Here's What We'll Say: Growing Up, Coming Out, and the U.S. Air Force Academy

Book Description

Reichen Lehmkuhl was playing the role of his life while in the Air Force. Not wanting to face a court martial for being gay, he had to live in a world where he had to watch everything he did and said for fear of being outed; and in another world where he was free to be himself. “One of the hardest things for me to reconcile was the fact that I was completely open with my family and friends but faced the very real possibility of being court martialed and going to jail if I was open with my 'work' colleagues.” As Reichen explains, “The don’t ask don’t tell policy is so contradictory to what the Air Force and all the armed forces stand for ... but they force you to lie in order to serve your country.” It was the contradictions which led Reichen to leave the Air Force once he completed his commitment.

Happenstance brought Reichen to meet a friend at a Los Angeles restaurant where he was approached by the casting director for “The Amazing Race.” Reichen believes his military training was extremely helpful in his winning the show’s million dollar prize.

Customer Reviews:

Fascinating and Inspiring Story.......2007-09-16

This story is very fascinating and inspiring story. I am sure I will read this book many more times.

Great read and inspiring story. Go Reichen!.......2007-09-03

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is coming out, who has a friend who is coming out, or thinks that Don't Ask, Don't Tell isn't hurting anyone. This is a very inspiring story about a guy who starts off like you and me and who ends up just trying to protect his friends. Read about the hypocrisy of the USAF and the military in general. I'm sure they won't admit it, but this is just one more story that confirms that Don't Ask Don't Tell is not a working program. I was impressed with the story and the quality of character described within.

Entertaining... educational... insightful... and slightly graphic reading fun.......2007-08-17

Oddly enough, before I read this book, I thought that Reichen Lehmkuhl was full of himself and drawing way to much attention away from the causes. But, as I read I discovered that he acts the way he does now because he ahs earned that right. He is outspoken, he is domineering... but most importantly, he is to some degree and to some people (like myself) heroic.
The book starts off with a childhood troubled by what other people think. He felt he was ugly and was made fun of for it. He lived in a trailer and was also teased about that. This is so relatable by pretty much anyone because who hasn't been teased or insulted?
Upon acceptance to the Air Force academy, things take on a darker turn as he battles trying to keep up with everyone else and sudden flourishes of same-sex attraction. The fact that he partook in and possibly founded the Underground gay group is a noble thing indeed... but sadly something that should not have existed at all. The story spans from childhood to his graduation from tha academy, and there are some devastating moments laced in between.
Yet, the moment that really got to me was the climax when things started to unravel and it got dangerous. I could feel the anxiety as I read about it... knowing all to well what that anxiety felt like.
This is not a great book by any stretch but it is a good one and it takes on homophobia in a homophobic military, exposing just how ugly this "religion" fueled hatred is. I found it personally refreshing that I share many of the views he does and am glad that I took the time to read this book.
It isn't for everyone though. Be advised that there is a sexual assault segment that is fairly graphic and some of the same sex scenario's are fleshed out to rather deep detail... not quite soft core porn but just a tad bit dirty. I wasn't uncomfortable with any of the book, but I'm pretty sure that there amy be some readers who will be.
So, all in all... a good book. It was entertaining and educational... and offered insight into a man that I am happy is so vocal about fighting for our rights.

Where is the Honor Code in all of this?.......2007-08-05

Being a gay man, I enjoyed reading this book, about the struggles of gay students in the Air Force Academy. Also, I come from the same geographical area of MA where Mr. Lehmkuhl grew up, and I am familar with some of the communities he refers to. However - I had problems with the book as it went along - if a cadet does not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate others who do so, how did the author justify some of the stands he and his friends were prepared to take to explain their behavior to school authorities? Isn't lying by any other name still lying?

friends don't let friends read horrible memoirs.......2007-08-03

This book was atrocious. Whoever edited it should be fired. I keep seeing positive reviews for it, and I can only assume that the majority of people who choose to read this book have never been fortunate enough to read actual good memoirs and novels. Reichen is full of himself to an inexcusable degree. He goes out of his way to tell anecdotes that make him seem awesome and cool and popular, rather than focusing on anything that might actually be interesting to a person who isn't president of his fan club. This book should have been called "Growing Up, Growing Up, Being Completely Awesome, Enjoy This Repulsive Gratuitous Sex Scene...oh yeah, I came out eventually, too." There were many problems with the content, such as the way he would discuss events in non-chronological order, seemingly in the order that they occurred to him. The main problem with this book, however, is that Reichen is a terrible, terrible writer. This book should have been interesting! A really thoughtful and intelligent book about being gay in the Air Force would have been such a treat to read. Instead, we get a boring, tedious pile of pages that have moments of groan-inducing softcore porn and, more worrisome, touches of homophobic derision for gay men who don't meet Reichen's arbitrary standards for manliness.

