Nonfiction Book Reviews

I picked up The Complete Guide to Attics and Basements by Black and Decker because we were looking at finishing off the attic in our home.  We own a Craftsman-style home built in the 1920’s, and we thought that it would be an easy way to add on square footage.

Well, I’m so glad I picked this book up because it’s saved us a whole lot of time and money.  We found out from reading it that converting our attic isn’t possible.  After reading the requirements for the ceiling height in bedrooms, we crawled up into our attic and measured.  We barely hit 7 feet at the ridgeline, and according to this book, your ceiling has to be at least 7′6″ over 50% of the floor. We don’t hit 7′6″ anywhere, let alone over 50% of the floor, darn it.

We were going to hire someone to come in and look at our attic to give us some ideas on how to best finish it off, and I’m sure such a trip would’ve cost us several hundred dollars.  That’s obviously not going to happen now.  Apparently, reading books really can pay off, literally!

Even though this book spelled the end of one of our plans, I still enjoyed it.  I was very grateful that it was clear, easy to understand, well laid out, with lots of illustrations and examples.  I enjoyed the first section, where there were lots of pictures to give me fun ideas, and then the second section, where there were step-by-step instructions on how to do a wide variety of projects, from adding drywall to your basement walls to installing baseboard heaters.It is focused more on giving you a broad overview of the process and ideas rather than a manual with intricate instructions.

 I would suggest checking it out of the library before buying it, just to make sure it’s got what you need, and it aimed at your level of expertise and expectations.  But if what you’re looking for is ideas and some concrete tips on how to convert your attic or basement, you couldn’t go wrong with The Complete Guide to Attics and Basements.

I give it 4.25 out of 5 stars.Havs

PS If you’re on the hunt for books about remodeling, make sure to check out my review of Affordable Remodel by Fernando Pages Ruiz.  That was another great remodeling book. (You can probably tell I’ve been focusing on remodeling a lot lately!  That’s part of the joy of buying an older home…)

Sleeping with a Stranger: How I Survived Marriage to a Child Molester by Patricia Wiklund was filed in the 921’s section at the library, which for the non-librarians out there, means that it was labeled as an autobiography.  I saw it while doing check-in (of course - that’s happy hour for a bookaholic like me) and thought that it would be along the lines of A Child Called It, where the author would talk about her life in general, and in particular, what happened in her marriage to the child molester.

That was not at all what the book was.  I’m thinking seriously of asking the library to relabel and categorize it, because it shouldn’t be counted as a 921 at all, but instead a self-help book focused on wives whose husbands are child molesters.

Patricia Wiklund talks about what happened in her own marriage in fairly generic details from page 3 - 14 (the first chapter of the book).  The entire rest of the book is spent quoting other women who went through the same thing she did, talking about the different theories of whether a child molester really can be “cured” or not, and how to work through the whole thing if you’re a spouse of a child molester.

Very occasionally, she’d mention something that’d happened in her own life (this would last for a whole paragraph - maybe!) and then she was back to focusing on others.

I don’t think I would have minded this, if I had known that was what this book was going to be about.  Of course in that case, I wouldn’t have picked it up at all, because I’ve never dealt with child molestation on a personal level - I have no reason to learn how to deal with being married to a child molester, obviously.

While reading it, I didn’t know that was what the book was going to be like, and I kept waiting (in vain) for the author to focus on her own story again.  I read to the end (skimming in parts, I’ll admit) and it never happened.  It was a self-help book, focused on the spouses of child molesters.  Period.

If this is something that you are personally dealing with, then I’d highly recommend this book to you.  I think you’ll find it invaluable, because I don’t personally know of other books focused on this same subject - this is a pretty specialized subject.

Otherwise, I’d skip the book.  There’s not much to interest someone who isn’t dealing with this issue themselves.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Havs

Fun Friday - The Weekly Review of Children’s Books

I originally picked up A Smart Girl’s Guide to Money: How to Make It, Save It, and Spend It by Nancy Holyoke and Ali Douglass because my niece (hi Hailey!) had checked it out, and I saw it when she returned it. I figured I had read plenty of guides on how to manage money as an adult - it was time to check out what the kids were being taught.

Again, I was surprised at how knowledge-packed the book turned out to be.  Perhaps I’m just not expecting enough out of children’s books, I don’t know, but so far I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the depth of the information given.

