African-American-Health Books

This book is an excellent resource. I'm using it for an overnight session with a rites of passage program. This book also makes a great gift. It addresses the beauty concerns of young ladies, while tastefully providing the appropriate level of advice on make-up, hair, and health.

My appearance-conscientious, 13-year-old daughter finds this book helpful and positive. With Essence and Right On! magazines as our usual source for beauty advice, I found this book to be a pleasant mixture of both as it is as informative as Essence magazine with age-appropriate concepts-like Right On! magazine. Buy it!

I bought this as a gift for one of my daughter's friends a year ago. She still thanks me and tells me how much she's been able to use it and how helpful it's been. She wants me to find something just like it for her birthday this year, too. There simply aren't enough books like this for black preteen and teenage girls. She has made a lot of changes not just in how she takes care of herself, but also in the way she views herself. She's become quite the confident young lady in the past year.

I bought this book when I was a teenager and found it helpful. It does need some color pictures.

This book perpetrates years of negative media images of African American people and women in general. It contributes to the false notion that a Eurocentric physical appearance is an indicatior of African American beauty. The photograph on the front cover of the book is a fine example of this. All of the young women in the photograph have long straightened/chemically altered hair and their skin complexions range from light to medium brown. None of these young sisters are dark skinned nor do they sport natural and/or short hair styles! In addition this book contributes to the socializing of girls into being
self-consumed with beauty. A young woman's self esteem should be based on her character, her talents and her accomplishments NOT on her appearance. They must know they are special because they are respected and valued. Tips on beauty from the "Hollywood stars" and beauty tips on how to prepare for a "date" are shallow issues that do not build self-esteem, strong principals or values. Lets not insult the intelligence of our teen daughters by believing that their world ONLY consits of beauty and dates. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS BOOK! More appropriate books for young African American womens'beauty should be centered around self-love and self-acceptance. Natural beauty books that truly embrace self-love/acceptance and Afrocentricity are "No Lye" by Tulani Kinard and "Lets Talk Hair" by Pamela Ferrell. Start your daughters off with these two books. It is in these kinds of books that the "beauty" issues around self-esteem that plague so many African American women and teens today are discussed. It is also in these books that various photos of African American females of many complexions,and hair textures/lenghts and ages are shown.

I am living in my fourth marriage, so I've spent a good number of years searching for The One. Perhaps my problem in the past was that I searched haphazardly - without a plan. The last time I was single, books on female-male relationships were scarce. But now there is a proliferation of such tomes.

There are books such as "The Rules," covering that common ground where all women - regardless of race - must tread, that place where you want it known you are available but not too available. But if I were single I would pay close attention to the books that advertise themselves as being specifically for Black men and Black women. I am, after all a Black woman and I generally - though not always - centered my search for a mate within my race. There are unique conditions in which Black people live, circumstances that color our perceptions and add a different dimension to relationships.

Recently, I flipped through How To Marry A Black Man subtitled The Real Deal (and it is!) and howled while saying aloud, "Amen!" The two women authors write with such attitude: "If you are looking for "Prince Charming," get real. Are you really "Princess Diva"?" They don't advise lowering your standards, just being realistic and they use a workbook format at times to make you think twice about who you are and aren't and what you want and don't want. The authors, Monique and Cassandra cover the multicultural territory while probing more specific issues such as finding someone whose definition of blackness suits yours. They sprinkle in intimate details about their own lives, too.

Books that prompt such pondering and planning about the process of mating seem harmless but make me wonder how our fore-parents ever found each other without instructions? I guess it's because they left so much to fate. They lived without seatbelts or bike helmets or car seats for their kids. Pretty wild people, huh?

Patrice Gaines is the author of LAUGHING IN THE DARK and MOMENTS OF GRACE.

This book gives great advice on the art of attracting and intriguing the opposite sex. It is not only for Black men but all men. I am happily married now for 2 years and read this book when it first came out.
It helps you as a person get your mind around what you truly are invisioning in a spouse - what your core needs and desires are - so that you can weed out the good ones from the bad.
I hope more people will read this book so they can get a better persepctive of the games we should play versus the games we shouldn't play - namely those with ourselves - delusion.