When I say this book is awful, I mean it. Do not buy it. If you absolutely need to know what happens, get it from the library, but this man does not deserve any money from you after sleeping his way through this sorry excuse for a book. The only good thing I can say about it is that it has moments of unintentional hilarity, for whatever that's worth.

Average customer rating:

the bad times are coming, and the stream-lined men are coming too.
Well Worth Reading, With Reservations
In Search of Lost Time
Prescient musings as the world comes apart
Orwell's ordinary man

Coming Up for Air (Harvest Book)
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0156196255

Amazon.com

Insurance salesman George "Fatty" Bowling lives with his humorless wife and their two irritating children in a dull house in a tract development in the historyless London suburb of West Bletchley. The year is 1938; doomsayers are declaring that England will be at war again by 1941.

When George bets on an unlikely horse and wins, he finds himself with a little extra cash on his hands. What should he spend it on? "The alternatives, it seemed to me, were either a week-end with a woman or dribbling it quietly away on odds and ends such as cigars and double whiskeys." But a chance encounter with a poster in Charing Cross sets him off on a tremendous journey into his own memories--memories, especially, of a boyhood spent in Lower Binfield, the country village where he grew up. His recollections are pungent and detailed. Touch by touch, he paints for us a whole world that is already nearly lost: a world not yet ruled by the fear of war and not yet blighted by war's aftermath:

1913! My God! 1913! The stillness, the green water, the rushing of the weir! It'll never come again. I don't mean that 1913 will never come again. I mean the feeling inside you, the feeling of not being in a hurry and not being frightened, the feeling you've either had and don't need to be told about, or haven't had and won't ever have the chance to learn.

Alas, George finds that even Lower Binfield has been darkened by the bomber's shadow.

Readers of 1984 will recognize Orwell's desperate insistence on the importance of the individual, of memory, of history, and of language; and they will find in Fatty Bowling one of Orwell's most engaging creations--a warm, witty, thinking, remembering Everyman in a world that is fast learning not to think and not to remember, and thus swiftly losing its mind. --Daniel Hintzsche

Book Description

George Bowling, the hero of this comic novel, is a middle-aged insurance salesman who lives in an average English suburban row house with a wife and two children. One day, after winning some money from a bet, he goes back to the village where he grew up, to fish for carp in a pool he remembers from thirty years before. The pool, alas, is gone, the village has changed beyond recognition, and the principal event of his holiday is an accidental bombing by the RAF.

Download Description

The idea really came to me the day I got my new false teeth. I remember the morning well. At about a quarter to eight I'd nipped out of bed and got into the bathroom just in time to shut the kids out. It was a beastly January morning, with a dirty yellowish-grey sky. Down below, out of the little square of bathroom window, I could see the ten yards by five of grass, with a privet hedge round it and a bare patch in the middle, that we call the back garden. There's the same back garden, some privets, and same grass, behind every house in Ellesmere Road. Only difference- where there are no kids there's no bare patch in the middle. I was trying to shave with a bluntish razor-blade while the water ran into the bath. My face looked back at me out of the mirror, and underneath, in a tumbler of water on the little shelf over the washbasin, the teeth that belonged in the face. It was the temporary set that Warner, my dentist, had given me to wear while the new ones were being made. I haven't such a bad face, really. It's one of those bricky-red faces that go with butter-coloured hair and pale-blue eyes. I've never gone grey or bald, thank God, and when I've got my teeth in I probably don't look my age, which is forty-five.

