First-Time Father’s Handbook by Jon Emerson

February 20, 2025 By Leave a Comment


First-Time Father’s Handbook by Jon Emerson
Publisher: F and C Publishing
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Become the Father You Dream of Being in No Time at all – Even If You Feel Totally Unprepared Right Now!

Can you truly prepare for the rollercoaster ride that comes with first-time fatherhood?

Feeling overwhelmed with all the information?

Getting nervous about work, sleepless nights and being a good dad?

Are you worried about how your relationship with your partner will change once your little one arrives?

Do you lie awake at night wondering how you’ll juggle your demanding job with a newborn at home?

You’re not alone.

Countless fathers-to-be are sailing the same ship, fretting over the same questions, sharing the same fears. Fatherhood can seem like a daunting expedition.
Frantic Google searches at 3 am or sifting through generic parenting books that aren’t directly aimed at fathers won’t cut it.
Despite societal expectations, you don’t have to miraculously know how to handle fatherhood.

Here’s the comforting reality: You are already miles ahead by joining the brotherhood who are seeking help. You deserve a resource tailored to your experience as a modern professional father.

Introducing the comprehensive, empathetic, and practical handbook that empowers you to embrace fatherhood with confidence, equipping with the skills to navigate your new role.
This your roadmap to navigating the thrilling, fulfilling journey of your baby’s first year, and to becoming the dad you aspire to be.
Here’s just a fraction of what you’ll discover in this life-transforming handbook:
A Top Ten List summary in each chapter
The secret to building an unbreakable bond with your baby even before they’re born
Practical tips and tricks for diaper duty, bath time, and bedtime routines that new fathers swear by
The most effective ways to support your partner in their journey through pregnancy and childbirth
The key “red flags” that indicate postpartum depression in new mothers – and how you can lend unwavering support
The balancing act – how to excel at work while being an involved dad at home
How to navigate common relationship roadblocks post-baby and keep the spark alive
10 common newborn health concerns every first-time father should be aware of with home remedies and When to call the Doctor advice
The step-by-step plan to childproof your home, ensuring safety and peace of mind
The secret to managing sleep-starved nights
Proven techniques to tackle meltdowns (both, yours and the baby’s) without losing your sanity
Ways to engage in mindful parenting that can incredibly transform your parenting experience
The 5 baby gear essentials no first-time father should be without
Learn the truth about 6 key immunizations
This Handbook, packed with advice and insights, is sure to alleviate your jitters, arm you with vital knowledge, and help you embrace being a Dad with well-earned confidence.
This book isn’t about replacing your parenting instincts; it’s about complementing them with practical advice and tips to help you navigate fatherhood more confidently.
But it doesn’t stop at just doling out advice. This book recognizes the unique situation for every dad-to-be, allowing you to develop a tailored strategy best suited to you and your little one.

No cheap gimmicks, vague ideas, or ‘one-size-fits-all’ parenting missions. This book is a tool to help you be the best father you can be.
Straight-to-the-point, practical guidance, broken down into easily consumable chapters – just a few pages a day to keep doubts at bay!

If you’re ready to embrace the adventure that is Being a Dad with open arms, laughs, and a whole lot of love, then don’t wait another minute.

New dads need advice, too.

The dad jokes in this book made me chuckle. They were a nice transition between sometimes difficult topics like miscarriage or tips for handling the less physically pleasant aspects of pregnancy and postpartum like nausea or recovering from a difficult birth. I actually ended up writing down a few of these jokes to share with my friends and family later. Everyone needs to laugh sometimes.

I found myself wishing that the section on vaccines had gone into far more detail about the importance of herd immunity and the risks of not vaccinating, especially for people in a community who are immunocompromised, medically unable to receive certain vaccines due to severe allergies or other life-threatening conditions, or too young to be vaccinated yet. The decision not to vaccinate affects far more people than the individual who isn’t vaccinated, and I don’t think that was made clear enough here. A virus that might make one person ill but able to recover at home for a few weeks could send someone else that they infected to the hospital, severely disable them, or even kill them. This would have been a stronger book if it had spent more time on this topic in my opinion.

Some of the most useful sections were the ones that discussed the practical aspects of preparing for a new baby. For example, signing up for life insurance and making a budget for new baby-related expenses are critical for the financial health of a family. There are plenty of ways to trim back these expenses, too, with some creativity and patience. Babies don’t care if they’re wearing hand-me-down clothes or playing with toy some other little one played with before, after all. I appreciated how much care was put into these portions.