This is a fun and deceptively easy book to read. But if you follow the advice of the authors you will find yourself getting your act together FOR REAL, and getting your priorities straight when it comes to finding the right guy to marry.

Some of the exercises in the book are just plain fun, like the pink bubble meditation, and some are hard, they really force you to take a good hard look at yourself, no rose colored glasses!

I especially like the "Word from the Brothas" sidebars because they give you a real inside take on the thoughts of men. They are surprising!

I definitely recommend this book to women who are serious about getting hitched.

I take my hat off to Monique and Cassandra for having the creative wherewithal to help sistas who are in search of a black man. Many of us moan and groan about the shortage of brothers, but these two women decided to do more than complain. I absolutely loved the book and found it to be quite informative. I appreciated how they interwove humor with a very serious subject for single sistas. All in all they gave very sound advice....get your act together and you will attract a together brotha The book is definitely worth getting!!!!!

So now not only do we women have a plethora of how-to books geared for us "needy women", but we now have a book to tell us specifically how to get a Black man, as if they have different needs/specifications from other men? Men are men, regardless of skin color. This was nothing more than a clever marketing ploy to attract the black female buyer in droves. And some of the tips were insulting. "Smile alot to let him know you like him." ??!! I'm not a friggin Barbie doll, thank you very much.

And I'm always suspect of pseudo-feminist black women writers who hyphenate their names anyway.

Even if you're not a Black woman you probably have one for a friend or co-worker. So give the sister Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett's SOOTHE YOUR NERVES. Let's face it, Black women do have much to worry about, some of which Dr. Neal-Barnett addresses: sexual assault (women of color are twice as likely to be assaulted as white women because they are seen as "easy" or lesser), violence and violent deaths of loved ones, the "acting white" stigma, teen pregnancy, discrimination, and now the "down low" phenomenon, plus the historic strength that they have modeled in a kind of two-for-one Superwoman mold. These are realities that everyone needs to understand, especially women. By reading this book, white, Hispanic and Asian women might confront their own anxieties and their own stereotypes and offer support and help to the sistahs in their lives.

However, nowhere does the book mention misogynistic hip-hop or philandering among black men. A Strong Black Woman is supposed to keep the sucker in line. Easier said than done. Nor does the book deal, except in mentioning not being able to pay for psychiatric treatment, the effect that poverty has, let alone single motherhood. Perhaps Dr. Neal-Barnett is trying to lift up the Black woman from stereotypes by portraying successful women as suffering from compulsions, anxiety, fear, and the ultimate stereotype of the Strong Black Woman, popularized in the media. She does this most effectively by portraying Black men as loving partners with frustrations of their own in dealing with their anxious mates, although not the self-destructiveness in Black men.

However, treating Black women and Black men as victims is as destructive as the Superwoman myth (are you listening, Jesse Jackson?) This sensitive, intelligent treatment of a complex subject deserves to be read and reread.

Soothe Your Nerves explores a topic that many women, especially black women, don?t discuss but find that we suffer from a lot. ?Nerves? is what we call it, when in fact we are suffering from a treatable and curable ailment called Anxiety. Many black women have been raised to believe that we shouldn?t seek or accept professional help for problems and we?ve been so conditioned to adapt to our problems that we readily don?t recognize we suffer from this condition. Using examples of people she?s knows and/or has treated, Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett exposes anxiety, panic and fear and gives advice on how treatment can turn a life around.

Soothe Your Nerves contains self-assessments to recognize Obsessive Compulsive Disorders, examines the types of drugs commonly prescribed for treatment, and even takes the time to distinguish between psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and lay personnel by degree and length of internship. She further lists websites and other helpful numbers for people seeking assistance with personal issues. I like the use of examples the best and while I don?t think that we are actually searching for ourselves through the pages, the subjects Dr. Neal-Barnett chooses to highlight are wonderfully illustrated with people we might encounter in our lives. We might encounter ourselves. A strong proponent of ?Sister Circles?, there are even examples of charters and step-by-step instruction on starting a circle.