In A Smart Girl’s Guide to Money, American Girl teaches the whole cycle of money - it gives a list of 101 ways to make money (selling items or providing a variety of services) and also how to figure out if the business venture is profitable or not by doing a cost analysis.  It even talks about keeping a ledger and staying on a budget.  If there was a girl out there who read this book and took it to heart, she’d be a miniature Donald Trump (but hopefully with better hair!) by age 25.

The book also tackles sticky subjects from how to ask for an allowance raise, to recognizing and reigning in the impulse buying while at the mall.  It even touches ever so briefly on putting money into the stock market and paying taxes on what you earn.  (I told you I was shocked at how much was in here).

Yet it still managed to stay very readable and interesting to the average tweener (10 - 14 year old range).  It had lots of great drawings and quite a few multiple choice quizzes.

So comes the question: Would a boy read it?  No, I would say probably not - too many references to buying nail polish and new clothes at the mall, not to mention the fact that all of the drawings are of girls.  I haven’t looked to see, but I would hope something similar but aimed for the boy population has been produced, because it really did break down money management into children-sized pieces.

If your daughter wants to make money this summer, or if you’ve noticed that she tends to spend her money too freely and you’re hoping to give her a little direction, this would be an awesome book to get for her.  I honestly can’t think of anything critical or negative to say about it.

Warning: Childless adult is about to give out parenting advice - ignore at will!!

If I had a daughter, I would give her this book when starting her allowance, so she could be pointed in the right direction on how to handle her money, instead of just being handed money each week.  I was a pretty open spender as a child - I once spent $50 on candy and had a stomachache for a week.  I really could’ve used this book as a kid.

Overall, I give A Smart Girl’s Guide to Money 4.75 out of 5.

Hava

Got Sun? Go Solar: Get Free Renewable Energy to Power Your Grid-Tied Home by Rex A Ewing and Doug Pratt was a surprisingly interesting book.  I say that because I am of the non-mechanical variety, so I was prepared to be bored to tears by in-depth information that the average person (me) would never have a chance of understanding.

But I’ve always thought that running your house off solar power, even if it was just a partial supply of the total energy needed, was just such a great idea, that it would be worth it suffering through a boring book to learn more about it.

Unfortunately, most books covering this subject spend their time talking exclusively about how to power your house “off the grid” (meaning, not connected to any power lines - powered exclusively through wind, solar, and/or hydro power.)  I don’t know why, because the amount of people in the US living on the grid outnumber the ones living off the grid a million to one, at least.  So I was excited to see a book covering houses on the grid exclusively.

I also picked this book up because Rex Ewing is a name I recognize.  In the solar and wind industry, Rex is The Man.  He has lived in a house for years that is powered with just solar and wind power, so he knows of which he speaks.  He also spends a large amount of time writing books and consulting with home owners who want to do the same.  If he doesn’t know about it when it comes to solar power, it isn’t worth knowing.

Fair warning: The book does get technical when trying to explain how silicon works, but even then, the authors tried to inject some humor into the explanation.  Here’s a quotation from the silicon portion:

Chemically, silicon has 14 positively-charged protons, and 14 negatively-charged protons.  This would seem to be a happy arrangement, if not for the fact that it has room for four more electrons in its outer energy level.  How does it get them?  It could snatch four passing electrons from somewhere, but there would be no protons to hold them in place, so the kidnapped electrons would soon escape.
~Page 39 of “Got Sun? Go Solar”

It does obviously go on from there, but the point is: It’s readable. Even for people who are not chemists in another life, and who don’t play one on TV either.

Do I think that after reading this book, you’ll be able to go out and install your own solar powering system without a contractor to help you along the way? No way. But it does give you a good base of knowledge so that when you go to talk to an installer, you know the right questions.  Better yet, it will help you figure out if contacting an installer is even worth your time - it may not be in the realm of possibilities for you.

If adding solar power to your house is something you’ve thought about, and you want to learn more about the idea, then look no further than Got Sun? Go Solar. If you’re going to learn, it might as well be from the best.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Hava

Picture Credit: Nevmic

A while back, I read and reviewed WordPress for Dummies, and at the end of it, I mentioned I was going to review Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, 3rd Edition by Peter Kent. Well, today is that day.

I had my library order the copy in for me (which is why it took me so long to get it read and reviewed), but it was worth the wait.  There was quite a bit of information in the book that I had never heard before, but even worse, I found out that some of the “SEO tricks” I had been taught before were flat-out wrong.

