by Bard Schachtel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2018
An intriguing but somewhat confusing behavioral treatise.
An exploration of how people fall into patterns of blaming, and strategies for combating that tendency.
Finding fault in others for one’s problems might be a common behavior, but it’s not an unavoidable one, as debut author Schachtel demonstrates through his analysis of blaming behaviors. The cognitive behavioral therapist identifies “six constructs…that intensify blaming,” including “Look How Important I Am,” or exaggerated self-confidence; “Comparisons,” in which one blames others so that one can feel “successful”; “Work Place Environment,” in which one is driven by a desire to appear competent; “Loss and Grief,” which can foster guilt and self-blame; “Let’s Pray About It,” in which one uses religion to find a culprit for negative outcomes; and “Maybe Later,” in which one avoids blame through procrastination. He also identifies four types of blamers; for example, the “calculating” type is ruthless about shifting responsibility onto others, while the “whatever” type passively assumes that other people will solve problems for them. The diagrams and illustrations here seem intended to elucidate the author’s concepts, but they sometimes create more confusion than clarity. More useful is Schachtel’s suggestion that readers keep a log of their own thoughts, in order to uncover one’s “attitudes, behavior, and excuses” related to shifting responsibility. Overall, the author is engaged in a noble project—to get people to stop blaming others and take back control of their own lives. But this slim effort, which is fewer than 200 pages long, doesn’t succeed at fully explaining why people are prone to such behavior. The intended audience also isn’t very clear, with some examples involving workplaces and others focusing on marriages.
An intriguing but somewhat confusing behavioral treatise.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62901-560-6
Page Count: 174
Publisher: Inkwater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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