by yoursl | Feb 7, 2017 | Bedroom Fun, Dating/Relationships, Just For Fun |
This year, Americans are estimated to spend $136.57 on Valentine’s Day gifts, according to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey. I am hoping that this amount is spent on something besides candy, cut roses, Pandora charms and giant stuffed bears because I think people can do way better than those clichéd gifts. It’s time to think outside the gift box! For introverted book lovers, give a year’s subscription to Amazon Kindle Unlimited. The book lover can check out ten books at a time from a collection of over one and a half million e-books. Remember to ask the new Kindle Unlimited fan what he or she is reading and pay full attention to the answer. A certain author or genre of particular interest can spark ideas for future gift-giving moments. For book lovers who enjoy talking about books with others, give the gift of a Little Free Library. It is truly a gift that will keep on giving. Give the new LFL steward a supply of books from thrift stores and secondhand bookstores, a collection of totes or a beautiful bookshelf to contain the library stash or accessories for the little library, such as twinkling fairy lights, on future gift-giving occasions. For techie geeks, give the latest techno gizmo he or she has been talking about or posting about on Facebook. Alternately, search crowdfunding sites to discover a cool start-up that mimics his or her interests and buy into the start-up in his or her name. The start-up will usually send supporters new product once production begins. Read up on tech items or search Google for future tech gift ideas....
by yoursl | Feb 5, 2017 | Book Reviews, Dating/Relationships, Sexual Discussion |
I am reviewing books through the Blogging for Books program in an effort to support my community’s Little Free Library, thus the addition of book reviews outside of the usual sexual health topics to Your Sexy Librarian postings. After being reviewed, the book gets stamped “Always a Gift, Never for Sale” and placed into a Little Free Library for others to enjoy. My latest book selection is Before I Forget: Love, Hope, Help and Acceptance in Our Fight Against Alzheimer’s written by B. Smith and Dan Gasby with Michael Shnayerson, which was released on January 19, 2016. Smith is the B. Smith who, in her youth, became America’s first African-American supermodel who went on to experience stunning restaurant and home goods fame before being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2013. Gasby, Smith’s husband since 1992, is Smith’s business partner at B. Smith Enterprises. He became and remains Smith’s primary caregiver after her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. Shnayerson is a long-time contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the author or co-author of seven books. It is unclear exactly how Shnayerson contributed to this specific written work. Before I Forget is beautifully written from the heart. The format of the book is in chapters that start with Smith’s perspective on her disease in italics before moving on to Gasby’s experiences, thoughts and feelings as Smith’s primary caregiver and ending in lessons learned that include knowledge about Alzheimer’s itself and tips for caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients. The book’s tips of how to be a better caregiver are insightful and can even translate to any disease state in which someone is a caregiver in the...
by yoursl | Jan 23, 2017 | Book Reviews |
I am reviewing books through the Blogging for Books program in an effort to support my community’s Little Free Library, thus the addition of book reviews outside of the usual sexual health topics to Your Sexy Librarian postings. After being reviewed, the book gets stamped “Always a Gift, Never for Sale” and placed into a Little Free Library for others to enjoy. My latest book selection is Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body written by award-winning science writer Jo Marchant, which was released on January 19. Cure is Marchant’s third book. Marchant’s Decoding the Heavens solves the mystery of the world’s first computer and The Shadow King explores the life of King Tut’s mummy. Based in London, Marchant has a PhD in genetics and medical microbiology. Her formal education in science shines through in Cure in the way she presents material in this book. Marchant zipped around the world compiling research for Cure. She discusses the placebo effect, in which there is a beneficial effect of a medical treatment that is attributed to the mind itself because the treatment is inert, for various disease states, such as autism, chronic pain and Parkinson’s. She spoke to many doctors, researchers and patients for different perspectives on the placebo effect itself and looked at research about the placebo effect. Marchant explores the nocebo effect, which is the opposite of the placebo effect, in which a negative expectation of a phenomenon causes it to have a greater negative effect than it otherwise would. She uses the present-day example of suspected mass poisoning of female students at Bibi Hajerah High School...
by yoursl | Jan 1, 2017 | Book Reviews |
I am reviewing books through the Blogging for Books program in an effort to support my community’s Little Free Library, thus the addition of book reviews outside of the usual sexual health topics to Your Sexy Librarian postings. After being reviewed, the book gets stamped “Always a Gift, Never for Sale” and placed into a Little Free Library for others to enjoy. My latest book selection is Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps to Living Happily Even After written by Katherine Woodward Thomas, which was released on October 18, 2016. This is Woodward Thomas’ second book. I chose Conscious Uncoupling because I was curious about what Woodward Thomas’ thoughts on ending relationships “in a whole new way.” When the book arrived, I had to explain to my partner Dutch that this was for a book review project. It was this book or a book on 52 ways to meditate. Dutch laughed at my dilemma because I cannot sit still long enough to relax, little on meditate. Since I blog about sexual health and relationships, Conscious Uncoupling seemed to be the best book review option at the time. Woodward Thomas wrote her latest book because her own marriage was ending in divorce and she did not want to create bitterness or unpleasantness for her daughter as her divorce progressed and eventually finalized. Woodward Thomas, a licensed marriage and family therapist, backs up her suggestions on keeping a break-up civil with solid grounding in sociology and psychology. She uses splashes of positive quotations throughout her book, which I enjoyed. An example I particularly loved is, “Divorce becomes a holy moment when you choose to use...
by yoursl | Dec 18, 2016 | Book Reviews |
I am reviewing books through the Blogging for Books program in an effort to support my community’s Little Free Library, thus the addition of book reviews outside of the usual sexual health topics to Your Sexy Librarian postings. After being reviewed, the book gets stamped “Always a Gift, Never for Sale” and placed into a Little Free Library for others to enjoy. My latest book selection is Tough as They Come by retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills of the 82nd Airborne, and coauthored with Marcus Brotherton, which was released on October 27, 2016. The foreword is written by American actor and veteran advocate Gary Sinise. The cover of Tough as They Come states, “Thousands have been wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Five have survived quadruple amputee injuries. This is one soldier’s story.” This description is essentially why I choose this book to review. I work in the medical field and was hoping SSG Mills’ personal story would help me find new motivation for helping my patients through their disease diagnosis and subsequent progression. This book certainly delivered motivation, by the truckload. Tough as They Come has been the best book I have reviewed thus far through the Blogging for Books program. “Best” in the sense of wanting to read the entire book without putting it down. I read every word on every page and did not want to be distracted in the process, which I cannot say about my previous book review choices. SSG Mills’ story is written from the heart and is humorous and gritty, even when recounting his darkest days after having...