I have a habit of turning up the bottom of a page when I read something I think is worthwhile and that I might end up quoting later in my review of the book.  It’s easier for me than to sit with a notepad and pen and take notes while reading.

But with SEO for Dummies, there was so much new information that I needed to process that I ended the book with 19 folded-down pages, a new record for me.  Since this is a library book, I can’t keep it as a reference book, so I’m going to end up going back through and taking notes anyway.  So much for being lazy…

Now for the negatives: Peter Kent (at least in this book) has a rather confusing writing style.  He tends to say a bunch of things as if they are good thing, then finish the section by saying you “never want to do that.”  This left me confused - did I not want to do the last thing?  Or all the things?  And if I didn’t want to do those things, then why was he talking about them in a positive light?

Perhaps I’m just slower than most (Brothers, that was not an invitation to make wisecracks) so maybe he was only confusing to me.  But I felt like his writing style could’ve used editorial help.

He also tended to repeat things.  A lot.  Like the fact that when someone uses JavaScript to create links between websites, the search bots can’t read those links, and thus the website doesn’t get “credit” for the link in the search engine’s eyes.  (If that was Greek to you, read the book - he explains all of that quite nicely).

The first time I read that, I thought, “Wow, I didn’t know that!” so I marked the page.  The second and third time, I thought, “Hmm…Didn’t I already read that?” By the fifth time, I was becoming mightily unimpressed with his ability to repeat the information as if it was new to the reader all over again.  By the seventh time, I was sure he was simply trying to pad his word count (and the book does clock in at 408 pages.  This is no small book).

I shouldn’t bellyache too much, because overall, it was a great book on SEO techniques.  There’s a lot of guesswork that goes into SEO work - after all, Google’s not going to announce how it ranks websites, or every web master out there is going to tailor their website to fit those specifications exactly, and then all searches do is return pages of advertisements.

So in that kind of environment of guesswork and to-the-best-of-my-knowledge theories, there tends to be a lot of flat-out wrong information on the web when it comes to SEO techniques.   Peter Kent does do a good job of clarifying a lot of that.

If you’re serious about creating a website that will rank well and bring in a lot of visitors from search engines, you’ll want to read this book.  It’s not a book for a complete newbie (some topics are too complicated for even Dummies books to make completely Dummy Compatible) but if you’ve spent some time online, working on websites and/or blogging, and you’re wanting to take your site to the next level, this would be the book to read.

I give SEO for Dummies 4.25 out of 5 stars.

Hava

Dave Ramsey is one of those guys who a person either loves or hates. He tends to inspire pretty dramatic feelings both ways. Luckily for him, the majority of America seems to love him.

The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey was the first book that I ever read by Ramsey, and it was such an inspiration to me, that I instantly joined the Ramsey Fan Camp. I was struggling with some pretty large debts at that point (at least large in comparison to my income!) and I was barely keeping my head above water. I was told to read The Total Money Makeover - that it would help me. They were right.

I wish I could say that because of this book, I made major life changes and became debt free, but instead I just got a little better at juggling.  Eventually my husband and I were able to move and get into a better situation, to where we are now debt free. But the problem before was not Ramsey - it was me. Ramsey actually sums it up pretty well on page 4:

Winning at money is 80% behavior and 20% head knowledge. What we do isn’t the problem; doing it is. Most of us know what to do, but we just don’t do it. If I can control the guy in the mirror, I can be skinny and rich. We will let other books work on the skinny, and I will help you with the rich part. No, there are no secrets, and yes, this will be very hard. Hey, if it was easy, every moron walking would be wealthy.

If that kind of bluntness appeals to you, you’ll love this book.

The baby steps that Ramsey gives to get out of debt and stay there are the following (in order!):

1) Save up a baby emergency fund: $1,000.
2) Snowball your debts (a focused way of paying off your debts)
3) Finish your emergency fund: Save 3 - 6 months of expenses
4) Invest 15% of your income into a retirement fund
5) Save for your kid’s college fund (if you have children)
6) Pay off your mortgage on your home
7) Build wealth

My problem previously had been saving the $1000 baby emergency fund. When your bank account is perilously close to zero, it’s hard to fathom having $1000 in your savings account, waiting for a rainy day.  He talks about how to save the $1000 and gives some inspirational stories from people who did, so again, that was me, not him.

