A standout look at the power of New World Meditation.
Gray (Focusing—Learn from the Masters, 2013) and Truslow offer a lively, profound meditation guide.
The authors begin this concise yet thorough handbook with a discussion of the inner workings of the brain. It focuses on the idea that early memories and actions provide the foundation for humans’ self-images and cognitive thought patterns. Gray points out that the resulting need for understanding and awareness is a chronic human problem (“We are constantly trying to meet the expectations of our parents and what we perceive as the requirements of society, rather than following our own personal truth”). New World Meditation, they believe, is the answer to realizing human potential, as it offers a total connection between the physical and mental realms, which the authors call “Body/Mind Wisdom.” It’s built upon the Buddhist practice of mindfulness meditation, and in the book’s second part, Gray and Truslow guide readers on how to build a daily New World Meditation practice. They put inexperienced readers at ease by addressing the difficulties of “resistance,” and providing advice on how to achieve more advanced levels of self-inquiry. In the third section, the authors go into more detail about the practice’s healing powers, and deal with issues of fear, shame, abandonment and forgiveness. They close the book by talking about existential crises and achieving awakening. Overall, this is an engaging look at the potential of New World Meditation, which is enhanced by interwoven anecdotes that draw parallels to the authors’ own lives. This personal touch lends the book an authoritative but inviting tone. Additionally, the authors’ writing style and adherence to a logical structure makes the sections about history, medicine and the finer details of neurology fit together seamlessly. Mindfulness is both a trendy and a timeless subject, and the authors provide a fine introduction to it that allows readers to expand their own practice.
A standout look at the power of New World Meditation.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499638851
Page Count: 202
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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