by Troy Myree Sr. ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 2011
Heartfelt testimony of a prosperity theology.
A spiritual guide to personal prosperity.
Myree writes about rising from difficult circumstances with the perspective of someone who’s been there. After a successful career as a web designer and then as a pastor, the author found himself in the midst of personal and economic turmoil. A divorce, a personal bankruptcy, the loss of his church and a looming foreclosure all pushed Myree to the brink. However, after reading Rhonda Byrne’s 2006 self-help blockbuster The Secret, his attitude changed. The author’s brief work is both a testimony of his climb out of despair as well as a guide for others. After establishing his story, Myree explains how he created a website called SeriousEncouragement.com, meant to provide words of support for others experiencing personal distress. The website, it seems, has netted the author plenty of income to meet his needs and bring him to financial security. Myree explains that by recognizing one’s connection to the God of infinite supply, a believer can overcome life problems, especially financial ones, through positive thinking. He argues that every individual has the power to create success, explaining, “Whether we know it or not we have the power of creation given to us as a birthright, the power to create our lives as we desire.” Prior exposure to The Secret is helpful, though not necessary, to fully appreciate this book. Its teachings, and others espoused by the author, are indicative of the prosperity gospel and will certainly rub some Christian readers the wrong way—Myree states that some of his Christian friends questioned his beliefs after seeing that he espoused The Secret. However, he presents his message as a Christian one. Though personally engaging, this work would have benefited greatly from the proofreading skills of an editor, who would have noted typographical errors throughout.
Heartfelt testimony of a prosperity theology.Pub Date: April 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456586157
Page Count: 94
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Cheryl Strayed ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2015
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 13, 2012
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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