My Review of "Taking Aim"

Eva Shockey's Taking Aim: Daring to Be Different, Happier, and Healthier in the Great Outdoors is a memoir that takes readers through Eva Skockey's adventures, sharing a unique glimpse of what it is like to be a women in a traditionally male-dominated world.

Growing up with a father such as Jim Shockey, you would think that hunting would be as natural as breathing.  This was not necessarily the case with Eva.  She began her life's journey with high hopes of becoming a professional dancer, following in her mother's footsteps.  During one of their family trips to the Tatshenshini River area in British Columbia, Eva age seven, shot her first rifle during a family shooting competition.  With help and guidance from her father, the first shot rang out followed by the dink of the can she was aiming for.  As impressive and exciting as this was for her and her family, dance remained her passion.  Eva enjoyed staying at camp alongside her mother, appreciating the natural beauty and serenity of the great outdoors.  As she got older, she also seemed to develop the same craving her father has for being outside, breathing fresh air and taking in all of Mother Nature's beauty, as well as adding hunting to the mix.

Taking Aim then explores what it means for women to enter that world of hunting, and in the process of discovering how our happiness is connected with learning who we are and what our lives are meant to become.

I received a free copy of this game from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review here.

My Review of "Evicted"

Matthew Desmond's Evicted:  Poverty and Profit in the American City is an amazing book, a narrative with a great degree of research, that highlights the hell in which scores of American poor live in our urban environments.  Desmond is a sociologist with a flair for crafting gripping narratives that demonstrate the statistics that undergird his research.  That's what makes Evicted a real page-turner.

Near the end of his book, Desmond tentatively introduces the concept of "exploitation", "a word that has been scrubbed out of the poverty debate".  But it properly belongs as part of that debate, and Evicted is just the kind of book that will replace it.  Poverty is one of the most lucrative businesses in our country, and Evicted exposes those businesses for what they are -- morally bankrupt.

I received a free copy of this game from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review here.

My Review of "How to Set a Table"

How to Set a Table is a marvelous entertaining guide for those who love to host friends and family.  It begins with an overview of all the different types of pieces needed for entertaining, and continues with a variety of different table placements (my favorite is the picnic blanket). 

I received a free copy of this game from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review here.