First-Time Fathers Handbook was thought provoking.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Death Walking – Dream Journeys into Death, Forgiveness, and Healing by Julie Winifred

February 10, 2025 By Leave a Comment


Death Walking – Dream Journeys into Death, Forgiveness, and Healing by Julie Winifred
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

I have cherished the dreaming world for as long as I can remember, and wanted to add my thoughts to all that information that is already out there. I wanted to have my say, and hoped that others might get something from my insights, just as I have done so from many other writers. I have focused upon the way I have dreamed with the dying and how this has guided me towards forgiveness and healing. And I hope I have also illustrated something of the sheer wonderfulness of dreaming life and the many gifts it can bring.

Grief is a journey that everyone must eventually take.

Dream logic doesn’t always translate well to real life. I smiled as I read about the author’s more abstract dreams and her attempts to make sense of them once she woke up. In some cases, it took her a while to come up with theories about what they were trying to tell her, but her interpretations ultimately made sense to me as she delved more deeply into her difficult childhood and the struggles she had as a result of it.

As interesting as it was to read about the author’s dreams about the loved ones she had lost, I struggled with the slow pacing. Some of the descriptions of the dreams and her interpretations of them were so detailed that they further disrupted the pacing as well. This is something I’m saying as someone who loves talking about dreams and what they might mean, and I wish I could have given this book a higher rating given the thought-provoking subject matter of it.

Some of my favorite sections were the ones that discussed how dreams can assist the healing process. When a death is sudden or tragic, it can be even harder than usual to adjust to the loss of that person or pet for those who are still here in the land of the living. A peaceful dream about the deceased can go a long way in helping someone to make peace with what has happened and move on with their life as much as possible.

Death Walking made me want to update my dream journal more often!

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: , , ,

In the Darkness of Shards – Poems from a Broken Place by Catherine Anne Castillo

February 4, 2025 By Leave a Comment


In the Darkness of Shards – Poems from a Broken Place by Catherine Anne Castillo
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

In the Darkness of Shards is a raw, unflinching collection of poetry that explores trauma, love, and the journey of self-reclamation. With piercing honesty, Catherine Castillo reflects on a relationship where love and pain intertwined, exposing the toxic cycles and emotional chaos that shaped it. Through vivid, evocative verses, she invites readers to examine their own relationships, confront their own hidden wounds and begin their own healing journey.

More than just poetry, this book offers a lifeline for anyone navigating toxic relationships, loss, and transformation. Each verse provides a mirror to the heart and a guide to reclaiming strength through vulnerability. In the Darkness of Shards is a testament to resilience, showing that even in the darkest moments, self-understanding and empowerment are within reach.

Not everything that starts out well ends on the same note.

Anyone can fall into an abusive relationship, especially considering how charming someone with abusive tendencies can be as they’re making a first impression or trying to woo their victim back. I appreciated the author’s use of poetry to give examples of red flags to look out for in the beginning, middle, and end of this sort of relationship. Some of them can be quite subtle the first time they appear, but the little hints that something is terribly wrong will only grow worse over time.

This collection also did a great job of showing how deeply traumatizing abuse can be. As the narrator descended even further into their relationship, they began doubting everything from their own memory to their ability to do simple things that they’d previously done easily and without assistance. Keep an eye on these moments as they linked all of the poems together beautifully as well as continued to build on the author’s messages about surviving such experiences.

Obviously, this is a sober, dark topic, but I enjoyed the moments of hope that shone through even the worst chapters of the narrator’s life. There is always the possibility of life suddenly improving for the better even if one doesn’t currently know how or when that might happen. Many different types of people need this message, of course, but folks who are either currently being abused or are recovering from such an experience need an even larger helping of it than someone who isn’t struggling with this sort of adversity. If it’s possible to hope for a better day, taking small steps to disengage from a toxic relationship and rebuild one’s life becomes so much easier. For that reason, I’m glad those passages were included and allowed to flourish.

In the Darkness of Shards – Poems from a Broken Place was thought provoking and encouraging.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Yes, I Am a Vampire by Stephen Kozeniewski

January 15, 2025 By Leave a Comment


Yes, I Am a Vampire by Stephen Kozeniewski
Publisher: French Press Publishing
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Non-Fiction, Holiday, Contemporary, Historical
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I swear I am not a vampire. Cross my heart and…eh, nevermind.