Okay, so onto my critiques (you knew it was coming!) As I said in Financial Peace, Ramsey is a Christian who quotes the Bible fairly regularly to make his point. If you’re not Christian, do keep that in mind. It isn’t overwhelming, but it is there.

Secondly, it has been said that Ramsey is too conservative when it comes to savings, but overly liberal when it comes to retirement numbers. I would have to agree with that. He says that you can afford to put your savings for retirement on hold until after you’ve paid off all your debts, plus saved a 3 - 6 month emergency fund, by being very generous when it comes to his estimates on a “normal” return on investments. I don’t agree that you ought to expect a 12% rate of return every year on your stocks. Yeah, it would be nice, but hardly likely. Ramsey’s great for advice on getting out of debt, but I would pick someone else to get investment advice from.

These shortcomings aside, this is a very inspirational book - it’s liberally dosed with stories from couples who have worked through debt and came out the other side debt-free and liberated. Reading stories of these “gazelle intense” couples makes you want to stand up and yell, “I can do this too!” I think this is the monetary equivalent of No Plot? No Problem by Chris Baty - Dave Ramsey makes you truly believe in yourself.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Yeah, he has his shortcomings, but overall, this is just a darn good book.

Hava

Photo Credit: Scol22

I read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus by John Gray before I got married, so it’s been at least seven years ago, and I remember liking it. After I reviewed The Five Love Languages, I decided to reread Men are from Mars and see which of the two I thought was more helpful.

Turns out that to me, both of them are equally as helpful but in completely different ways.

In The Five Love Languages, the emphasis is on doing the right things to make your spouse happy. If your spouse was someone who appreciated Acts of Service, and you went out and bought a $100 flower arrangement for her, you’re only going to puzzle your spouse who will wonder why you can find the time to buy extravagant flowers bouquets that are going to die, but not enough time to mow the lawn.

So knowing which love language each spouse speaks is very important but that really only pertains to the “keeping your spouse happy” part of the relationship, and doesn’t speak to the communication portion of your marriage.

Example: Clothes shopping together.  If your wife asks your opinion on the shirt she just tried on, knowing that she likes the lawn mowed instead of flower bouquets isn’t going to do you any good (as you’ll quickly find out when you inform her that the shirt makes her look fat.  My advice: Back away slowly.)

To help the masses understand marital communication better, Men are from Mars presents a very simple idea: Men do not think like women, and women do not think like men.  In fact, the thought processes and the emotional needs are so different, the two sexes might as well be from two different planets (hence the name.)

The two sexes even speak two different languages, and John Gray was kind enough to provide a “translation guide” as a part of the book.  A man can use this guide when a woman is speaking so that he can understand what she would be saying, if she was speaking Martian.  And vice-versa.

For me, I enjoyed reading the book, and yes, I did see a lot of myself in the pages.  I constantly found myself saying, “Yes, that is so true!” or “Has this guy been following me around?  How does he know all of this stuff about me?”

Having said all that, I think John Gray’s success has rather gone to his head.  Perhaps this is a personal quirk, but when an author spends almost the entire introduction talking about how amazing his book is, and how much every person who reads it is going to love it, it tends to drive me a little crazy.  Let the book speak for itself - if it’s good, I’ll see that myself.  I don’t need the author (hardly a fount of unbiased opinion) telling me so.

I’ve seen other people suggest to skip the first section, so I’m not alone in my feelings.  In this case, don’t judge the book by its cover, or its introduction.

He also tends to talk about men and women in their most extreme conditions - the typical testosterone male, the typical emotional female, and although I think there is a lot of truth in what he says, I don’t think everything he says can be taken as gospel truth.  But that’s what happens when you try to write a book that tries to apply to every human being on the planet - you’re not going to end up with a perfect fit every time.  So take what you need and leave the rest.

Overall, I give Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus 4.25 out of 5 stars.   If you find yourself constantly scratching your head, wondering why you and your spouse are at loggerheads, pick this book up and see if it can work its magic on you.

Hava

Photo Credit: MBarton837

I picked up Cheap. Fast. Good! by Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross after I reviewed Desperation Dinners because I wanted to see if I would like the food better in Cheap. Fast. Good!.

As I said in Desperation Dinners, the cooking duo were able to whip up a meal in 20 minutes because they were using a lot of convenience foods.  Those tend to be expensive, so I would end up cooking the food the old-fashioned way, which of course takes a lot longer, and defeats the whole dinner-in-20-minutes idea.

