Arthur presents an extensive compendium of advice and information that can be utilized by readers seeking to change their lives for the better.
While Arthur’s work seeks to be a book about crisis management, promising to help “a person in a crisis situation to become stable, healthy and joyful,” it is so exhaustingly thorough in defining and addressing the myriad of crises one might encounter—from miscarriage to torture—as well as the many possible ways one’s life might be improved—from finding the right job to getting a good night’s sleep—that it’s unlikely to be of much value to a reader truly in crisis. A rape victim, for instance, would be better served by a book about rape than one that also includes extensive, if accurate, information about self-mutilation and mental illness. This book could, however, prove quite valuable to its other intended audience, “those that are in their comfort zones and have decided it is time to make some positive changes in their lives.” The material, on a vast range of topics, from time management to meditation, financial health to food safety, as well as snoring, addiction, humor, brain development and countless others, is well organized and lucid, if frequently un-sourced. Advice like “[w]henever you seek something better in your life, you may have to let something else go in order to get it” doesn’t need to be referenced. But the claim that “orange improves social behavior” surely should be, but is not. Nor is the reader provided with any biographical information about the author, such as what his credentials are or how he came to write this book. While there is little that is new in these pages, and it’s too broad and encyclopedic to serve a reader in the midst of coping with a real crisis, there’s enough useful information and sound advice here to make it a good choice for the reader who wants to work toward a life that is more “stable, healthy and joyful.” Though much sifting may be required, Arthur’s book is a valuable resource for those looking to better themselves.
Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2010
ISBN: 978-0979335716
Page Count: 350
Publisher: Balance Integration Group
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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