Just trust me, there are no vampires within these pages. Plenty of zombies, though. One of the short stories in this book features a zombie caveman, for instance. And another is called Exploding Shit Zombies. You can probably guess what that one’s about.

Not every story is zombie-themed, of course. I’ve also got a monster under the bed piece that’s pretty fucking scary. And in another, a bunch of little alien goblins take over a farmstead.

This isn’t just a short story collection, either. Half of it’s my autobiography. I guarantee you’ve never seen those two styles mashed together before.

I also guarantee you’ve never seen any fucking vampires before. Not here. Not anywhere. So let’s just drop it.

What do you mean, bloodstains all over the book? Don’t worry about those. Just wipe the gore off your fingers and dive in to…

Yes, I Am A Vampire

Truth and fiction are sometimes opposite faces of the same coin.

Before I dive into this collection, let’s talk about the notes that were included after each instalment to explain how the author came up with them and, in some cases, got them published. I’m the sort of reader who loves learning this sort of background information and always reads it. There were so many exciting tidbits here, many of which helped me enjoy certain stories even more than I had before. I definitely recommend checking out these sections if you don’t normally read them. They were well worth my time.

This may be the first time a swear word has ever appeared in one of my reviews for Long and Short Reviews, but I can’t talk about “Exploding Shit Zombies” without breaking that social convention for a moment. May my editor forgive me! Yes, the premise is exactly what it sounds like, and this fan of undead fiction who knows better than to use the common word for such creatures was quite curious to discover why these walkers are so full of, ahem, feces in this universe. The reason made a great deal of sense and made me wonder why this topic isn’t covered more often in this subgenre. I also enjoyed the jokes sprinkled throughout this one. They fit the tongue-in-cheek tone of it well.

The prehistoric setting of “The Man with Four Scars” grabbed my attention immediately, especially once I realized this was set at a time when hominids had just begun speaking a few words to each other but had not yet come up with the concept of names yet. The protagonist – or maybe I should say antagonist – was a violent and impulsive individual who was terribly jealous of anyone who was more intelligent than him. Creating such an unlikable main character is a brave choice even for the horror genre, and I kept reading as I wondered if there was going to be a moment when I was anything other than irritated by and frightened of the danger he posed to the other members of his tribe. My fingers are crossed I will find more prehistoric horror in the future as this was deliciously chilling to read.

Let’s see if I can include one of my favorite pieces, “The Old Man and the Seesaw,” in here without giving away any spoilers about it. This was set in a universe where there was a grey area between life and death that more and more folks were beginning to inhabit, and it specifically shared how the first person to survive in this hazy place managed to do so. I was impressed with how creative this was, especially given the vivid descriptions of what happened and how the living characters reacted to it.

One of my favorite parts of being a book reviewer is getting to know more about the authors who submit their work for review. It doesn’t happen all the time, of course, but every so often I get to read a funny anecdote about the author’s life in the preface or learn more about how their mind works by reading the notes some writers are generous enough to include after each short story in a collection or anthology. While I’ve never met Mr. Kozeniewski, reading this made me feel like I was fortunate enough to go out to a pub or a coffee house with him for a few hours and hear about some of the many creative ideas rattling around in his skull.

Yes, I Am a Vampire reminded me why I love this author’s work so much. What a treat!

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Arabian Nights Illustrated 1800-1950 by Albert Seligman

December 4, 2024 By Leave a Comment


Arabian Nights Illustrated 1800-1950 by Albert Seligman
Publisher: Dulace Books
Genre: Young Adult (14 – 18 y.o.), Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical, Non-fiction
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

This is a survey of the illustrated editions of The Arabian Nights, also called The Thousand and One Nights, published in England and America between 1800 and 1950. It begins with one of the earliest editions illustrated in 1802 by English artist Robert Smirke, who painted especially for inclusion in books. Following are the earliest attempts to print color plates, made from tin or copper, through the beginnings of wood blocks and photographic reproduction.

Featured are the most famous artists and illustrators of the Victorian and Golden Age, including John Gilbert, famous for his Dickens illustrations, William Harvey who engraved the wood blocks by hand, FOC Darley, the first American Brandywine illustrator, Walter Crane, the beginning of the Golden Age illustrators for his full color woodblocks.

