A motivational guide to improving one’s life through changing one’s mindset.
A debut self-help guide that aims to put the power of change in readers’ hands.
What does the word “power” mean? To some, it might mean the ability to control another person, but to Obi, in this guide, power means the ability to control one’s self. Raised in a small village in West Africa, the author’s formative and young-adult years were fraught with difficulties, including abusive teachers, poverty and other hardships. However, his positivity never wavered due to his strict, demanding parents, who insisted that he succeed at everything he tried, despite the challenges. They pushed him to attend university in Africa, where he was often forced to go without food and other necessities. Through these difficulties, however, Obi learned the power of positive thinking and how people have the power to change their lives if they simply adopt an optimistic view. Obi managed to turn his own fortune around simply by focusing on the things he wanted and imagining that he had them, which in turn motivated him to work harder to create a better life. The author cites several examples of people who excelled due to their own determination, including Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama, insisting that “[t]here is no special formula for success. There is no advanced university degree….Success is only a function of dedication, struggles, hard work, learning, falling, rising, persistency, and consistency.” He reinforces this thesis by telling stories of his friends who persevered and ended up successful. Although the writing is often repetitive, Obi’s message is clear and inspiring, and it’s obvious that he deeply believes in his advice. His anecdotes are quick and focused, and the book, as a whole, is immensely readable.
A motivational guide to improving one’s life through changing one’s mindset.Pub Date: March 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615706443
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Azuka zuke Obi
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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