Customer Reviews:

the bad times are coming, and the stream-lined men are coming too........2005-12-29

perfection is this: thinking about writing an amazon book review and simultaneously coming across a line that sums up a book nearly perfectly (see title).

orwell is magical when it comes to sliding down the slippery slope with passion, terror and vigor. this book is quite different. it is slow and melodic...the tone is cozy and nostalgic with random bits of sardonic bitterness...and hardly is there a theme, but perhaps this: "everything will always be the same and everything is constantly changing."

george bowling is a middle-aged suburban wash up who hates life, lightly reminisces about his time during world war i and the beauty and purity of his long forgotten childhood. the story takes place at the onset of wwii and george decides to revisit the place where he grew up in order to "come up for air" and remember what the good life used to be.

throughout the book, he teeters between optimism and dark despair...hatred and whimsical glory...esteem and self loathing...etc. the book is entertaining with fantastic imagery and offers a single harrowing scene which might bring anyone who has not experienced the terror of war to tears. read this and you are guaranteed to laugh, smile, and get bored...but all worth it.

bravo, orwell. yet again.

Well Worth Reading, With Reservations.......2005-10-31

As seasoned readers know, your response to any work is a combination of its intrinsic merit and timing. Maybe this just wasn't the right time to read this novel. Maybe I'll come back at some future time to revisit this assessment.

It simply did not register with me as did Orwell's other, non-political fiction, including the charming Keep The Aspidistra Flying. Part of it, I believe, arises from the fact that the novel is written in the first-person, which can be limiting in that it restricts us to the narrator's vocabulary and deprives us of Orwell's magnificent facility with langauge.

Now, as to the novel's merits. George "Fatty" Bowles, who, having won 17 pounds on a horse race, decides to use his winnings to escape and reflect upon his life for a week -- or, as he puts it, "to come up for air" -- is an engaging everyman, a person in whom all we old, ossified married types see ourself, and he captures perfectly the horrible nexus between memory and desire that a man's fifth decade often is. As he visits the town of his birth to witness how time has effaced its charm, we are with him all the way. His reflection on the approaching war is both moving and memorable. Because the first world war did not happen on our shores, it's hard for us to imagine its impact on the English imagination as that nation anticipated a reprise of that horrific, generation-destroying event. Orwell captures this dreadful anticipation very convincingly.

Finally, there's this: among all the people who have ever struggled for the poor and the middle-class, Orwell seems to have struggled more earnestly, yet to have been exempt from the tendency to idealize the people he was trying to help. Bowles is no one's ideal; he's just pretty much everyone's reality. He is convincingly middle-classed.

It is, as all this indicates, a fine novel. It simply doesn't represent the author at the height of his ability.

In Search of Lost Time.......2005-10-16

George Bowling's life is pretty mundane even by his own admission: he has "settled down" into his middle age with his wife and two children, his mortgage and his steady yet uninteresting job. Frustrated, George looks back to the days of his childhood in a small town in rural England and asks where did it all go wrong? He tries to recapture those times, but can anyone really go home again?

This is a beautifully written, funny and at times poignant story. Orwell depicts (with great skill) the dangers of middle-age drift, and of trying to escape from it by revisiting a past which only exists inside your head. He takes a swipe at various irritating types (many of them still around) such as the "respectable" middle classes who believe they are living in the countryside and are protecting it when they are in fact doing neither.

It is interesting in that the feeling of decay, of falling standards seems to afflict each generation in turn. Although Bowling is careful not to idolise his past, pointing to the many faults of the society he grew up in, the novel does reveal that there is nothing new in nostalgia.

G Rodgers

Prescient musings as the world comes apart.......2004-10-22

It's a mark of great skill when an author - like George Orwell, as you may have guessed - can fit so much meaning into a story about so very little. Such is the case with Coming Up For Air. On the surface, there's not much here. In fact more than half of the book is taken up by a portly middle-aged insurance worker's reminiscences about his childhood. And it wasn't any sort of exciting childhood either, full of glory or high hopes or wretched poverty or any of the things that make life colorful for better or worse. It was a British, turn of the Century, solid lower middle class provincial childhood in a town somewhere. The narrator does this essentially on the eve of the Second World War as he goes through perhaps some sort of mid-life crisis, though that term is never used. Basically, the story can be summed up as a man trying to figure out what his life means and where it's going.

In that sense, Coming Up For Air probably has the least actual plot of any Orwell novel. But in his endless musings the reader becomes this man (George Bowling is his name, but since it's a first person narrative, it's hard to attach a name tag to the man even as we experience the world through his eyes). Orwell is, as far as the mechanics of writing goes, well into maturity here.

