A quick-reading and thought-provoking look at the new nature of succeeding.
Advani and Goldsmith offer a new conception of achievement in the modern world.
Referring to such perennial bestsellers as Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich(1937), the authors write in their debut nonfiction collaboration that “classic books on achievement define it based on linear progression to accomplish a goal,” but “modern achievement is a new way of thinking about the journey to success and fulfillment that values the process of reaching your goals and objectives as much as their attainment.” Advani (CEO of an NGO that prepares youth for employment and entrepreneurship) and Goldsmith (founder of a firm that advises CEOs and management groups) have set their book in a world very different from the one in which pursuing those old-fashioned linear achievements made sense: a more uncertain modern world in which beginning any future project requires a leap of faith. In this new context, the authors urge readers to “keep putting yourself in environments that allow you to learn about yourself and look for the possibilities for designing you.” Their guidance for navigating this new world takes the form of an approach they refer to as “Fixed-Flexible-Freestyle,” a “human-centered framework for thinking differently about achievement in a rapidly changing world.” The chapters that elaborate on “Fixed-Flexible-Freestyle” are interspersed with insets of a more personal nature with attention-grabbing headlines like “Be a good mentee” (the authors remind readers that mentorship is a two-way street), “Invest in your reputation,” and “Don’t leave them wanting less.” Much of this advice is fairly cliched stuff, but Advani and Goldsmith mostly avoid rehashing familiar business-lit talking points. They speak instead, very effectively, to a leaner and more self-aware corporate world, more decentralized and hybridized, and their “Fixed-Flexible-Freestyle” approach requires an entrepreneurial mindset: “You [must] have the ability to pivot, adjust, and adapt to take advantage of and pursue those opportunities and to recover when things do not go as intended.”
A quick-reading and thought-provoking look at the new nature of succeeding.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781637558256
Page Count: 424
Publisher: 100 Coaches Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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