"It is snowing outside right now and I am writing a book review for a wonderful volume that I can highly recommend.. It is called Mama's Home Remedies, and is written by Svetlana Konnikova, formerly a journalist in the Soviet Union.It is a How-to-Autobiography that recounts not only a wide variety of natural remedies, but how they were learned at the feet of her mother and grandmother, with a wonderful potpourri of folk and fairy tales, and modern and ancient natural science interspersed between.
Most books like this, when something is wrong, you go into them, find the subject in the index, and then look up the suggestions for helping alleviate it. This book does that too, but in addition, when life is stressful and you are looking for relief, you can open this book and escape into the fairy tales, folk stories and life's adventures of Svetlana and her family, along with fascinating explorations of such things as ancient Druid beliefs about trees or the instincts animals have for healing themselves that we can learn to emulate in our lives as well.
Mama's Home Remedies is so well organized, with everything arranged in bullitted boxes, numbered lists, (also boxed,) and boxed sidebars containing the stories, that everything is ridiculously easy to find. Usually you have to dig through a book to find a fact remembered but not bookmarked. Not so here. All you need to do is remember the topic, or chapter. Once there, a quick thumbing through the pages will take you directly to the right box, and there you are. It is a model for the way I am going to lay out my upcoming books.
In the few short weeks I have had the book, it has earned a place on the bookshelf right next to my computer, so that when I need a break, it is right at hand. It is a marvelous vehicle for stress relief. She has a whole chapter on stress, but nowhere does she mention picking up her book and reading a few pages as one of the ways. She should. "
Mama's Home Remedies: Discover Time-Tested Secrets of Good Health and the Pleasures of Natural Living is a tribute to the old wives' wisdom that transcends modernity. It will inspire you to reach for your vegetable pantry before you head for the pharmacy. Among other things, the instrinsic magic of beets, potatoes, and wine grape leaves are revealed in these pages. Written by Svetlana Konnikova who grew up in the vineyards of Moldova, this book tells us to return to our roots literally.
Part natural living guide, part naturopathic treatise, Mama's Home Remedies offers all kinds of advice women used to glean at the kitchen table as they nourished their families' hearts, bodies and souls. Cabbage leaves applied to the forehead can alleviate headaches. Inhaling the steam from potato water drains your sinuses. My all-time favorite for the winter blues: pomegranate juice.
As we speed along in our rapid-fire lifestyles, we're lucky to have Ms. Konnikova's immense knowledge wrapped in Mama's Home Remedies' 314 pages. The next time I'm faced with a health challenge, I will seek a gentler solution straight from Mother Nature, the world's first and only true healer.
~Christine Louise Hohlbaum, author of Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff and Sahm I Am: Tales of a Stay-at-Home Mom in Europe, is a PR consultant and freelance writer who lives near Munich, Germany, with her husband and two children.The word "unique" is terribly overused in our society and rarely is true. In the case of Mama's Home Remedies, unique is an understatement. First and foremost, it contains a wealth of information, including some I've never seen in any of our many books on the topic of natural health and healing.
There are several types of material in this book, from remedies to recollections, quotes, fables and more. You soon discover that each has its own special format. It's odd to focus or even notice the design of most books, but the very layout with illustrations is in itself a healing element.
Open the book and your eyes, and then the part of you starving for something only nature provides, draws you in. It sounds crazy, but it's visceral. I can't open the book without feeling transported to another time and place. . . one that is tied deeply to the earth itself.
We can attribute that to author Svetlana Konnikova's Russian background. She opens a wondrous world that is almost magical compared to our streamlined, cut-to-the-chase culture. It's Narnia for health nuts.
Knowledge is woven with wisdom. With this book as a trusted compass, you'll soon see how far off course our modern world has gone, and find the path back with simple, practical remedies from nature.
Read it with a purpose to find a specific remedy or open to a page and start reading. Either way, you'll find a treasure.
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