I am especially pleased to see that faith is mentioned in the book. Oft times, as illustrated in the book, we are taught that if we pray more and seek to turn our lives more toward our Creator, all things will be solved. It is nice to be reassured that seeking professional help for a mental issue isn?t turning away from our faith but rather allowing professionals to further enhance our faith walk. Dr. Neal-Barnett even mingles her Sister Circle concept in the church. Soothe Your Nerves has opened a door enabling more people to walk through, explore and accept. Simply by reading this book, a person is taking the first step to self-discovery and self help.

I've struggled with depression and anxiety for years and felt guilty about it because black women are taught that such things only happen to weak people or to whites. This old folk tale has ruined countless lives and came close to killing me. And then I found this book. It was the first inkling that my problems didn't stem from weakness or lack of character but was a genuine illness. I've since got up the courage to see a therapist and I'm doing better than I ever have before and it all started because I happened to see this book on the library shelf.

As an African American female and a doctoral student in psychology who specializes in research and treatment of anxiety disorders, I personally and professionally recommend this book to all readers who think they may suffer from "bad nerves." It is difficult to discuss anxiety disorders in a community as easily "spooked" by talk of mental health concerns as ours is, but Dr. Barnett manages to pull it off. My only slight criticism is that Dr. Barnett seems to often make the assumption that all of her readers are not only Christian, but Southern Baptist. Other than that, this is a very much needed addition to the popular literature on anxiety in African Americans, and I hope that individuals who could benefit from this book will pick it up.

As a black woman who has suffered from "bad nerves," Dr. Angela Neal-Barnett's book "Soothe Your Nerves" was a welcomed and much-needed work in my life. Everyone has heard of the SUPER WOMAN, those women who can be mother and worker and homemaker and lover, and whatever other titles there are to staple onto her. This super woman icon is even more prevalent in the black community, and when you have a culture that for the most part, would rather work out their problems themselves instead of seek outside help, it's not hard to see why thousands of black women suffer from anxiety disorders.

What Neal-Barnett does in "Soothe Your Nerves" is first reassure women by letting them know that they are not weak because they need help, and then she explains reasons why black women-historically-have not sought outside help for their problems. From there, Neal-Barnett offers a variety of methods for women to utilize in order to begin the healing process and embark on reclaiming their lives. Outside of the great information that Neal-Barnett provides in the book, what I loved most about it is that I finally 'felt' that I was not alone, that there are others, like me, who need guidance, who need to be reassured that there is nothing wrong with them, that these problems can be removed. Neal-Barnett's book, I believe, can be used as a bridge to spark discussion and bring forth community among black women so we can create support systems and give the help that so many sisters need.

Shon Bacon

I was surprised to learn that there aren't more books of this type available for black mothers. But this book may be the only reference guide you need! A very easy read, and so full of useful information that I read it chunks at a time! The historical information is invaluable too. This would make a great gift for a special mom-to-be.

My wife & I had our first child 15 months ago. We find ourselves referring to this book on many different occasion. From what to do when the baby gets an ear infection to what to expect when weaning baby off of the bottle. A must buy, trust me, you will be glad you did!

This is an excellent book for Pregnant woman from a Black perspective. From the interesting history side stories to the added stories of black woman any black woman will find this useful throughout their pregnancy and through the first few months with baby.

Key things I liked, the section on single moms, down to earth section on going back to work, negotiating leave, creating a budget for the new baby in your life, baby names, and 100% accurate medical information. Paritically on the choices for childbirth, from birthing centers to hospitals and the medications you available now.

This a great book I will keep in my reference for my second child.

I have learned just as much from "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and could really have done without the African names/meanings and tips on how to use kente cloth in a nursery. "WHat To Expect..." is much more thorough, although a lot of the information overlaps. The pictures in "Mama's Little Baby" are great, but not sure that you'll really learn how to bathe a baby based on these pictures...Get "what To Expect" and save the money...

This book offers information needed for pregnant women but it specifically relates to the african american woman's needs. You can relate to the stories told by these women. The pictures are wonderful. mostly it prepares the woman for what to expect during each month of her pregnancy and birth. Highly recommended.

