Since the start of 2019, I have read over 100 books. My goal for this year is to read 150 books. If you have set a read­ing goal for 2019 and you are nowhere near it, here are some rec­om­men­da­tions to get your read­ing mo­jo on. It was hard to nar­row down some of my favourite reads for the year so far, but these are a few books I can­not stop talk­ing about.

So your part­ner has a best-friend of the op­po­site sex. Dis­cov­er the truth about what is ac­cept­able when your spe­cial some­one has a su­per close friend that makes you ques­tion their re­al mo­tive(s).

In­deed, we are al­ways seek­ing to sat­is­fy the in­ter­est/psy­che of any po­ten­tial client and there is an ever so gra­cious style of en­gage­ment, which is re­quired to do so. As Steve Jobs af­firms, "Get clos­er than ever to your cus­tomer. So close that you tell them what they need well be­fore they re­alise it them­selves."

Just over three years ago, the land where The Skin Health In­sti­tute now sits was derelict; an aban­doned res­i­dence in des­per­ate need of TLC. Many would have writ­ten it off, but its po­ten­tial caught the eye of Dr Rachael Eck­el - an award-win­ning cos­met­ic doc­tor whose vi­sion has trans­formed Port-of-Spain’s vis­age, as well as the skin health of its clien­tele. In part­ner­ship with ar­chi­tects and in­te­ri­or de­sign­ers from La­gu­na Beach, Cal­i­for­nia, the build­ing has been con­vert­ed in­to a beau­ti­ful, mod­ern space, with crisp lines and nat­ur­al el­e­ments - per­haps an echo of the skilled work that takes place there. When you walk through the doors, you in­stant­ly feel the sense of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and glam­our that the space brings, and know that your skin is in safe hands.

Did you ever have a headache that was so bad, you just had to take a day off from work to re­cu­per­ate? Was it so strong that bright lights and loud nois­es were am­pli­fied times a thou­sand, and the slight­est scent made you feel like throw­ing up? Did pain lance across your head, even to your face in ways that on­ly painkillers can un­der­stand? If you can iden­ti­fy with these, then you know that a mi­graine is no or­di­nary headache.

Do you think it’s delu­sion­al to be­lieve that your thoughts en­cap­su­late or are re­spon­si­ble for your en­tire well­be­ing?

Olive oil is es­sen­tial­ly a fruit ob­tained from the fruit of the olive tree. This tree is na­tive to the Mediter­ranean re­gion where it is wide­ly used for cook­ing. Olive oil is al­so used in cos­met­ics, med­i­cine and soaps, and while it orig­i­nat­ed in the Mediter­ranean, it is now a sta­ple in homes world­wide.

As the gen­er­a­tions go on, teenagers are be­com­ing more aware of their sex­u­al­i­ty at younger ages. To help pro­tect them from the risk of get­ting sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted dis­eases, it is im­por­tant to ed­u­cate and make them aware of the ways in which they can pro­tect them­selves.

Si­mone Da Cos­ta is a yo­ga teacher and mind-body ther­a­pist. A mind-body ther­a­pist is any trained pro­fes­sion­al who us­es var­i­ous tools to ac­cess both the mind and the body to move to­wards heal­ing. Such tools that are in­cor­po­rated with the con­sent of the in­di­vid­ual are: guid­ed med­i­ta­tions, im­agery, mind­ful­ness and tra­di­tion­al talk ther­a­py or coun­selling.

In­juries are one of the lead­ing caus­es of death in chil­dren and young peo­ple, but most child­hood in­juries can be pre­vent­ed with some sim­ple ac­tions. Here are some tips on how to pre­vent some of the com­mon types of ac­ci­dents seen in the emer­gency room:

Tat­too­ing is an in­dige­nous art form that has been prac­ticed across the globe since the very ear­ly days of mankind. One day in 2017, de­spite not re­al­ly know­ing each oth­er, Gesiye Souza-Okpo­fab­ri and Maya Cross-Lovelace went to talk to Obasi Springer about their (per­son­al) tat­too ideas and left as tat­too ap­pren­tices. Be­fore that day, the two had nev­er spent time to­geth­er. Al­though they at­tend­ed Bish­op Anstey High School at the same time for five years, they some­how nev­er even met. How­ev­er, as fate would have it, they met when they did, to go on this cre­ative jour­ney to­geth­er.

It is quite in­con­testable, my phi­los­o­phy on Caribbean fash­ion. I am ex­hil­a­rat­ed by the bound­aries be­ing pushed by our im­agers and styl­ists. No longer are we sim­ply copy­ing what we see in in­ter­na­tion­al mag­a­zines. We are cre­at­ing our style tem­plates, in­deed, in­flu­enced by glob­al trends, but not lim­it­ed to repli­cat­ing what is deemed the in-thing by met­ro­pol­i­tan cognoscen­ti.