But beyond this sense of realism in musings and reminiscences, Orwell hits on a few themes. The more dominant one is, I suppose, the idea that you can never go home again. After extensively guiding us through his childhood, our hero decides the thing for him to do is to visit his childhood hometown, the place he hasn't been in twenty-five or so years. Naturally, everything has changed. Absolutely everything. Not for the better, or necessarily for the worse, but changed nonetheless. There is, written on top of this, a vague plot about how he's trying to keep the trip from his shrewish wife, lest she think he's cheating on her, but that is strictly secondary. Since so much of the tale is bound up in our narrator's emotional state and thoughts, there's little point in relating them here. Suffice it to say that he goes home with a clearer idea of who he is.

The other point, dwelt upon at some length, is his (and really Orwell's) thoughts on the coming war. The book was written and published just before World War Two, in 1938. If an author had written something like this in 1948, I would be tempted to knock off points for suggesting that someone could have correctly judged the scale of the coming conflict in such a way. But perhaps I would be wrong, because here is evidence that people really were expecting something big to come. This is not to say that Orwell correctly foresaw particular chronologies. He did, in fact, seem to think that Britain and the western world would have to become barbaric to defeat barbarism (hints of 1984). In this he turned out to be wrong. But as a reader born long after the conflict ended, I was amazed that something written beforehand could capture what I think of as the mood of hindsight, but in foresight. I suppose this is why Orwell is so respected as a writer and thinker.

Orwell's ordinary man.......2003-07-12

Coming up for Air is a refreshing look at life through the eyes of an ordinary, overweight middle-aged man. I wanted to comment on how the book made me think about how we should cherish those little things in life that we take for granted, it is an old message but this book made me realize it again. The plot is plain, no suspense or excitement whatsover, what the book does however is take you back to your own childhood and helps you think about those things that were important to you then.

There are many other issues that the book touches on, the escapism of some, the inevitability of change, the prison that is marriage etc...

Book Description

Leave work at five and don't feel guilty! Beth Sawi, tells you how to make more time for your personal life while still enhancing the quality of your work life.The balance issue can affect anyone. Despite the hard work and dedication her job demands, Sawi has found ways to get out of the home/office time bind and be an active parent to her two children and shares them in this book.

Customer Reviews:

Pretty good but a little out of touch.......2006-02-19

Beth Sawi is an investment company executive who rose the corporate ladder while trying to raise a family. The book chronicles her efforts to balance work and family. It has plenty of good ideas and suggestions pulled in from others.

My main beef is that it's mainly about affluent people so it's a bit out of touch

Enormously practical and helpful.......2002-04-17

This book succinctly and gracefully guides the reader toward real-world solutions to very difficult real world problems. It's unusual to find a book which is both a pleasure to read and is very grounded in practical solutions for finding a way to increased contentment.

I think the book succeeds so well because it focuses on core challenges in attaining happiness and balance (i.e. given that one can't do everything, what are your real priorities?) and that it provides guidance for attaining realistic, small-step changes that can have an enormous impact on quality of life.

It's wonderful to find such graceful writing, not from a professional "self help book writer", but from a woman who has walked the walk...a person who has succeeded in corporate America while raising children and pursuing other interests. There's nothing theoretical here...it's all grounded in the reality of what's possible in our frenzied lives.

Coming Up for Air.......2002-04-17

Beth Sawi's book was an exceptionally useful tool as my husband and I evaluated our all-too-busy lives as we were flying back from a vacation. The book helped us set priorities, and talk together about what each of us needs to create a more balanced life. The book is readable and the case studies were particularly helpful. My highest praises for this book!

Enormously practical and helpful.......2002-04-16

This wonderful book succinctly and gracefully guides the reader toward real-world solutions to very difficult real world problems. It's unusual to find a book which is both a pleasure to read and is very grounded in practical solutions for finding a way to increased contentment.

Disappointing. Platitudes........2001-12-17

In her first chapter, which is really an introduction, Sawi explains that her "book is divided into four parts, each designed to show you how to change your work patterns and find more balance in your life." Part One, she explains, helps you understand yourself better. Part 2 tells how to make changes to create a balanced life. Part Three "describes particular situations that are common but may not apply to everyone." The fourth part "talks about activities that will help you increase the balance in your life this year and in the years to come."

