Squeaky Green: The Method Guide to Detoxing Your Home by Eric Ryan, Adam Lowry

Hardcover, 158 pages

Published April 1st 2008 by Chronicle Books

Title :Squeaky Green: The Method Guide to Detoxing Your Home

ISBN : 0811863913 (ISBN13: 9780811863919)

edition language : English

Synopsis at www.goodreads.com

When Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan founded Method, the environmentally friendly brand of cleaning products, they used packaging stylish enough to showcase on the counter top and pleasant aromas such as green tea and cucumber to transform household products into must-have lifestyle accessories. 

And when they coined the phrase "People Against Dirty," they weren't just talking about the stuff you track in on your shoes they also meant the toxic chemicals that make up many household detergents. 

Packed with helpful tips and surprising facts, their first book, Squeaky Green, is a totally informative and completely entertaining room-by-room guide to giving dirty the boot. Squeaky Green is rehab for chemically dependant homes.

My Comments :

I came across this book at Method's Blogger Tea Party earlier this month. Initially I thought this is just another books "teaching" us how to clean the house using their products.

Yesterday, they couriered some products to me together with this book. Nope, am not supposed to review this book. They just need me to try out their products. This book is just "additional information" for my reference.

As I flipped through the book, I found that it's actually very entertaining. Yup...usually I dislike reading Manuals or books that says Cleaning Tips as at the end each chapter they would tell me what product to use to get things clean. 

I was pleasantly surprised that this book is not one of such book. It did not drone on and on about how good is their products and nor highlight how to use their products. 

It is quite surprising that this is a straight forward book. I find myself "talking" to this book and it "answering" back. Am not cuckoo yet, okay....

Here are  example of my "conversation" :

On Antibacterial Soap 

Book : Antibacteria soap are pesticides. Meaning the ingredients in them are used to kill bugs...bla bla bla.....

Me : Oh yea? Then why is it they use it in hospital...?

Book : .American Medical Association does not recommend antibacterial soaps...they don't recommend using it at home  and don't even recommend them for use in pediatrician office...only place the recommend is in hospital... bla bla bla...antibacteria soap aren't effective at killing viruses that makes you sick.

Me : Uh...but what about flu ...touching surface that have someone with flu hand touched..I'll get from that too......

Book : ....you don't catch the common cold or flu from bacteria. You get them from viruses....

Me : *Palms on face* Science failed...

Book : .... keep in mind that antibacterial products are designed to kill living things, namely, bacterial. Guess what else is a living thing? You.

Me : .......

On Soap

Book : wash your hands with good old soap and water. Done properly, it's effective in getting rid of pesky germs

Me : But I hate to think of touching a bar of soap which others had touched with their dirty hand. Sometimes I see there are line of grimes on that bar of soup. It's just so gross

Book : Danny says, if you want to offer your family and friends a fresh piece of soap each time they wash their hands, look no further than your kitchen drawer. Run a vegetable peeler across the top to make individual soap curls' display them in a bowl in the bathroom and each guests can use a thin sliver to wash their hand clean.



Yup....this book have been fun to read.  There are a lot of helpful information in it and also opens my eyes on many things that I've taken for granted.

Overall, am giving this book full five stars and feels that every Mom or Dad should read this book at least once.

Cinderella & The Carpetbagger by Grace Robbins

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• Title : Cinderella & The Carpetbagger
• Author : Grace Robbins
• Publisher :Bettie Youngs Book Publishers
• ISBN9780988284821
• Price29.95
• CurrencyUSD
• EditionHardcover
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Synopisis from Netgalley.com


Harold Robbins’s steamy books were once more widely read than the Bible. His novels sold more than 750 million copies and created the sex-power-glamour genre of popular literature that would go on to influence authors from Jackie Collins and Jacqueline Susann to TV shows like Dallas and Dynasty. 

What readers don’t know is that Robbins—whom the media had dubbed the “prince of sex and scandal”—actually “researched” the free-wheeling escapades depicted in his books himself . . . along with his drop-dead, gorgeous wife, Grace. Now, in this revealing tell-all, Grace Robbins rips the covers off the real life of the international best-selling author. 

The 1960s and ‘70s were decades like no others—radical, experimental, libertine. Grace Robbins chronicles the rollicking good times, peppering her memoir with anecdotes of her encounters with luminaries from the world of entertainment and the arts—not to mention most of Hollywood. The couple was at the center of a globetrotting jet set, with mansions in Beverly Hills, villas and yachts on the French Riviera and Acapulco. 

Their lives rivaled—and often surpassed—that of the characters in his books. Champagne flowed, cocaine was abundant, and sex in the pre-AIDS era was embraced with abandon. Along the way, the couple agreed to a “modern marriage,” that Harold insisted upon. But Grace has the last word, and the “original Beverly Hills Housewife” lays open their fascinating, provocative roller-coaster ride—and shares her own Cinderella tale.


My Comments : 

I admit I was intrigue at how it would be like to be the wife of the world famous author of hot, steamy and sexy novels.

This book is true to its title, Grace Robbins, certainly led a Cinderella life. Plucked  from a dead end marriage into the life fame and wealth. It was amazing reading how she poke fun of herself .

It was unlike some other memoirs which I've read before in which author seems to hide their negative side and push forward their good sides . I love the way where she was being candid of the mistakes that she made and at some parts even poke fun of it. For example, the part where she ruined the deck of their yacht.

Kudos to her for being brave enough to admit that she also took some responsible on the crack of their marriage. It's amazing how a wife willing to turn a blind eye on infidelity in the name of love. She must have been hurting a lot . Also I like that there was not much "bitchiness" involved when the inevitable ending came.

The only downside of this memoir is  that my copy is e-book . Hence it was lack of photographs which usually accompany any memoirs. It would have been great if readers also gets a glimpse of some of the events mentioned in this book. Am not sure whether there are any photographs in the Hardcover version.

Overall, am giving it four stars out of five.

Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho

Synopsis from www.goodreads.com

Eleven Minutes is the story of Maria, a young girl from a Brazilian village, whose first innocent brushes with love leave her heartbroken. 

At a tender age, she becomes convinced that she will never find true love, instead believing that "love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer. . . ." 

A chance meeting in Rio takes her to Geneva, where she dreams of finding fame and fortune. 

Maria's despairing view of love is put to the test when she meets a handsome young painter. In this odyssey of self-discovery, Maria has to choose between pursuing a path of darkness -- sexual pleasure for its own sake -- or risking everything to find her own "inner light" and the possibility of sacred sex, sex in the context of love.

My Comments :

I like to thank King Hua for giving me this copy of Paulo Coelho book when I mentioned that I wish to read more of his works.

Yea, am not a novice in his work. Have read a few of his book and the one I like a lot was The Witch of Portebello. It certainly "bewitched" me

As the synopsis mentioned, this is a story of self-discovery.

This is a hard book for me to read as I tend to stop and ponder how changes happens. Change does not happens overnight. It was amazing "watching" Maria breaking the boundary which she had set one by one ; the heart break...the "what if" and lastly the choice.

Many had commented on the ending. Has the author been pressured into writing the ending to please the readers? Oh well, I guess it would be up to you to comment whether you like the ending or not.

For me, this has been the perfect read.