An intriguing but uneven treatise on serendipity.
In this nonfiction book, a successful entrepreneur contends that people should embrace chance, which necessarily shapes their lives.
According to Tank, humans are hardwired to depreciate the role of randomness in their lives, and correspondingly exaggerate the extent to which they control their own fates. The illusion of this mastery of personal destiny is a consoling comfort, the reassurance that while unanticipated disasters befall others, one can adequately prepare. But chance in fact asserts itself constantly in people’s affairs, the author contends, and is permanently woven into the fabric of human existence. Unpredictable events can change people definitively—Tank calls these moments “catalysts”—and often such experiences are not the stuff of great drama, but rather are deceptively quotidian. For example, Stephen Hawking, the eminent physicist, did not see his struggle with ALS as the decisive factor that fashioned his character, but rather his engagement to his future wife, which filled him with a life-affirming purpose. The author furnishes numerous, richly detailed examples of catalysts—the book includes captivating profiles of diverse figures such as actor Charlize Theron and former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, whose success seemed to depend on fortuity. Still, the work’s chief argument mainly offers a dose of common sense, that humans do not enjoy Godlike control over the future and so should embrace randomly delivered serendipity: “Catalysts are beyond our control. So we might as well enjoy the ride.” Tank regales readers with clearly written summaries of the science that seems to support his argument, but they won’t need an introduction to crisis theory to know that unforeseen events, even disastrous ones, can later support the establishment of fortitude and even a more profound happiness. Despite all the science skillfully corralled in its favor, the book’s argument remains familiar.
An intriguing but uneven treatise on serendipity.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Tank Books Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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