That's what this book does. It talks. At a very basic level. Opening a book written by a woman who is executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Charles Schwab, I expected more. What I found was a combination of low-level training material that would come from a beginning seminar leader and group therapy.

Each chapter starts with a parable. Anyone with a couple of years of experience as a trainer or speaker-or active participant in seminars or conventions-would have heard them several times. Nothing new, unless you just haven't had the exposure to this sort of presentation. The book is filled with quotes-I counted over 100-that appear on page after page. It seemed like the author's research consisted of heavy use of "Bartlett's Quotations." For people who like quotes to stick on the refrigerator door or on a bulletin board next to their desk, this book is a treasure.

To present the various issues she deals with, the author uses unattributed quotes from people who suffer from imbalance in their lives. Each is printed in italics to differentiate their contributions from the author's writing. Sometimes that's very helpful, or else it would be difficult to tell the difference. Reading through these pages, with all these "people" sharing their tales, I felt like I was in a group therapy session.

If you'd like to experience a therapeutic sort of conversation that explores a lot of the issues around achieving life balance, and you like quotes and fables, read this book. If you're looking for a more concrete treatment of this topic with clear steps to take, keep looking. (...)

George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four: Complete & Unabridged
Average customer rating:

Good book, but NOT every word Orwell wrote

George Orwell: Animal Farm, Burmese Days, A Clergyman's Daughter, Coming Up for Air, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Nineteen Eighty-Four: Complete & Unabridged
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Octopus/Heinemann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Animal Farm; Burmese Days; A Clergyman's Daughter; Coming up for Air; Keep the Aspidistra Flying; Nineteen Eighty-Four

Customer Reviews:

Good book, but NOT every word Orwell wrote.......2004-07-07

It only contains what the description says it contains: "Animal Farm", "Burmese Days", "A Clergyman's Daughter", "Coming up for Air", "Keep the Aspidistra Flying", and "1984". These particular writings are complete and unabridged, but these are not the complete writings of Orwell.

Of course they're good, but the title is very misleading. Don't be fooled into thinking it's everything he wrote.

Coming Up for Air: Simple Acts to Redefine Your Life
Average customer rating:

Wonderful insights about real living...

Coming Up for Air---Just what I needed

Refreshment of the Spirit

The Real Thing

Becker offers a fresh perspective on doing what matters most

Coming Up for Air: Simple Acts to Redefine Your Life
Margaret Becker
Manufacturer: Navpress Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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Book Description

Award-winning artist Margaret Becker shares a unique glimpse a woman's universal search for personal purpose and authenticity.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful insights about real living..........2007-03-10

I have loved Margaret's music since day one and her writing is the icing on the cake. I loved her fresh take on experiencing a God-directed life. Her honesty and transparency drew me in and challenged me to look at my journey 'With New Eyes' (her first book, also excellent). I have so many sections of this book underlined it looks like a coloring book! Practical, spiritual, essential...

Coming Up for Air---Just what I needed.......2006-11-04

I heard about this book on a talk show I was listening to one day while driving. I have a very hectic job and this book really "spoke" to me. Since reading this, I have still remained "busy", but have "come up for air"...what a concept. Great Read for anyone who needs to step away and breath.

Refreshment of the Spirit.......2006-07-10

I've decided that Margaret Becker is the best Christian author since CS Lewis. I loved her music (especially the lyrics.) She has translated that open and brutally honest style of writing to books. This book shows an understanding of what it is like to be overwhelmed by the "tyranny of the busy" and how to break that cycle. I appreciate it is from a single person's point of view and the loneliness that can result from that. However, it is a loneliness that can apply to married or partnered adults as well. Her amusing attempt to reconnect with her childhood and the wonders that entailed were a joy to read. I recommend this book to anyone who is feeling overwhelmed with life and losing that important spiritual connection to our heart, soul, love, and God.

The Real Thing.......2006-07-06

Margaret Becker knows just how touch the heart of the matter in everyday life. Her simple, yet rich thoughts easily resonate with the thoughts inside of most of us. Her humor is apparent as is her belief in God and the combination is a read that is light yet profound. If you haven't read Becker- now is the time to start!