Enter Cheap. Fast. Good!.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. The food is more “normal” in this one, although there were still quite a few “out there” recipes.  Flipping through the pages, I bookmarked quite a few recipes as being possibilities for dinner, more than I did in Desperation Dinners.

I think I also enjoyed it because there were a lot of tips on how to cook more frugally, something I like to read about. It was kind of a cross between a how-to-be-frugal book and a recipe book, with the heavy emphasis on recipes of course.

Each recipe has an approximate cooking time but unlike Desperation, the emphasis isn’t on beating the clock but cooking cheaply.  That’s more what I care about, so to me, this book was more usable.

One thing that I enjoyed in both books were the comments in the sidebars on each recipe - how it came into being, what they liked about it, etc.  The writing style is approachable, as if you’re sitting down to chat with old friends when you flip the book open.

Overall, I would give Cheap. Fast. Good! 4.5 out of 5 stars, and will probably buy it for my own collection. Any of my readers a fan of the cookbooks?  I would love to hear your thoughts on the recipes - too weird or perfectly normal?  Chime in on the comment section.

Hava

I picked up The Only 127 Things You Need: A Guide to Life’s Essentials by Donna Wilkinson because the title caught my eye.  The only 127 things in the whole world that you need?  Why 127?  Why not 128 or 152 or 101?  I started reading it over lunch at the park, and was surprised by the format.  I was expecting a list of 127 things - not an essay style of writing.  That’s not necessarily good or bad - it just wasn’t what I was expecting.

It was fairly interesting reading - it basically touches on every part of your life: Nutrition, sleeping, clothing, shelter, love, and spiritual stuff like doing good unto others, serving others, meditation, etc.

There were a couple of things that bothered me; one of the biggest being that the author repeated the information quite often.  And she wasn’t just repeating the same concepts, but was repeating the same sentences, word for word.  That was a bit disconcerting.  I think she was trying to state the idea in the chapter, then sum it up at the end of the chapter, but to me, it just came across as her trying to pad her word count.  If I had been her editor, I would have been slashing quite a bit of it out.

I did think that the idea was an interesting one, and to an extent, it worked: To give a guide to the basics of how to live your life.  When we were born, we didn’t pop out complete with an instruction manual.  This book tries to fill that gap.  But if you’ve read many womens’ magazines or watched much daytime TV like Oprah, you’ll know most all of this stuff already.  It was kinda fun to have it all in one place though.

Overall, I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.  There simply weren’t enough new or exciting concepts to warrant anything higher.

Hava

PS For those who are interested, no, there never is a reason given that there are only 127 items, and not another random number. Just in case you were curious…

In the cheapskate community, Amy Dacyczyn reigns supreme. And it’s not hard to see why, when you flip through her books.

Amy originally started out by producing a newsletter with tips she thought were helpful. She eventually put those tips into books, and produced three amazing books that every tightwad in the country owns (bought off eBay at a discounted price, of course). They are (originality in naming not being her strong suit) The Tightwad Gazette I, The Tightwad Gazette II, and (drumroll please!) The Tightwad Gazette III. I know, you didn’t see it coming, did you? Neither did I.

Lack of originality aside, there is little here to criticize. Seriously. This is the frugal person’s Bible. Too often, a “how-to-be-frugal” book will simply regurgitate the same tips over and over again. (Great example here. Or here’s another one that did it too, although not to the same extent.) How many times can people say, “Save up money and pay cash for big items” before publishers start to say, “Wait a minute, I think this has been covered before”?

Apparently a lot.

Amy stands at the pinnacle of frugalness for a very good reason: None of her “tips” are recycled stuff that someone slapped together from an hour of Googling. Amy never takes the easy way out by saying, “I’ve heard that it’s cheaper to…”

Instead, she sits down with a calculator and figures out, down to the penny, how much something will cost. And then she does it again the other way. Math is not my strong suit, so she completely lost me when it came to some of her calculations, but I was mightily impressed by her conclusions.

Here’s an excerpt on freezing food in bulk that illustrates that point nicely:

The first step was purchasing a humongous, $7.99, 2,000 foot-roll of 12-inch-wide clear plastic wrap from a warehouse store. One could make the argument that free bread bags are cheaper, but this wrap costs just 4/10ths of a cent per foot and allows a stretched-tight wrap that gives good protections from freezer burn. If this quantity is too much for you, we found that store-brand plastic wraps are 6/10ths of a cent. (But be aware that name-brand wrap costs as much as 2 and 3/10ths of a cent per foot.)