Modern editions include Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen, Willy Pogany, Maxfield Parrish, the three Robinson brothers; William Heath, Thomas Heath and Charles, Rene Bull, Charles Folkard, Gustave Dore, Frances Brundage, JD Batten, William Strang, HJ Ford, George Soper, Helen Stratton, Walter Paget, VF Sterrett, Eric Pape, and many others.

The illustrated stories include are ‘Aladdin, and the Wonderful Lamp’, ‘Sinbad the Sailor’, ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’, ‘The Enchanted Horse’, ‘Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Peri Banou, and many other favorites of the 1001 tales.

Arabian Nights fans, take note! These sketches are just as exciting as the stories themselves.

One of the recurring thoughts I had while reading this and looking carefully at the paintings and drawing was how much work went into all of it. Not only was it more difficult to get ahold of certain art supplies back then than it is today, artists didn’t have access to the types of technology that can make planning out an illustration easier. It took hours of hard work, but the results have entertained generations. Kudos to Mr. Seligman for honoring everyone who was involved in the creation of these images. I think they would be pleased to know that people still enjoy them so many decades later.

This is the second art collection I’ve reviewed that Mr. Seligman gathered together into the same book, and I was once again surprised by how beautiful it was. Due to how expensive printing was back then, I’d assumed that most illustrations from the 1800s would be in black and white, so the inclusion of examples of them that were in color was a wonderful surprise. Morgiana’s Dance was one of my favorites because of how it captured the exhilarating feeling of dancing in a colorful outfit. It’s always nice to have one’s assumptions challenged about what the past was like, and I look forward to checking out more of his work if or when Mr. Seligman can provide it.

I enjoyed reading the descriptions of the images that discussed things like how they were made and what certain aspects of them would have meant to someone living in the 1800s to mid-1900s. Cultures can shift quite a bit over time, after all, so not all of these details were necessarily things that someone would immediately recognize today. This made me feel like I’d traveled back in time to experience certain parts of the world as they used to be.

Arabian Nights Illustrated 1800-1950 was delightful.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , ,

We’ve Got This: Unlocking the Beauty of Belonging by Ritu Bhasin

November 25, 2024 By Leave a Comment


We’ve Got This: Unlocking the Beauty of Belonging by Ritu Bhasin
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
Genre: Contemporary, Non-Fiction
Rating: 3 Stars
Review by: Astilbe

Many of us feel constant pressure to mask and curate who we are–to perform as someone we’re not rather than be who we are. And it hurts us. But we don’t need to live this way.

With We’ve Got This, award-winning and globally recognized DEI and empowerment expert Ritu Bhasin delivers a much-needed guidebook on how to heal, thrive, and stand in your power in the face of hate and hardships. She reveals how to unlock belonging–for yourself and for others.

Ritu knows firsthand that the path to belonging can be both beautiful and hard. As a child of working-class immigrants of color, she experienced relentless struggles with racist bullying and cultural confusion growing up. Even as a successful lawyer and business leader, Ritu grappled with knowing, embracing, and being her authentic self–until she realized the freedom that comes with claiming belonging, which she passionately shares in these pages.

Combining empathy, humor, and research with life-changing wisdom and savvy, We’ve Got This is the guide for finding belonging and joy that readers from across backgrounds have been waiting for.

The world needs more inclusiveness.

While I’m not Punjabi like Ms. Bhasin is, I am a member of a few other minority groups that are also misunderstood by society at large at times. I smiled and nodded along as I took note of the many similarities between our two lives that may not appear to have much in common at first glance. There is something refreshing and encouraging about discovering what one has in common with a stranger, and I was glad I took this journey with her.

The repetition in this book made it difficult for me to remain highly interested in reading the next page or chapter. As excited as I was to explore this topic and as much as I wanted to give it a higher rating, repeating the points so many times made them less meaningful to me as a reader. So many passages could have been trimmed down or combined into previous chapters.

Some of the most memorable sections for me were the ones that explored how yoga can bring about both physical and emotional healing. This is a form of exercise I’ve practiced on and off for years, and I’ve also found it incredibly helpful for dealing with all sorts of physical and emotional sore spots. The more people who become aware of this option, the better if you ask me!