Becker offers a fresh perspective on doing what matters most.......2006-06-24

It's not hard for a person to lose his or her way in our fast-paced society. There is so much to do, and many contend with a daily grind that includes the monotony of mundane tasks. One can quickly begin to feel like they are just going through the motions. An inward disconnect makes people believe that they are in some way off-track--not living as they should.

Something similar provoked Margaret Becker to take a month-long seaside retreat just over 10 years ago. Coming Up For Air is a series of journal-like reflections from that time and the present. She writes of how that retreat and the ones that have followed have changed the course of her life. Her dreams have guided her towards a more fulfilling life.

Becker draws profound meaning from ordinary events without it being forced or preachy. Her thoughts are more philosophical in a down-to-earth way than they are devotional. That's not to say that her faith doesn't shine through--it's the center from which everything else flows.

Most surprising, and unfortunately too rare in our day, is her transparent honesty. She cloaks it with whimsy and extraordinary insight. Whether it's a humorous story or a more sobering truth, Becker shares in a lighthearted way, which makes for delightful reading.

She writes with the same depth, creativity and artistry found in her music. In the process she shares the truths that have made her freer. Her engaging stories will help others toward the same end.

It's hard not to see yourself as she examines her own life. Her thoughtful reflections can be challenging, but are not discouraging. Becker has devoted her life to encouraging others, especially those who need it the most, and that's what happens indirectly as she shares her life.

One of those moments comes through a keen observation on her failure to accept God's provision. "We are raised to be emancipated, to seclude ourselves from one another in order to limit our exposure to one another. I wonder if it is a thinly veiled attempt to escape the `iron sharpening iron' process that occurs naturally when, due to mutual dependence or survival, you can't just walk out the door. This expectation of striking out on one's own can be destructive to community, both familial and extended."

This book chronicles Becker's journey of discovering and focusing on what matters most. Those who want to slow down, reconnect with God and others, and learn to live in the moment, will find inspiration here. Margaret Becker's music is worth a listen, and her writing is worth reading.

Honest Nutrition: A Descent Into The Ocean Of Nutritional Prattle, And Coming Up For Air

Average customer rating:

Bringing Reality to the Health-Care Debate
Finally!
A refreshingly unbiased attempt to help the reader

Honest Nutrition: A Descent Into The Ocean Of Nutritional Prattle, And Coming Up For Air
Ira Edwards
Manufacturer: Trafford Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Honest Nutrition is an attempt to do what textbooks and hundreds of diet books do not. Nutrition textbooks do not tell you that this science is in its infancy, nor how many "scientific" claims are open to question, based on faulty research or simple hunches. If they include some of the biochemical and physiological context of nutrition, they still omit financial, social and political aspects.

After attempting to understand the prejudice against vitamins and supplements among the industrial-medical-political Big Brother (IMP-BB) and the lack of evidence for most alternatives, there is still some useful information.

Opposing philosophies are denoted as SUPR (SUrgery-PRescription orientation) and UTHR (Unconventional Therapies, Herbal Remedies.)

Honest Nutrition uses a large alphabetical section to give easy access to useful information about many diseases and nutritional therapies.

Honest Nutrition includes information about hormone resistance diseases, cryptic infections as a cause of "unknown etiology" diseases, and the effect of nutrition on behavior and criminality.

Some claims:

1. Obesity always involves hormones, sometimes with positive-feedback loops, which is why "Just eat less and exercise" seldom works. 2. A major factor in arterial disease is viscous blood, resulting in part from a lack of omega-3 fat. Cholesterol lowering does not help. 3. Some heart attacks may be due to hormonal effects, involving the hormone ouabain, and preventable with an extract of the herb strophanthus. 4. Many, or most North Americans suffer serious lack of nutrients: vitamin D, magnesium, and plant nutrients.

The author challenges the medical establishment to examine their doctrines and learn how to help people suffering from nutritional diseases. Many technical terms are included. The non-scientific reader is asked to skip over these, to gain a useful knowledge of nutrition.

Customer Reviews:

Bringing Reality to the Health-Care Debate.......2007-07-10

Many who write on the subject of nutrition and health are intelligent, educated and knowledgeable. Honest Nutrition by Ira Edwards is noteworthy because the author writes as a health consumer; he does not have a health product or service to promote. To his credit, Edwards has no bias for or against conventional medicine, alternative medicine or herbal healing. He lays out the benefits, problems and costs of various nutritional, herbal and medical modalities with careful attention to biochemical realities.

