Full Disclosure: I edited this book and contributed creatively to the cover design.
Here is how The Poetic Prisoner’s back cover describes the book:
Talented Poet, Taym Doraj takes you on an emotional adventure in The Poetic Prisoner (Breaking Free Vol. 1).
Taym shares poems about his time in prison, his battle with addictions, crime, mental health, broken and dysfunctional family ties during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this book you’ll find poems about dark times, the desire to change, love, connection, hope and being inspired to transform his life. From life going all wrong, to a positive vibes mindset developed from God, yoga and meditation.
One of the reasons I love this book is because everyone of the poems are brilliant. Taym has a really engaging writer’s voice and tackles tough subjects well. He uses the imagery of dark and light throughout this book and shares how he transformed his life from negative to positive.
Taym hopes to use his life experiences and this book to inspire people to be healthier and happier. It’s a fantastic book that deserves your attention and is thoroughly enjoyable to read. Like most poetry books it is short at just 47 pages. But Taym is clever and doesn’t waste a single word.
I tend to keep my files (documents, photos, music & video) on WD external hard drives. I don’t use cloud storage, as I dislike subscription services and their ever increasing prices. Plus, I have a lot of files, so it gets expensive and relies too much on the internet. One of the pluses of external hard drives are that they are portable, so I can physically share larger files with family/friend easily.
But there are minuses with my current system. First transfers for larger files can be slow, second that there’s always a chance of hard drive failure – particularly with external hard drives that have moving parts, like the ones I’m currently using. So I decided that it was time to upgrade to SSD (solid state drives), which boast faster transfer speeds and no moving parts. Think of them as large capacity pen drives.
I opted for two different branded 4TB models, one a Samsung T7 Shield (4TB) and the other SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD (4TB). The reason I opted for the Samsung drive is trust in the brand. The reason I opted for SanDisk was because of the colour.
It may sound odd, but different colours enable me to identify my drives more easily. I did try to get a Samsung T7 Shield in blue (in desperation I even considered beige) but both blue and beige 4TB models were out of stock everywhere.
It’s tiny. It literally fits in the palm of my hand, see image above.
Its firmware was up-to-date. This was a nightmare to check, SanDisk’s website is easy enough to find to check. But seeing the tiny serial number on the back of the device I found difficult.
It feels nice in the hand and has a hole for attaching to backpacks, not that I’ll ever use this feature.
It was easy to set up.
It gets very hot during use.
It is much faster than my previous hard drive.
I am concerned about failure or data loss as I found this video online when looking for reviews of the product, after I bought the product and was waiting delivery. I probably wouldn’t have bought this product had I have known this information prior to purchase:
In Survivor, Kieran shares his journey through addiction to alcohol, his heartbreak at ending his marriage to a narcissist and his emotional traumas from his earlier years.
It is a wonderfully inspiring read and includes literature in its various forms including poems, essays, quotes and even a playlist. The title of his book sums him up completely: Kieran is a survivor.
Kieran covers every aspect of where his addiction to alcohol took him, from his very first taste of an alcoholic drink, through the dark depths of active addiction and withdrawal and out the other end and into active recovery. Along the way he shared what worked for him, what didn’t and all the things he learned along the way.
Survivor is an brilliantly honest account of where addiction/dependency, a narcissistic partner and past traumas can lead to a person. But it is uplifting at the same time.
The book is written in an easy to read and engaging style. It demonstrates Kieran’s unique writers voice and is a piece of creative work that he should be very proud of.
I am pleased to report that Kieran’ story also has a satisfying happy ending. Kieran gets sober, at the time of writing this review he has been sober for more than a year. In the year sober, Kieran has completely transformed his life.
Kieran has rebuilt his confidence and self-esteem destroyed by his narcissistic ex-partner. Kieran has rediscovered his formally oppressed identity and learned to love himself once again. Kieran has faced past traumas and began working on healing and letting go of these traumas.
Kieran has gone on to write, edit and publish a further book titled Recovered, that I can’t wait to read. He is healthy and happy. I can’t wait to see what this amazing man does next.
In James Acaster’s Classic Scrapes, James shares stories from his life. Some of them he’s shared on Josh Widdicombe’s radio show.
These stories are ‘scrapes’ because of the situations James finds himself in and how he scrapes by. These stories are hilarious, particularly because he doesn’t appear to learn from past experiences.
What’s wonderful about James, is that he seems to aimlessly wonder through life, has a rather unique perspective on the world and the people around him.
The book made me laugh (out loud at times) and one thing I learned from it was: Never get in a car if James Acaster is driving. Honestly, I don’t know how this wonderful man is still alive.
If you want a light entertaining read, then this book is for you. By the end of it, you feel like you know James and his way of thinking. You can’t help but find this man strangely endearing and wanting him to do well in the future.
Review soon,
Antony
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Saturday 17 February 2024
About
Antony Simpson - Author, Blogger, Nurse & Witch.
Author of eight books.
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