When one thinks of industrialization, the image of a factory comes to mind. However, Cowan looks at the home as a productive venue. According to Cowan's thesis in an industrial society the work women perform as homemakers is tied to technological systems just like in a factory. Work inside or outside the home utilizes electricity, gas, or petroleum as sources of power, and manufacturing and homemaking each require the use of specialized tools.

Tools used in the home help to accomplish specific tasks but, Cowan argues, they "have a life of their own" and "set limits to our work."(9) While tools define behavior within the home, it is outside institutions (manufacturing firms, advertising agents, market researchers) that "mediate"(11) which devices are available for the woman to use in the home. For example Cowan points out that the electric refrigerator likely won out over the gas-absorption design due to the aggressiveness of electric utilities verses the more conservative gas manufacturing companies between 1920 and 1950.

Notwithstanding the use of labor savings devices, women's work has not become easier or less time consuming. Affluence and technology have made a woman's role more complicated and demanding. Partly due to circumstances such as the reduction of numbers of servants available to do drudge work in the home, the change has more to due with an innate human desire for "privacy and autonomy."(149) It is a "convention so deeply imbedded in our individual and collective consciousness that even the profound changes wrought by the twentieth century have not yet shaken it."(150)

Perhaps Cowan's best example of the effects of technology on the home is the stove. Food preparation was a cooperative effort between women and men to produce a simple one-pot meal over an open hearth in pre-industrial days. While the stove reduced the man's effort to maintain the fire, it allowed more complex meals to be prepared by the woman.

If industrialization seemingly reduces the effort necessary for a women to prepare and preserve food, make and maintain clothing, or be the health provider within the home, an entirely new role came with the advent of the automobile. The woman became the household's transportation provider!

The net effect of technology on homemaking has been to reduce drudgery but not labor. While women have become more productive in the home, what time is saved is now consumed by other tasks. In a further irony house work has helped to perpetuate the idea of homemaking as women's work thus reinforcing the stereotypical inequity between genders. However the decline in domestic servants would seem to imply greater equality between classes.

Unlike market labor, women are unpaid, work in isolated workplaces, and perform as unspecialized workers. The value of housework is difficult to quantify and critics argue that household's do not "produce" anything. But is not that the goal of industry; to produce a good or provide a service? Why does homemaking have to be seen in terms of output? What about family and childrearing? These are intangibles beyond monetary value.

I had sort of avoided this book because if its title--it sounded like it was going to be one of those books about how since Year One women have been shamelessly victimized by the evil patriarchy.

Boy, was I wrong! The book is a masterpiece of American social, cultural, and technological history. In a clear and sympathetic manner, it shows how home maintenance and upkeep have gradually changed in the U.S. over time. During colonial/pioneer days, everbody in a family had essential work to do: men chopped wood, plowed, and harvested; children carried wood and water; women spun, sewed, and cooked. If anybody fell down on the job, all suffered. Gradually, things changed--men (and sometimes children) increasingly left the house to work for wages during the day.

Superficially, this makes it look like, over time, American households quit being net producers of goods (grain, milk, eggs, cloth, etc.) to net consumers of finished products (pre-made clothes, canned goods, etc.). Cowan shows that this is not exactly the case. While "hard" goods did cease to be produced at home, services--health care, cooking, cleaning, etc.--were still produced for family use. And these services, in spite of in introduction of labor-saving appliances and tools--still, to this day, require both time and skill to use. In fact, while much of the drudgery (heavy lifting and water hauling, for example) was reduced, the complexity of the duties actually increased.

Cowan writes in a very clear style, and provides excellent examples to make her points. For example, she shows how diets changed with time, and gives a number of example of "failed alternatives" to private housework (co-operatives, residential hotels, etc.) Ultimately, she shows how housework/way of life evolved to the present day--working mothers, self-serve stores, few home deliveries--with the tacit consent of both the men and the women who created our current society. It provides an insightful study of many aspects of American life, addressing including such questions as "If I have so many labor- and time-saving devices, why am I so busy and tired so much of the time?"

