01 | August | 2016 | Rebeccabookreview

update concept

July was a crazy busy month. I feel like I’m barely keeping up this month just with work and house stuff so there has been pretty much no time for reading. I’ve been trying to keep up with deadlines but I’ve fallen WAY behind. Luckily I am participating in ARC August again this year so I can use this month to hopefully catch up a bit! Anyways, here’s my progress for July.

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 7
# pages read this month: 1,763
# books read year-to-date: 71
# pages read year-to-date: 22,253

Favorite Books I Read:

How The Duke Was Won by Lenora Bell – 4.0 stars
The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel – 4.0 stars

Books I Didn’t Particularly Enjoy:

I didn’t really have any books in July that I didn’t enjoy. I had books that didn’t exactly thrill me but I still found them enjoyable for the most part.

Status of 2016 Reading Challenges:

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2016 Checklist – 18/20 books read
Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge – 7/24 books read
Penguin Random House: Challenge Your Shelf A-Z Reading Challenge – 0/26 books read

August TBR list:

I have a rough TBR list on my ARC August Sign Up post that I’ll be working off of but other than that I don’t have a set TBR list for this month. My focus is more to get as many of the ARC’s on my back list read as I possibly can. I hate that I fell so behind and I’m hoping I can use August to catch up. I might end up straying off the list a little anyways depending on which new ARC’s pop up on my schedule. I’m very excited too for August since mid-month I’ll be going on vacation with my Dad to a house owned by his family off the southern coast of Maine. There is no electricity on the island and no wi-fi and very little cell signal. I can’t wait to unplug for a week and just read and relax and spend time with my family! Hope you all have a wonderful month as well!

Title: The Patient’s Resource and Almanac of Primary Care Medicine
Author: Agnes Oblas
Date finished: 7/31/16
Genre: Non-fiction
Publisher: New Paths to Healthcare, LLC
Publication Date: October 24, 2014
Pages in book: 156
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Author/publisher NOTE: I received this book for free from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

The Patient’s Resource and Almanac of Primary Care Medicine includes essays on medical topics of interest to the lay reader; common diseases or conditions are presented with illustrations, and easy to understand graphs or charts. Resources are also identified for more in depth information.The Patient’s Resource and Almanac of Primary Care Medicine serves as a basic reference and guide to 30 common medical- and health-related topics. Readers will find these topics to be pertinent, helpful, and reader-friendly. The essays are presented with resources, fun facts, and timelines, etc., to make the reading even more enjoyable. Some of the essays also include a section called “The Savvy Healthcare Consumer,” which highlights points about that essay’s topic which the reader should be aware of as it relates to a visit to a healthcare provider. You will find these essays free of medical jargon (or with definitions included) yet scientifically and medically sound. My purpose is to educate and clarify some complex medical issues while at the same time allowing the reader to enjoy the experience!

My rating: 3.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. Also, this book will count towards my Book Riot 2016 Read Harder reading challenge, marking off the “read a nonfiction book about science” since this book contained a lot of medical and other scientific information. This was a nonfiction book and is a short resource that discusses a number of common medical issues like heart disease, headaches, and fever as well as more complicated issues like the functions of different organs of the body and the functions of certain medications. There was also a lot of historical information included in each section on the background of the ailment or medicine and how over the years the medical information on the subject progressed. While this wasn’t something I normally would have chosen on my own for recreational reading, it had some useful information and I think it would make a good household resource.

The bottom line: This wasn’t something I would normally pick out for myself but I must say it was full of useful information. This is a great resource to keep on hand for referencing concerning ailments like headaches and fever and even thyroid-ism and cancer.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page