Am I just the laziest person alive? I never, no never, would have thought to calculate something like that down to the tenth of a penny.  She does this constantly.  Reading her books is like peering into the mind of a frugal genius, truly.

If you’re really observant (as are all of my readers, naturally) you might have noticed that I reviewed book #3 first.  I did that to make the point that you don’t have to read these books in order.  She does refer back to stories in previous books occasionally, but she always makes sure to give enough of the backstory that you’re not lost.

My only gripe (boring name aside) is that there isn’t anything more to read.  Amy Dacyczyn has retired, and is no longer producing newsletters, books, or even a simple blog. Others have tried to fill the gap by producing their own books and blogs, but none of them are as good as The Frugal Zealot.

Amy, we miss ya.

5 out of 5 stars

Hava

The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman is one of the best sources for love advice out there, and I don’t say that lightly.  I know that field is awfully crowded.  But Gary Chapman’s approach to love is simple: There’s in love and then there’s loving someone.  When you’re in love with someone, it’s like the movies and the songs and the Hallmark cards - “Oh, how I love thee!” - but unfortunately, it will not last.  Sorry if I just burst your bubble.

Scientific studies have shown that the in love feeling lasts only 2 years, at most.  When people start to come down off that high, then they think they’re in trouble - there’s got to be something wrong with our marriage! - but that’s not true.  That’s just you coming back to planet Earth.  If you can figure out the five languages of love (and more specifically, which language your spouse speaks) you can easily transition to the loving someone stage.

The five languages of love are:

*Words of Affirmation
*Quality Time
*Receiving Gifts
*Acts of Service
*Physical Touch

He explains each language in-depth, and gives examples of people who “speak” a certain language.  Basically, if your spouse speaks the Acts of Service language and you’re always giving him gifts, he’s not going to feel loved and you’re not going to know why.

Once you figure out which language each of you speak, you can start telling your spouse you love him, using a language he understands.  It’s the equivalent of me going up to my husband and telling him I love him in Chinese.  He’s not going to understand a word I just said.  That’s what happens when you tell your spouse you love him by using the wrong love language.

It’s a fast read, it makes sense, and it’s helpful.  My only word of caution is that the author is Christian, and quotes from the Bible and talks about Jesus throughout the book, but not to an overwhelming degree.  If you’re not Christian, I don’t think you’ll find it too much to handle, but just so you know it’s in there. And if you are Christian, you’ll be right at home with this book.

Overall, I give to 4.75 out of 5 stars.  I honestly think that if every young couple coming home from the church or courthouse after getting married could have this in their pile of wedding presents, our divorce rate would drop dramatically.  I think it’s that powerful.  Two giant thumbs up.

Hava

PS Still in the dating stage? Check out Dating here at Today - it’s got lots of helpful advice.

Photo Credits: Bjearwicke

Climbers and Wall Plants by Philippa Bensley was a well-written book on climbing plants - exactly what I was needing when I checked the book out of the library.  I am just starting to get into planting and gardening, and I really don’t know a whole lot about different types of plants.  I know what I want to do (I have a large wooden fence that I want to have plants climb up,) but not how to do it.

Climbers and Wall Plants helped me figure out the differences between climbers, and what I actually needed for my own garden.  I learned from the book that there are two different kinds of climbers: Self-supporting climbers and social climbers.

*Self-supporting climbers don’t need to be tied or staked to anything - they can climb up a brick wall or fence and send out “suckers” that will cling to the fence to support it.  They need no outside help.

*The social climbers have to have a trellis or netting that it can climb up and through, and will often need help along the way in terms of ties and stakes.  They use twining leafstalks, tendrils, stems, or thorns to cling to the structure.

Who knew?  I certainly didn’t.  This was a great book for a gardening novice like me.

The book was well laid out, it explained terms and ideas simply, and had lots of pretty pictures. More than just a picture book to drool over though, it actually provided helpful information - it should have been called Climbers and Wall Plants for Dummies.

I give Climbers and Wall Plants 4.75 out of 5 stars.