More work for mother? Gimmie a break!! This book attempts to further the fiction that it's women who are still doing the housework. While this may have been true 40 years ago, the feminization of the American male that's occurred since then makes this a thing of the past. Just look around! Men are pushing strollers, cleaning houses, cooking dinners, involved in selecting décor, PLUS doing all the "men's work" that they previously did, such as yard work, fixing the car, and doing all those other heavy and dirty jobs. To make matters worse, these are often men who work demanding jobs with lots of travel to bring in the money, often for wives that are just sitting home on their asses! When these men come home from a grinding business trip, the wife is on them to "be more involved," so you see them running around killing themselves around the house and with the kids while their wives are over at the spa or having coffee with their yenta friends. More work for Mother? The book we need is "Modern Marriage: What's in it for Father?"

This book is history of housework and household technology in America. Cowan's thesis is that American women have paradoxically been required to take on more and more work as "labor-saving" technologies have been adopted. At the outset of the book, Cowan seems to state that she will show that developments in technology have not really made women's lives easier, but have served to bind women ever more tightly to the home. But by the end of the book, the message seems to be slightly different: that household technology has raised society's expectations of what women should be able to accomplish in the home, and that women must now work harder because of double duty- -doing the housework in addition to holding down fulltime jobs.

The book is organized along chronological lines, starting with pre-industrial conditions, moving on to industrialization, and finishing with the years following the Second World War. Food and laundry are two topics that receive heavy focus throughout the book. Cowan points out that in the pre-industrial times, food preparation required considerable help from men, for such things as butchering animals. But once meat was available in tins, men were released from such food preparation chores, while women's work increased, since new stove technologies made it possible for women to undertake more complicated methods of food preparation. Cowan argues that laundry duties also increased following industrialization, since when fabric was homespun, people only owned a few items of clothing that were hardly ever washed, but once cheap factory-made fabric became available, people got in the habit of changing clothes quite often, resulting in mounds of items to be laundered.

But I'm not sure I fully agree with these arguments. Cowan seems to suggest that the change from cooking over an open-hearth to cooking on a stove complicated women's lives by increasing possibilities, hence expectations and time spent on the task. Had Cowan been able to observe first-hand lunch preparations over an open-hearth during a hot summer day, she might have been more appreciative of the benefits of a stove. Anyone who has visited such reenactment museums as Plimouth Plantation in July, or even tried cooking a full meal over a campfire, comes away amazed at how women managed to deal with the heat and frustrations of cooking over an open hearth, especially when wearing long skirts that were constantly prone to catching fire from drifting into the coals or getting hit with sparks. And the health benefits of having enough clothing to allow frequent laundering are also tremendous- -memoirs of even the well-to-do of the pre-industrial age are full of descriptions of the usual louse and flea colonies that were an active part of every household. Industrialization in the areas of food preparation and laundry may have not have resulted in time savings for mother, but it certainly made it possible for her to greatly increase the health and safety of herself and her family.

Cowan notes that running a household in pre-industrial conditions involved so much work that no single person could manage it alone. That's why men got married, and why anyone who could afford to hired maids. But following industrialization, Cowan argues that maids could get better-paying factory jobs, so mother got stuck doing the work of the maids. But is this really more work for mother? If the work load was so heavy that a housewife couldn't get by without a maid, and the maid disappeared consequent with the adoption of household technology, it's not that mother was stuck spending more time than ever getting her housework done, but that the new technologies enabled her to accomplish more in the time she had available. Indeed, Cowan even cites time studies that confirm that women were spending more or less the same amount of time doing housework, but they were able to accomplish far more in that time thanks to new technologies, such as automatic washers. And the problems of the double-duty mother never even arose until technology had improved enough so that a woman could hold down an outside job as well as keep the home running.

From the outset, Cowan states that this book is about the history of American housewives and their work, so she doesn't look beyond our borders for evidence that would support or negate her thesis. Her cultural blinders seem overly tight, however, when she discusses the difficulty of finding and keeping hired help as being a peculiarly American problem. Anyone who has tried to work with hired help anywhere in the world has had similar experiences- -nobody grows up wanting to be a maid. Traditionally and worldwide, maids come from an immigrant class, migrating from rural to developed areas, if not across borders, and leaving at the first opportunity of higher pay or prestige elsewhere. Living with household help has an additional disadvantage that Cowan does not consider- -the loss of privacy for the family. Perhaps letting the family cook or laundress go meant more work for mother, but the benefits of finally getting food cooked the way you like it, and not having the maid sort through the family's dirty laundry made it all worthwhile, especially if household technology made it possible to get the chores done by yourself anyway- -and get them done right for a change!