I also struggled with how much time the author spent sharing her own story. Obviously, it was important to understand her catalyst for writing about standing strong in the face of hate and discrimination, but I kept wishing for more advice on practical ways to do so instead of more examples of prejudice. There was so much more that could have been done with these later sections.

With that being said, I did find the section that talked about how to let someone know when they’ve said something offensive useful. It can be difficult for some people to hear that they’re being hurtful, and they may not always be open to listening to how certain words feel when one is on the other side of them. There are ways to nudge those automatic reactions aside, though, and it’s good to do so when possible.

We’ve Got This: Unlocking the Beauty of Belonging was thought provoking.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

The Safe Word Is PINEAPPLE! – Mayor to Manic – My Journey Through Crazy by Gerry Taft

November 4, 2024 By Leave a Comment


The Safe Word Is PINEAPPLE! – Mayor to Manic – My Journey Through Crazy by Gerry Taft
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Non-Fiction, LGBTQ, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A creepy club. A sketchy fast food restaurant. Ultra wealth and urban poverty. A weird night during a political conference in Vancouver turns author Gerry Taft’s life—and mind—inside out.

Believing he’s about to die, with visions of good and evil conspiring around him, Gerry writes a contract to extend his life. He navigates this sudden psychosis and paranoia by posting about it on social media in real time—and running down the street with his daughter. The Safe Word Is PINEAPPLE! is the true story of an epic meltdown with real world consequences and important lessons.

Part memoir, part social commentary, Gerry uses his lived experience as a framework to discuss—and offer solutions to—the many failings in our society. The Safe Word Is PINEAPPLE! is a call to embrace shared values, have honest conversations, increase personal power, and decrease the pull of polarization.

Everyone needs sympathy sometimes.

Translating what it feels like to have a mental illness to people who have not been through the same thing is difficult. The author went into great detail about his symptoms and how they affected his life which was exactly what I was hoping to see in this book. The more information the general public has about how frightening and lonely this experience can be, the better informed they will be about what’s going on with their loved ones under the same circumstances.

There were some aspects of this memoir that I wish had been better explained. For example, the author described certain people in life as suddenly changing their minds about things they had agreed to. I was never entirely sure how many of these things were misunderstandings versus people genuinely changing their minds or both participants in those conversations coming away with slightly different memories of what happened. Nobody’s memory is perfect, of course, but I would have understood these sections better if more time had been spent teasing out what was truly going on there.

One of the things I appreciated the most about this memoir was how honest Mr. Taft strove to be about what really happened during his mental health crisis in 2023. Sometimes his memory was fuzzy for completely understandable reasons that were probably related to his mental state at the time and certain medications he was taking, but he kept circling back to sharing as many facts about this chapter of his life as he could recall. This was something he did even in cases when it didn’t necessarily paint him in a positive light. His self-awareness and willingness to admit that he was sometimes not very sensitive to other people’s feelings were admirable. Admitting one’s faults isn’t easy, and neither is genuinely trying to fix them!

The Safe Word Is PINEAPPLE! was thought provoking.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Gifts from the Garbage Truck: A True Story About the Things We (Don’t) Throw Away by Andrew Larsen (Author), Oriol Vidal (Illustrator)

October 30, 2024 By Leave a Comment


Gifts from the Garbage Truck: A True Story About the Things We (Don’t) Throw Away by Andrew Larsen (Author), Oriol Vidal (Illustrator)
Publisher: Sourcebooks Explore
Genre: Contemporary, Non-Fiction, Middle Grade (8 – 12 y.o.), Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.)
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Xeranthemum

A picture book about what we throw away, and why it might be worth keeping!

What if everywhere you looked, you saw something to make? Instead of seeing something broken, you saw something to fix? Instead of seeing something to throw out, you saw something to give away? This is how Nelson Molina sees the world. A former employee for the New York City sanitation department, Nelson saved over 45,000 objects from the garbage to fix and show his community through his museum, Treasures in the Trash.

Explore the hidden potential in what we often discard and think differently about consumption, waste, and the impact of small actions. With themes of upcycling, anti-consumerism, love for community, and finding joy, Gifts from the Garbage Truck inspires kids to think creatively and curiously about what they do (and don’t) throw away!

I think adults are going to like this as much as the 4-8-yr-olds that this story is geared towards. Imagination, creativity, awareness and a sense of accomplishment are the fruits this story can inspire in readers once they’ve finished. The best part is that it’s doable, real and the possibilities are exciting.

