Sonali T. Sikchi
Sonali T. Sikchi is an award-winning Seattle-based freelance writer with feature articles and book reviews published in international, national, regional and online publications, such as Facts on File encyclopedias, History Magazine, Alaska Airlines Magazine, Horizon Air Magazine, Association of Women in Science magazine, Midwest Book Review, San Diego PlanetGuru and many others. As a freelance editor and proofreader, Sonali has worked with authors, magazines, book publishers and nonprofit organizations, such as Washington Trails magazine, Scribe & Quill, The Mountaineers Books, The CarTours Foundation and others. She can be reached online at http://home.comcast.net/~sonali_sikchi.
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Articles by Sonali T. Sikchi
August 19, 2011
In order to foster a lifelong reading habit, it´s crucial to read to three-year-old children every day. Set aside two times in the day when your child is most relaxed and intellectually alert to follow the story. A soothing pre-bedtime ritual with previously read books, or sometimes the same book every night for a few weeks works really well with three-year-olds.
December 12, 2006
F is for Fugitive (St. Martin's, 2005) is Sue Grafton's fifth alphabet mystery starring the intrepid tough California private eye Kinsey Millhone.
Millhone is approached by the father of the accused killer in her office in Santa Teresa, California, where she is recovering from the wounds of her p...
December 12, 2006
Match Me If You Can (William Morrow, 2005) is a sophisticated modern romp by Susan Elizabeth Phillips, SEP to her fans. The book is set in the Windy City, among the glittering world of the "grossly overpaid, terminally pampered professional football players of northern Illinois" and one perennially ...
November 03, 2006
To rile themselves up, footballers huddle, soldiers sing, and me? I read syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer's drivel published in the Seattle Times on Mondays and Ellen Goodman's puff on Fridays.
Charles Krauthammer claims that Japan's natural interests parallel America's ion the Pacific Ri...
October 23, 2006
Syndicated columnist Shaunti Feldhahn (scfeldhahn@yahoo.com) writes in the October 10 issue of the Seattle Times, "Sexual abuse is a serious crime that is devastating to the victim" but "pedophilia is more serious than adult assault." Syndicated Columnist Diane Glass (w2wcolumn@gmail.com) believes, ...
October 23, 2006
It is 1938. The river Ganga follows gently through the Indian city of Benares (known as Varanasi in ancient times). Gandhi's star is in ascendance, as is India's independence movement against British rule. But Gandhi's non-violent protests aren't just against the foreigners, but also against the ign...
October 08, 2006
While not quite Georgette Heyer, Mary Jo Putney's 1988 classic from Signet Regency The Would-be Widow, Jo Ann Ferguson's 2001 Zebra Regency His Lady Midnight, and Patricia Oliver's 1993 Signet Regency The Runaway Duchess hearken back to the days when kisses were the epitome of spine-tingles in roman...
October 05, 2006
People's view of the world can be a source of happiness or stress and anxiety depending upon how they interpret events and how extremely they react to them. In other words, their mindset determines the quality of their life.
People who consider their personality and intelligence as unchangeable ...
October 04, 2006
"Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."
So begins writer Joan Didion's book, chronicling her life in the wake of the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne and the grave illness of her daughter Quintana. The Year of Magical Thinking (Knopf, 2005, ISBN ...
November 06, 2005
Trash Talk: an inspirational guide to saving time and money through better waste and resource managementBy Dave & Lillian BrummetPublishAmerica, BaltimoreISBN 141372518X, 190 pp., 2004, $19.95
In Trash Talk, Dave and Lillian Brummet explain how to implement their "Refuse, Reduce and Reuse" princip...
September 21, 2005
Hattie, Get A Haircut!By Jenna GlatzerMoo Press, Warwick NYISBN 0972485309, 32 pp., 2005, $19.95
Hattie, Gets A Haircut! is the perfect book for a child who squirms and wails during visits to the salon. With lyrical writing and lively illustrations, the story fairly dances across the page with Ha...
September 16, 2005
1. Notice your newborn sneezing three times in a row.
2. Call pediatrician's office right away. Doctor says all newborns sneeze, nothing to be concerned about.
3. Fret.
4. Boot up your computer and pull up your favorite search engine. Type "newborn sneeze." Get 49,000 hits.
5. Disbelieve...
September 15, 2005
Who would you rather have in a crisis: a leader elected democratically by people whose ideology you may not share, or a dictator whose ideology you definitely don't share? Most people would loudly proclaim democracy over dictatorship any day, any situation.
That is fine when you aren't in the mid...
September 11, 2005
Psychologists heatedly debate whether the personalities of human beings are solely the product of their inborn genes, or whether humans are the product of ambient influences, or both.
I fall in the third group, believing that while we are born with many personality predilections, the environment ...
August 24, 2005
Pray tell, why are American readers avidly attracted to Regency Romances? We are by far the largest consumers of romance novels of that period, easily outstripping the English whose history this is.
The glitter and glamour of aristocracy and royalty is a huge draw for those of us starved of such ...
August 03, 2005
"Someone Not Really Her Mother" (Dutton, 2004, ISBN 0525947930) is a hauntingly beautiful new book by Harriet Scott Chessman.
The first time I encountered anyone with Alzheimer's disease was in Dame Judi Densch's portrayal of Iris Murdoch in the movie "Iris." While we observe all the frightening ...
August 03, 2005
"The Stories of English"By David CrystalOverlook Press, New YorkISBN 1585676012, 584 pp., 2004, $35
"The Stories of English" should ideally be a textbook for the "History of the English Language 101" course. However, Crystal's superbly crafted and meticulously researched tome makes complex lingui...
August 03, 2005
"One Blue Star"By Mindy Phillips LawrenceRed Engine PressISBN 0974565253, 68 p., 2004, $9.95
Till I read Mindy Phillips Lawrence's work, I remained convinced that the art of evocative, multi-layered poetry died with the Romantic Poets. Lawrence has convinced me otherwise with her "tour de force" ...
August 03, 2005
"The Jane Austen Book Club"
By Karen Joy Fowler
G.P. Putnam's Sons , New York
ISBN 0399151613, 288 p., 2004, $23.95
People magazine has declared us to be living in "a Jane Austen moment." What has, suddenly, unexpectedly, made Austen so hip? In 1995, Hollywood actress Emma Thompson and direct...
August 03, 2005
"The Devil Wears Prada"
By Lauren Weisberger
Broadway Books, New York
ISBN 0767914767, 368 p., 2004, $13.95
With a killer title and a stint on her resume as an assistant to Anna Wintour, the powerful editor of "Vogue" magazine, Lauren Weisberger brings us a fictitious tale of a young college g...
August 03, 2005
"The Bookman's Promise"
By John Dunning
Pocket Books, New York
ISBN 0743476298, 470 p., 2005, $7.99
"The Bookman's Promise" is part historical fiction, part book collector arcana, part cop thriller and part romance. It is the newest addition to the series featuring former Denver cop turned r...
August 03, 2005
"The Blackbird Papers"
By Ian Smith
Doubleday, New York
ISBN 0385511361, 326 p., $24.95
Wilson Bledsoe, a Nobel-prize winning wealthy Dartmouth professor of ethnobiology, is a popular teacher, a sought-after doctorate advisor, in a loving marriage, an owner of a red Mercedes, and is one of few...
July 29, 2005
"The Last Kingdom"
By Bernard Cornwell
HarperCollins Publishers, New York
ISBN 0060530510, 352 p., $25.95
Bernard Cornwell is indeed a masterful storyteller. In "The Last Kingdom," he combines history, war strategies, romance, political intrigue, bloody battles and unforgettable people with ve...