I know that it's impossible to write history free from subjective judgments. However, I have rarely encountered a history where the political leanings of the author come through so blatantly. Although Cowan never states explicitly that she is a "Marxist-feminist", the term arises in several places in the text, suggesting a clear political affinity. Cowan came of age and wrote this book in an earlier time. Today, perhaps, conditions have changed, taking the edge off the urgency of the issues she was implicitly battling by writing this book. The factual information and the window that she provides into household material culture is fascinating, if you can free it from her political agenda and wavering argumentation.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book which provides a lot of insight into why modern women still are spending an amazing number of hours doing housework, in spite of vacuum cleaners, washing machines, dryers, and dishwashers.

What's with the price??

I've read other things by this author and couldn't wait to explore this book but this price is ridiculous.

Hope it changes soon. Don't you want anybody to buy it???

**************

GLAD TO SEE THERE'S ANOTHER VERSION OF THIS BOOK OUT THERE.
SAME AUTHOR.
SAME TITLE.
BETTER REVIEWS.

KEEP LOOKING!

This is a book that every African-American woman should add to her book collection. I have referred to this book throughout my life. It has helped inform me about many issues that black women face everyday. This book has personally helped me, and others, in so many ways!

This is a book that every African-American woman should add to her book collection. I have referred to this book throughout my life. It has helped inform me about many issues that black women face everyday. This book has personally helped me, and others, in so many ways!

This book is great for Black women. It's not just a book on the health of the Black woman, but one which encourages each of us to take care of the most important person in our lives -- OURSELVES.

This book goes beyond the typical reminders about mammograms, pap smears, smoking, and HIV. Parts 4 through 6 really hit home. And the live voices of real women (Julia McMillon's story on page 567 really touched me!) made this book poignant. The photography and handy references at the end of each chapter makes this book worth every penny. As a result of reading this book, I joined the CA chapter of the Black Women's Health Project. My thanks go out to the author, Linda Villarosa! Keep up the good work.

Particularly, African-American woman have been in the dark about health issues that can cause emotional stress and issues that doctors feel we aren't smart enough to understand. On a personal note, after reading this book suggested by my mother, I found I suffered from a condition mentioned in the book that, when brought to the attention of my doctor, it was not even on her mind to check for.We all do self-diagnosis when we are ill though not necessarily the best thing, but now I can confirm what I may think with a more educated reiview of my symptoms and share in the treatment with my doctor instead of accepting the typical prescribed remedy. A "must-read" for every woman and her daughters

Audre Lorde gives a good idea of exactly what she's feeling in her journals, even down to the negative aspects of her disease that some would more than likely keep to themselves. I appreciate her frankness and willingness to open up to other women thinking the same things.

The thoughts bounced around a bit but overall I appreciate her putting her journey into words.

Lorde's book will be of interest to those battling breast cancer and feminists, but also to anyone wanting to learn from a difficult experience. Lorde teaches us how to speak out against the injuustices done women, what it's like to survive in a hostile, male-chauvinist universe. Although the book is sad the wisdom it contains readily makes up for its difficcult content. Lorde's struggle is successful because she manages to rise above the difficulties caused by breast cancer--being one-breasted, for example--and overcome them. Her book is visionary.

I cried through most of this book. Not out of pity for what Audre was going through, but simply because I have seldom seen anyone face such a crisis with such nobility and strength. On some level I think we all fear breast cancer. This book took the terror out of it for me and made me feel that if I were to end up with cancer that I would somehow come through it okay. Audre demonstrates that no matter how bad things get there is something to be learned and gained by the experience. She is a very inspiring and admirable women. She deals with the issue from both a practical, political, intellectual standpoint as well as an emotional one. I would recomend this book for anyone who has, or knows anyone with cancer, and for anyone who simply gets overwhelmed by the thought of someday getting breast cancer.She took on a tough and painful subject with the sensitivity and style of the poet she was , and gave us some wisdom to live by.

