Preface, the manuscript was an overwritten mess. I was a complete amateur, and made every mistake in the book… (okay, that was a truly cringe-worthy pun.) But now that I think of it, I did have a vague notion that I wanted to somehow skewer an acquaintance of mine, and decided that the cleverest way to accomplish that would be to turn them into a rotten character in a book. Which I did… and no, I won’t tell you which character, but suffice it to say that nowadays my intended skeweree is rich, fulfilled, aging much better than I am, and utterly unaware of my –or my novel’s– existence. Which, all things considered, is exactly as it should be.
Of course, at a distance of four decades, I am now able to perceive things in the novel that weren’t apparent to me at the time I wrote it; by which I mean that there’s more than a trace of autobiographical heartbreak in the story. And I think we’ll leave it at that.
Ben goes through some strikingly personal conflicts throughout the book and his character is meticulously developed. How did you capture the thoughts and emotions of a 70’s Jewish teen?
Easy… I was a 70’s Jewish teen. Well, not technically… even though I was already in my mid-twenties when I wrote STAINER, my mindset remained that of an irresponsible teenage scamp, and I simply wrote prose in the same the way I spoke/ thought/lived; in other words, from the viewpoint of extremely arrested adolescence (ahem.) Luckily for me, it turned out that I had a knack for accurately capturing the mood and lingo of the times in my writing… who knew?
Ben meets P.T. Deighland, a wiseass from Princeton, who is clearly up to no good. What were the driving ideals behind the characters relationship throughout the story?
“Driving ideals”? Hmm… I have no clue, other than to suspect that the relationship between ‘bad-boy’ P.T. and ‘good-boy’ Ben somewhat reflected the two sides of my own slightly schizophrenic persona; which, in those days, remained more-or-less in a constant state of conflict. To all outward appearances I was definitely a good boy, but like many such young fellows, secretly wished that I had the nerve and coolness to behave like one of the bad boys. Because, after all, the bad boys always got the girls… didn’t they? But, like Ben, my efforts to attain bad-boy status were ultimately doomed to failure, and came at a heavy cost.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I have a new novel under way, and it’s as different from STAINER as STAINER is from SHE’S MY DAD. I can only write stand-alone novels; the mere thought of doing sequels or a series is a stupefying bore. For me, once a story is wrapped up, that’s the end of it, and then I’m off to build a new world, with new characters, new problems, new everything. It’s the only way I can stay interested enough to keep going.
As to when the new book will be available, who knows? All I can say is, stay tuned… I do believe it’s a pretty good yarn.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Website
New York City, 1975: Decent-hearted but spoiled Jewish college kid Ben Steiner is naively possessed by an overwhelming desire to be cool. At a springtime party on the night of his twenty-first birthday, he meets two people: Rebecca Glaser, the longed-for sweet girl of his dreams, and P.T. Deighland, a beguilingly knavish wiseacre from Princeton. Seduced by Deighland’s bold irreverence while simultaneously succumbing to his own temptations, Ben makes a cascading series of unfortunate choices which not only threaten his budding relationship with Rebecca, but expose him to ruin at the hands of a ravishing but ruthless fashion model named Anthea Montague.
Against the background of a vanished period in American history, STAINER offers a bittersweet nostalgic trip back to a less complex world, during a time of incautious excesses that, while deceptively fun and carefree, in due course forced many unwary youngsters like Benjamin Steiner to learn some necessary –albeit painful– lessons about growing up.
LITERARY TITAN 