Hava

Nothing to Wear? A 5-Step Cure for the Common Closet by Jesse Garza and Joe Lupo was an interesting book to me.  I tend to wear the same color over and over again: Black.  It’s not because I’m obsessed with the color, but more because it’s safe, it looks good on me, and it’s a “professional” color that you can wear to work.  It’s hard to be taken seriously when you’re wearing neon pink.

But my tendency to wear a lot of black clothes has earned me the nickname of “Goth” by my husband, and truly, I do deserve it, I’ll admit it.  I pulled out my summer clothes a couple of weeks ago, and out of all of the shirts that I owned, exactly two were not black.

I only wish I were kidding.

So I picked this book up with a real sense of urgency - I needed help, and I knew it.  After the introduction, the first step was to take an 8-question quiz to help me figure out my sense of style, something I had never thought about before.  I tend to be one of those people that if it looks cute at the store, then I’ll just “find a place for it” in my closet.  Never mind that I didn’t have anything else to go with it.  And then, the inevitable: Eventually I’d get rid of it because I never wore it.  Wow, there’s a shocker.

But now that I know my sense of style (chic/classic, the most common combination there is, according to the book) I can look at a shirt and realize that it’s entirely too “whimsical” or “bohemian” to really fit into my wardrobe.  I never, ever would have looked at it that way before.

The book takes you all the way through from figuring out your style to cleaning out your closet to buying new items to fill your closet.  It’s fun to read, even for someone like me who isn’t a big shopper (I last about an hour before begging for escape).  If your wardrobe needs spicing up, you might want to pick this book up at Amazon before heading to the mall.

I give it 4.75 out of 5 stars.

Hava

I picked up Living Well on a Shoestring: 1,501 Ingenious Ways to Spend Less and Have More by Yankee Magazine on a whim.  I tend to like “how to live thrifty” books, and am always looking for a new money saving tip.  I’ve already reviewed America’s Cheapest Family and I have several similar books in the queue.

Well, this thrifty living book left me with mixed feelings.  I would read an entire section where there wasn’t a single new idea that I hadn’t heard before, and then the next section I would read a tip or two that I think, “Well, I wouldn’t necessarily do that myself, but at least it is new idea.”  Overall, there just wasn’t much originality to the book.

Then there was a tip that was completely and utterly wrong.  It was in the getting-out-of-debt section, and it advised the following:

Do you have a credit card that has gotten out of hand, and you have to struggle to pay even the minimum balance every month?  Do yourself a favor: Cancel the card immediately.  That way, you can’t make new charges while you’re getting the balance under control. Living Well, page 28

Warning!  Warning!  Warning!  Do NOT, any ANY circumstances, follow the above advice!  Once you cancel a card, the credit card company has exactly zero reasons to work with you.  It makes your credit report look even worse than it already is, and your credit score will drop.  Your interest rate will likely zoom up into the stratosphere because, again, the credit card company has no reason not to twerk you off.  In fact, they’ll kinda want to because they want that money back so they can lend that money out to other people who will borrow it over and over again.  You, however, are officially no fun: You’re never going to borrow anymore money from them.  Why play nice?

So that part made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  Then there was the section about saving money, where the tip was to assign each household chore a specific monetary value that you would’ve had to pay a housecleaner in order for it to be done, and then pay yourself that amount.  No, wait: It gets even better.  They said to put the money in a savings account instead of spending it - that way, you’ll have a nice fat savings account, and a clean house!

Yeah…Not so much.  If I could afford to pay a cleaning woman to clean my house A) I would and B) Why would I be reading this book?  And even if I did, do you honestly think I’d have the self control to clean my house, give myself money for cleaning, and then not spend that money?  Not a chance, Sunshine, not a chance.  But it wasn’t just cleaning the house - they suggested doing the same thing for mowing your lawn, repairing household appliances, and other chores like that.  I wasn’t impressed.

There were a few ideas scattered in there that I hadn’t heard before, but overall, it was a recycling of the same generic tips you hear everywhere, not to mention a few tips that completely led you astray, and more tips than I care to think about that just left me scratching my head.

I just can’t give Living Well higher than 2.75 out of 5 stars.  It was a disappointment - there are better books out there on this subject.  I’ll be reviewing a favorite of mine, The Tightwad Gazette, later on.  Watch for that.

Havs

PS Looking for some thrifty tips?  Be sure to visit A Frugal Mom here at Today - she’s got a great blog packed with good ideas.