I think this is an important book for breast cancer survivors to read. It has made me think about a lot of things regarding my recovering.

However, I can't help but feel...how? Inferior? Shallow? Like a wimp? I can't even think of a word for it...for choosing to wear a prosthesis and for looking forward to my reconstruction. As if somehow, if I was a better woman or I was a better feminist or a braver survivor I could say, "Forget it!" and walk around the world proudly showing off my one-breasted-ness under my t-shirt.

This book is important because it's made me think hard about my post-cancer decisions. However, in the long run, I don't believe Lorde's opinions, experiences, and observations will be helpful for my continued survival.

If you have chosen to wear a prothesis or to get reconstruction, don't look to this book for affirmation, you will just get judgement, although Lorde opines that it is not her *intent* to judge.

I also think this book needs to be read in context of the time it was written. Breast cancer care has come a long way in the last 20 years. Lorde's belief that chemotherapy and radiation are in themselves carcinogenic may be true in the most extreme situation, in the most narrow sense, but nowadays the benefits by far outweigh the risks. Thousands upon thousands of survivors are around to attest to that.

Sadly, maybe I'm not feminist enough or woman enough to risk my life in order to make the personal political, to prove a point. In reading "The Cancer Journals", I found that Audre Lorde was. And even though it wasn't all doom and gloom, and despite her joyful exultation of the loving women that cared for her, at the end of the book I found it all a little too sad.

Following on the tremendously sensual roast-beef scene in Zami, Lourde here rejects beef after coming to terms with the oppressive white system that probably imposed hormone-ridden substandard products on people of colour. I think this is very brave. I'd like to propose that in memory of Lourde all self-respecting womyn reject mass-produced beef products. A great book. And very eye-opening.

Dr. Mulligan gave me many helpful hints for pleasing my partner, LaPhestrus. The only misnomer is the title. It is not as *simple* as she makes it out to be, as LaPhestrus is very demanding. But the bedroom demeanour tricks she suggested worked. LaPhestrus is very pleased!

I thought the book was very helpful in understanding our black men. Understanding and knowing what black men and women want and expect from each other is very important along with communication. Being the age I am, I never knew or even thought that black men fake orgasms. Totally something new to me. But overall, the book was good and interesting reading.

As a man who routinely has homosexual relations with black men, I found this book to be extremely helpful. It taught me ways to please a man that I didn't even know existed! The illistrations were scintillating!

After 4 yrs of marriage, our sex life was deterioting until I read this book..Every woman who wants to understand their black man sexually needs to keep this book by their nitestand...It opened my eyes to understand many things, I thought I knew....My own personal copy has a waiting list of 8.

Dr. Mulligan didn't put much effort into writing this book. She relied on surveys and excerts (quotes) from other authors. If anything, the quotes were more interesting than Dr. Mullligan's limited writing in the book. You better off buying the books by the other authors she quoted. Additionally, Dr. Mulligan did not give the complete results to the survey questions.

I thought this would be a good companion to another book I purchased through amazon (No Lye by Tulani Kinard). But I was a little disappointed. It gave a history on hair, and why one should consider going natural. It also covered the negative feelings many blacks have towards their own features and hair due to racism and the after-effects of slavery. It rang true, but not every person who occasionally puts in green or gray eye contacts suffers from the racial self-hatred. It almost seemed like a salon photo book. It had a lot of extension how-to pictures, but just plain natural hair was what I thought would be showcased. It gave only one page of information about locks and their care. Overall this book would be good for someone who knows nothing at all about their african hair.