The storybook’s pictures/illustrations are vibrant and capture the neighborhood that Nelson Molina grew up in. There is an introduction that gives the reader an idea of his childhood and the role model who inspired his life’s passion – his mother. Her influence, positive outlook and strong sense of values helped shape a young man’s perspective. What is one person’s trash really can be another person’s treasure. It’s all in how you look at it. The pictures show what the words paint.

As an adult, I can appreciate the value, hard work and dedication to an underexplored career – sanitation worker. For decades it was a job that people looked askance at, looked down upon, or probably gave it no thought at all. I think Mr. Molina single handedly changes that in this story. I believe he shows how this profession isn’t just needed but can make a difference in any society. How?

Reimagining what can be, by either reusing, upcycling or recycling. Sure, those are buzz words today, but according to this little book, he’s spent a lifetime doing that and enlightening his co-workers along the way. He was and is a man before his time, ahead of the curve, if you will.

I think an engaged parent could take what this book presents and, together with their child or children, explore, discover and experiment with what items they have in their own home and before they think of throwing them away, apply the same wonder, imagination and artistic talents to those objects they find and see what they can do, too.

One of the things that I think was great was the author included practical tips you can do in real life with a single rain boot, and old T-shirt, cutlery you no longer use, and even old soda bottles. Mr. Molina even has a museum made up of all the treasures he’s discovered over the years. A testament to the beliefs his mom inspired in him when he was a young boy.

The author included another power hit when he wrapped up this story. At the end of all those great illustrations that capture a child’s eye, is the wow moment when the cartoon comes to life. There are actual pictures of Nelson Molina and the treasures in his museum. This makes everything in this story real to the child this book is read to. It means they too can really do the things Mr. Molina did. They may not pursue a career as a sanitation worker, but to reuse, upcycle and recycle is something we all can do, and it not only can be fun and rewarding but it can help people and our community in so many ways.

Gifts from the Garbage Truck: A True Story About the Things We (Don’t) Throw Away makes me relook at the empty jelly jar in my hand and wonder – what else can I do with this? What can I make with this? Who else could use this? I believe this little book can inspire creativity and fun.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews, YA/Middle Grade/Children's Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The American Weekly Covers Of Edmund Dulac 1924-1951 by Albert Seligman

October 18, 2024 By Leave a Comment


The American Weekly Covers Of Edmund Dulac 1924-1951 by Albert Seligman
Publisher: Dulace Books
Genre: Non-Fiction, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Inspirational, Historical
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Much has been written about Edmund Dulac’s mastery of art deco and design since his death in May of 1953. He was born in Toulouse, France in 1882 and was educated as a lawyer, although he rebelled and later studied art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He is best known as one of the giants of the ‘Golden Age of Illustration’ along with Arthur Rackham and Kay Nielsen. His beautiful watercolor book illustrations are still in print today, and the original first editions are scarce and highly valued.

Dulac emigrated to England from France in 1904 and he was in London at exactly the right time for the invention of color separation photographic reproduction. Prior to the color separation process printers relied on wood blocks or expensive and complicated chromo-lithography to include color illustrations in their books. Most illustrators (Arthur Rackham and W. Heath Robinson, for example) used line drawings to hold the difference in the color changes. Dulac was a watercolorist and this new technique allowed him to paint the colors just as he would normally, without bold lines defining his subjects. He received numerous commissions for the new ‘gift books’ with full color tipped-in plates mounted on heavy art paper. He began an arrangement with both Leicester Galleries and Hodder & Stoughton, the book publishers, to paint watercolors for their illustrated gift book editions which would be sold in the gallery exhibit once a year. He produced fifty oriental style drawings for The Arabian Nights in 1907, forty drawings for an edition of The Tempest in 1908, twenty watercolors, again in his now signature orientalism style, for The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1909. Subsequent editions were The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales in 1910, Stories from Hans Christian Andersen in 1911, and twenty-eight watercolors with dozens of line illustrations for The Bells and Other Poems byEdgar Allan Poe in 1912.

