Lois Courtenay Henderson's Blog (10)

Combine a love for rip-roaring adventure with care for the environment and you have a thoughtful and intriguing work, Tiptoe through Tasmania (ISBN:  978-0-9832791-0-5), written by an experienced author, Janice Anderson, who is as much into fostering a love for especially the endangered species on our planet as she is into getting youngsters enthralled by reading. The first in a series of Around the World Adventures, which is aimed at encouraging awareness of especially the most…

Moon Tahiti (ISBN: 978-1-59880-738-7), the 7^th edition of renowned traveler Dr. David Stanley’s work in the Moon Handbooks series, is as comprehensive, up-to-date and enlightening as ever. Containing 47 detailed and easy-to-use maps, the guidebook describes the must-see sights, activities, restaurants, and accommodation available not only on Tahiti, but on all the other islands in French Polynesia as well, including invaluable insights into tourist highlights on Moorea, as…

In a personal essay included in the March/April 2005 issue of Pacific Magazine (Honolulu), inveterate traveler Dr. David Stanley describes how he was once chased down a street in Fiji by an irate hotel owner who, after answering a barrage of questions from the author, had received a mere thanks in exchange for all his information. No wonder Stanley now pleads for respect of his anonymity if you spy him on one of the Pacific islands—it’s downright dangerous out…

Victoria Martinez’s delightful account of relatively unknown and obscure facts about the royal families of Europe, An Unusual Journey through Royal History (ISBN: 978-1-935712-45-9), which focuses on the British monarchy, but is by no means restricted to it, makes for relaxing and easy reading. Grounded in personally conducted research, all but one of the 18 essays that comprise the work were originally published on Geraldine Voost’s popular website, Unofficial Royalty website, which…

The first twelve stories in Life in the Cathode Ray Glow: Stories about Growing Up in the ’60s and ’70s and Other Fiction by Ray Sikes, though containing elements of the author’s own childhood and teenage perceptions and experiences, are, nevertheless, fictional. With an inherent distrust of biographies, fiction is the only medium that Sikes considers to be authentic enough to relay most of the truth about life. As he writes in the “Afterward: Telling Stories”, “the act of reducing a…

“What did God say about healing? What did He say about sickness and where did He put Himself in the fight against disease? Where did sickness come from? Did God bring sickness if He was almighty and reigned?” If you have ever asked yourself any of these questions, then Helen Phillips’ spiritual memoir, Fly with Me: A True Story of Healing from Multiple Sclerosis is for you.

In this relatively short volume of only 150 pages, Phillips shares a lifetime of experience with…

1089 Nights: An Odyssey through the Middle East, Africa and Asia by Ann von Lossberg is a lively non-fiction account of Ann von Lossberg’s travels together with her boyfriend, Jim Hucock, through the Middle East, Africa and Asia, mainly undertaken in the 1980s. The prefatory allusion to The Book of One Thousand and One Nights introduces the reader to the text that follows – one is encouraged to expect a cornucopia of interwoven tales.  Written with the benefit of…

Lee’s enthusiasm for writing permeates this collection of short stories (or ‘volumes’, as he calls them). Most definitely they are not in the conventional short story mode, so don’t expect a snappy beginning, middle and end. Rather, they are sketches of characters and scenes written in a stream of consciousness style, in a way that is reminiscent of Lee’s literary doyen, William Faulkner. One can readily tell that the author is a Southerner, who has been exposed to much of the harshness of…

Don’t Let Your Mechanic Pick Your Pocket: A Simple Guide That Can Save You Money and Keep The Dishonest Mechanic in Line. It Works for Any Car, Truck or SUV, Anywhere You Live provides a short background to the author, George A. Moyer, who is a retired mechanic and shop owner, before explaining some basic principles behind the operation of a light motor vehicle. Don’t Let Your Mechanic Pick Your Pocket gives the most essential maintenance guidelines and lists noises and…

Moon Tahiti, the 7^th edition of renowned traveler David Stanley’s work in the Moon Handbooks series, is as comprehensive, up-to-date and enlightening as ever. Containing 47 detailed and easy-to-use maps, the guidebook describes the must-see sights, activities, restaurants, and accommodation available not only on Tahiti, but on all the other islands in French Polynesia as well, including invaluable insights into tourist highlights on Moorea, as well as on the…