Dwight’s wholesome love for his family and friends, and the life lessons they’ve offered, makes for an engaging account of...
In this inspirational memoir, Dwight transforms everyday lessons into essential wisdom.
Dwight, an inspirational public speaker and life coach, compiled this memoir from 50 mini essays, but it’s really a book of tiny epiphanies. Through intimate interactions with family and friends—he’s twice married and the father of three teenage daughters—Dwight experienced deeply significant life lessons that belied their simplicity. His disarming sincerity and gentle humor serve to smooth the ordinary friction of relationship-building. In one particularly illuminating essay, Dwight relates his suggestion to his daughters that they ignore their personal electronics for a weekend to experience how tech-free time could enhance their face-to-face social interactions. Dwight puts himself to the same test—he discovers, somewhat surprisingly, that he had forgotten the value of direct human contact beyond the glowing rectangles that now possess our lives. That lesson resonates in his description of his church’s mission to the Dominican Republic, where he marvels at the simple joy experienced by people in material poverty but with psychological and spiritual contentment. In this midlife perspective, Dwight pays tribute to all the people who inspired him, especially his second wife. The closing portion of the book is a hymn of praise for his spouse—he proudly details the upward trajectory of her military career that culminated in her appointment as a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy. His pride assumes added gravitas since, as a former Marine, he recognizes the formidable challenges inherent to military service. While written in a highly readable style aimed at a mass audience—references to popular films abound—readers may be surprised by the frequent steps out of Dwight’s chronology. People and events scramble through Dwight’s narrative, which could leave readers lost and in need of a simple timeline of his life. Yet that complaint fades if the book is considered not a conventional memoir, but a random set of inspiring, character-building moments.
Dwight’s wholesome love for his family and friends, and the life lessons they’ve offered, makes for an engaging account of one man’s life well lived.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-0983941804
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Tagral
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