The book offers lots of braided and 2-strand twist styles and how-to's for black women who want to wear the natural texture of their hair, especially those who are sick of chemically and heat-frying their hair. The styles vary from formal to every day wear, and many are suitable for the office. I'm already wearing one of the twist styles to work (I'm a full-time corporate internal auditor), and my 9-yr old daughter is wearing one of the cornrowed styles. The only thing that made me rate the book a 9 instead of 10 is that too many of the styles feature extensions--the book said they were needed to add length or fullness to the models' hair. Both my and my daughter's hair is really tightly curled, but our styles were done without extensions. My daugther's hair reaches the middle of her back, so it is as long and full as the model's extended hair in the picture we followed. Perhaps Ms. Ferrell couldn't find any black women who hadn't chemically- or heat-fried their hair off. There are a few of us out here who haven't! Although I must admit I'm saddened when I see my female relatives and friends continuously make the trek to the salon to chemically relax their hair; yet they always marvel at the length and thickness of my and my daughter's hair. About 2 years ago I quit relaxing my hair and went to texturizing (I never relax my daughters, just occasionally hot comb). Then in March of this year I learned from the "For Colored Girls..." books that texturizing is just as bad--so I stopped that. Although both our hairdo's were sometimes fuzzy and rough-looking, I held my ground (and believe me I've had to fend off bad-hair comments). I began perusing bookstores and surfing the net--hoping to find help on how to style natural hair in other than an afro. I live in Omaha which has a small black population, so I figured the chance of finding any viable solution was pretty grim. I finally found Ms. Ferrell's book one day on the net. And I am so grateful!! Thanks!! Just one more thing--if Ms. Ferrell wants models that don't need hair extensions, just get in touch with me. Bye!

I enjoyed reading this book. I learned a lot about how to care for my hair and my daughter's hair. I was surprised to learn that many of the things that I was doing to our hair was unhealthy for our hair and prevented hair growth. After reading this book, I immediately threw out the shampoos that were wrong for our hair, stopped by a beauty supply store and purchased the right kinds of shampoos, contioners, and moisturizers.

The only reason I did not give this book five stars is because I believe that there was too much emphasis on braids. Braids aren't the only style of choice for wearers of natural hair. I would liked to have seen more photos of women wearing their natural hair NOT in braids.

I was very impressed with the variety of hairstyles shown. The comments by the authors concerning black hair where very uplifting and expressed the beauty of black hair that has been overlooked and ignored in our society. I did think that the book could hav included more instruction as to how to create these lovely works of art, but all in all I found the book inspiring.

the only thing that i did not like about this book was the poor quality of the photographs. that is okay...i guess that kept the price of this book down. my mom use to wash my hair every weekend and oil my scalp with sulphur 8 OR bergamot. do you remember that? she did not let me get an relaxer until i was 15. I did not like it and let it grow out immediately and went back to pressing my hair until i turned 23. my cousins used relaxers in elementary school, way back in the early 70's when the choice of relaxers was probably 1 or 2 brands and the relaxers then were ultra harsh. they grew up with short, damaged hair that refused to grow past 3 inches and i did not. the worst thing that i did was overpress mine as a teen. i think pamela is going back to the days when our mom's use to gently comb our hair and oil our scalp while we sat between their legs. now...i go easy on the relaxers and the braids...i have been wearing a fake ponytail for 10 years or two braids squaw style and i wash my hair with creme of nature shampoo...i use a light oil
like ultra sheen, no heat and a regular alternative relaxer. brush hair with a soft brush. for color washout rinses only or i will use a light color hair piece...the results? MY HAir is down my back...let the fake hair take the abuse...want light colors? use extensions...that is what they are for to enhance and protect your fragile hair...the book is great...it does mention the light use of relaxers...relaxers are fine...moderation is the key...

This book was terrible did not help in this day and time maybe if would have bought 10 years ago but the things told to do to find a soulmate was not how it is done.

I say that because in reading and understanding the husband/wife authors, you will become humble and start looking for opportunities to become more of a soulmate to your lover or friend. I agree that a person can indeed become jaded or exasperated with the "games" that men and women play on each other! Sometimes a person wonders how did their parents or grandparents ever get together! This book was one of the FIRST of the truly HELPFUL books in the Iyanla Vanzant, Maya Angelou, Dr. Ron Elmore tradition! This one has the benefit of a very intuitive and intelligent husband and wife team aiding you in the process ! A very good investment. May the reading and applying of the information bring about a healing and lifetime love for you! Peace -ed-

This book is one that "ALL" African American couples should own. My professor used it as the main text in his class and it not only helps you understand yourself but your mate as well. It also gives you insight on why we behave in the manner in which we do, and provides exercises to help you sustain your relationships. The authors are African American Husband and Wife Psychologist who also practice what they've written.