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NIGHT

NIGHT LIFE, NIGHT LANGUAGE, SLEEP, AND DREAMS

Although pleasing to read and informative, this exploration of the elements of night ultimately lacks cohesion. London-based Alvarez (The Savage God, not reviewed, etc.) sets out to investigate the sinister power that he claims darkness has always held for human beings. He looks at myths and religions in which ``godhead equals light equals order; chaos equals darkness equals fear.'' After giving a history of human attempts to banish the darkness, from fire to electricity, Alvarez jumps to discussions of his own childhood fear of the dark, the history of sleep research and dream analysis, crime, and night life. The section on sleep research—ranging from the definition of consciousness to the discovery of REM sleep—is clear and understandable and he makes intriguing use of literature in relation to scientific conclusions about sleep. Unfortunately, it's not enough to bind the various elements of the narrative together. Each section, from the self-analytical explanation of a childhood phobia to the research into nighttime crime in modern cities, stands as a separate entity, and the text skips from one concept to another with no warning or reason. The longest section deals with the dual sciences of sleep research and dream analysis and their effects on writers and writing. It is here that Alvarez adds something new to this subject, by applying the knowledge gained from these disciplines to poets as diverse as Coleridge, who suffered from nightmares, and the Surrealists, for whom dreams were a model for creative expression. Only in the last sentence of the book does Alvarez overtly address the concept of death, an idea that is always just under the surface of his text, but it appears too suddenly and is left hanging, unexplored. Like the dreams that are dissected and explained at length, the connections here are just too unclear. (Illustrations, not seen)

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-393-03724-X

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1994

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WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE

Honest messages from one of America's best known women.

A compilation of advice from the Queen of All Media.

After writing a column for 14 years titled “What I Know For Sure” for O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine, Winfrey brings together the highlights into one gift-ready collection. Grouped into themes like Joy, Resilience, Connection, Gratitude, Possibility, Awe, Clarity and Power, each short essay is the distilled thought of a woman who has taken the time to contemplate her life’s journey thus far. Whether she is discussing traveling across the country with her good friend, Gayle, the life she shares with her dogs or building a fire in the fireplace, Winfrey takes each moment and finds the good in it, takes pride in having lived it and embraces the message she’s received from that particular time. Through her actions and her words, she shows readers how she's turned potentially negative moments into life-enhancing experiences, how she's found bliss in simple pleasures like a perfectly ripe peach, and how she's overcome social anxiety to become part of a bigger community. She discusses the yo-yo dieting, exercise and calorie counting she endured for almost two decades as she tried to modify her physical body into something it was not meant to be, and how one day she decided she needed to be grateful for each and every body part: "This is the body you've been given—love what you've got." Since all of the sections are brief and many of the essays are only a couple paragraphs long—and many members of the target audience will have already read them in the magazine—they are best digested in short segments in order to absorb Winfrey's positive and joyful but repetitive message. The book also features a new introduction by the author.

Honest messages from one of America's best known women.

Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2014

ISBN: 978-1250054050

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Flatiron View Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014

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  • New York Times Bestseller


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  • Rolling Stone & Kirkus' Best Music Books of 2020

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OPEN BOOK

An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.

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  • New York Times Bestseller


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  • Rolling Stone & Kirkus' Best Music Books of 2020

The debut memoir from the pop and fashion star.

Early on, Simpson describes the book she didn’t write: “a motivational manual telling you how to live your best life.” Though having committed to the lucrative deal years before, she “walked away,” fearing any sort of self-help advice she might give would be hypocritical. Outwardly, Simpson was at the peak of her success, with her fashion line generating “one billion dollars in annual sales.” However, anxiety was getting the better of her, and she admits she’d become a “feelings addict,” just needing “enough noise to distract me from the pain I’d been avoiding since childhood. The demons of traumatic abuse that refused to let me sleep at night—Tylenol PM at age twelve, red wine and Ambien as a grown, scared woman. Those same demons who perched on my shoulder, and when they saw a man as dark as them, leaned in to my ear to whisper, ‘Just give him your light. See if it saves him…’ ” On Halloween 2017, Simpson hit rock bottom, and, with the intervention of her devoted friends and husband, began to address her addictions and underlying fears. In this readable but overlong narrative, the author traces her childhood as a Baptist preacher’s daughter moving 18 times before she “hit fifth grade,” and follows her remarkable rise to fame as a singer. She reveals the psychological trauma resulting from years of sexual abuse by a family friend, experiences that drew her repeatedly into bad relationships with men, most publicly with ex-husband Nick Lachey. Admitting that she was attracted to the validating power of an audience, Simpson analyzes how her failings and triumphs have enabled her to take control of her life, even as she was hounded by the press and various music and movie executives about her weight. Simpson’s memoir contains plenty of personal and professional moments for fans to savor. One of Kirkus and Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2020.

An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-06-289996-5

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2020

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