Over several decades, Edwards has investigated the authenticity of many scientific studies that are commonly accepted in health and medical practice. His education and professional experience, in biochemistry and in scientific methodology, well qualify him to see through a fraudulent veneer where it exists. Among innumerable subjects, his findings on cholesterol are important to anyone interested in maintaining good health.

Although retired, Edwards has stayed current with scientific discovery. The book is abundantly filled with timely, relevant information. For me, it has been a marvelous resource, dropped into my hands at an appropriate time to help with important (and beneficial) health decisions.

Finally!.......2007-04-06

Mr Edwards cuts through the hype that passes for nutritional information these days and tells us what the various vitamins and minerals actually do in our bodies. He is honest enough to tell us, unlike most nutritional authors, that he doesn't know everything and can't give answers to everything. I especially like the alphabetically arranged descriptions of nutrients and conditions. At last I understand what those nutrients are supposed to do. Too bad I can't get this kind of honest answer from my own doctor - who seems to be locked into a "SUPR" mentality. This book ought to be required reading for every family physician and every surgeon - before he makes the first scalpel cut!

A refreshingly unbiased attempt to help the reader.......2007-03-25

I wish I had got my hands on this book 15 years ago, when I experienced a sudden decline in health and began my search for answers. It would have saved me from several regrettable decisions and given me the understanding I needed to navigate both the health care industry and the world of self-help bookdom with more discernment.

The author is quick to admit that he does not have all the answers, but what he does offer the reader is an laudable attempt to provide unbiased information for the purpose of truly being a help to the reader.

I learned a lot about the pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, the conventional medical establishment, and the nutritional supplement industry. In some areas, my suspicions were confirmed. In others, my naivity was embarrassingly exposed. I especially appreciate how the author shares the information without being out to get one group or the other.

Any book written by a physician is almost assuredly going to be pushing their own biased approach to health care. The fact that the author is not a health care provider makes it easier to trust that he is truly attempting to be unbiased. His credibility on the subject comes not from any medical degree, since he has none, but from years of study to uncover the truth in health care marketing and research claims.

Topics covered include: honesty, bad advice, sources for information, the medical establishment, economic problems, principles of nutrition (that do not involve the food pyramid), deficiencies and supplementation, mental function, and a host of diseases that plague our culture. In all topics, the effect of nutrition on body processes is explained in detail, and approaches offered by both conventional and alternative therapies are explored.

If you are looking for a quick fix to your own health challenges, then this book is not for you. But if you are looking for information that will help guide you toward improved health, I highly recommend Honest Nutrition. It will challenge both you and your health care providers to be slower to throw a band-aid solution at your health problems and quicker to search for the origin and resolution of your particular disease.

Average customer rating:

Coming Up For Air

Manufacturer: Penguin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000G9WSZU

Animal farm ; Burmese days ; A clergyman's daughter ; Coming up for air ; Keep the aspidistra flying ; Nineteen eighty-four

Average customer rating:

One World?

Animal farm ; Burmese days ; A clergyman's daughter ; Coming up for air ; Keep the aspidistra flying ; Nineteen eighty-four
George Orwell
Manufacturer: Secker and Warburg : Octopus Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 0706405676

Customer Reviews:

One World?.......2002-05-12

Since each of Orwell's books have sufficient reviews (raves), I won't bore you with repetition.

I was suprised that this compilation (officially called "The Complete Novels") is not officially available on Amazon.com. If you'd like a single book with "all" of Orwell's novels, it is available via the Amazon.co.UK site. Nothing fancy, just the stories. The only drawback is that the print font is smaller than in most books. For most, this will not be a problem, though.

Customer Reviews:

A well researched and presented account that will inspire.......1999-07-03

This work by the late Charlotte, N.C., author and philanthropist, Elizabeth S. Smith, presents an inspirational topic that has escaped previous aviation writers. The story of aviator Cochran's achievements, which reflect her determined character and desire to succeed, are highly readable, and energizing, to young people. Many 6-9th grade students continue to enjoy and benefit from this book.

Average customer rating:

COMING UP FOR AIR
GEORGE ORWELL
Manufacturer: PENGUIN
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S974MA

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