In 1923, “Edmund Dulac, the Distinguished English Artist,”as he was billed on the front covers, was contracted by the Hearst organization to paint watercolors for The American Weekly magazine, the Sunday supplement for the newspapers. The contract lasted nearly 30 years. Dulac painted 106 watercolors from 1924-1951 for thirteen different series for The American Weekly. Although these watercolors were highly praised at the time, their reproduction was only sporadic, with some appearing in The Illustrated London News over the years, and once in a 1936 picture book titled Gods and Mortals in Love.

The American Weekly illustrations in this book were photographed from the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, which was owned and operated by Bill Blackbeard. After Bill’s passing in 2011, the entire collection was moved to The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University.

This 100th anniversary edition contains all the series with some of his other illustrations. They have been restored as well as possible, as many of the front covers had deteriorated over the years. I have also published these illustrations in more detail in a series of six books, with the original captions. They are available as eBooks and will also be released as print editions.

These pieces of art are worth much more than a thousand words.

It’s not very common for Long and Short Reviews to receive requests to review such image-heavy works, so I leapt at the chance to get to know an artist I hadn’t heard of before and see examples of his watercolours. Many of them told a story, whether it was from the Bible, Greek mythology, The Arabian Nights, or some other famous source that most readers will probably be at least somewhat familiar with. There is nothing like seeing these tales come to light thanks to the magic of art, and I would have happily kept reading and gazing for many pages to come.

I enjoyed seeing how Edmund’s personal style evolved over the years as certain painting and sketching techniques became more or less popular depending on the era. I have basic knowledge of the various art movements of the twentieth century and was able to pick out a few of the biggest ones while taking note of his work. Readers who have deeper understandings of this slice of history will no doubt notice some things I missed! The beauty of collections like this one is how nicely they can adapt to people who approach them from a wide variety of perspectives.

Mr. Seligman’s summary of Edmund’s life and work in the beginning was thorough and educational. I appreciated how much effort he put into sharing the most important details of this artist’s life while keeping this section succinct, too. That’s not always easy to do when writing about topics one is passionate about, so kudos to the author for knowing where to draw the line.

The American Weekly Covers Of Edmund Dulac 1924-1951 was a beautiful peek into the past.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pent Up Thoughts by James B. Agape

September 23, 2024 By Leave a Comment


Pent Up Thoughts by James B. Agape
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Non-Fiction, Poetry, Inspirational, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

“Pent Up Thoughts” is a remarkable collection of journaled thoughts, messages, and poems that shine a captivating light on the complex depths of mental health and self-care. This book beckons readers to take a soul-stirring voyage, delving into the complexities of anxiety, depression, self-love and acceptance, relationships, coping mechanisms, healing, and the widespread stigmas surrounding mental health. Divided into six sections, each part sheds light on an indispensable angle of the mental well-being experience, beautifully intertwined with self-care, resilience, and hope topics. This collection seeks to provide solace, inspiration, and a sense of connection to those battling mental health challenges or searching for a deeper understanding of the human experience and themselves.

Hope is essential and can be found in even the hardest circumstances.

I appreciated the time and effort the author put into describing just how exhausting and hopeless life can feel when someone is struggling with anxiety, depression, or other mental health issues. Even small steps in the right direction can feel as difficult as running a marathon or climbing Mount Everest. This isn’t always something that people who have never struggled with mental illness can easily understand, so I was glad to see it spelled out so clearly. Understanding that headspace is imperative to beginning to heal as well as to figuring out how to help someone who feels trapped by their illness.

The repetition in this book made it difficult for my interest levels to remain high. Certain points were brought up in almost every chapter without clear explanations as to why the author was mentioning them again. This would have been more effective if those sentences were trimmed down or if new information was included in later references to those subjects in my opinion.

The poems were beautiful, and I appreciated their steady cadence and rhyming schemes. Mr. Agape used those rules to explore the wide variety of emotions he experienced before, during, and after his diagnosis became official. There’s beauty to be found everywhere in life, especially in the parts of it that most people would struggle with if it happened to them. He has a real flair for this form of writing and it is my hope that he will be able to publish more of it soon. If or when there’s another poetry collection from him, I’d love to read it!

I should note that I was not aware this was an inspirational title when I requested it. The religious content is an occasional part of the author’s advice and takes up about ten to fifteen percent of the entire book. Still, it was and still is an important part of his life and healing process, so it was interesting to see how his faith affected the choices he made as he struggled with the hardest portions of his mental illness.

Pent Up Thoughts was thought provoking.

Filed Under: Non-Fiction, Poetry, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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