A shy, conflict-averse student finds his voice in debate.
Seo, who was born in Korea and moved with his family to Australia when he was 8, makes an engaging book debut with a combination memoir and debating guide. A two-time world champion debater, the author has also coached two winning teams: the Australian Schools Debating Team and the Harvard College Debating Union. Drawing on his experiences, he offers his book as a tool kit for having productive arguments. “We should disagree,” he believes, “in such a way that the outcome of having the disagreement is better than not having it at all.” Seo presents his key components of competitive debate: identifying the topic, mounting an argument, fashioning a rebuttal, and using rhetoric and silence to underscore one’s points. In addition, he looks at ways that debate principles apply to real-life situations: relationships with family and friends, bad disagreements, education, and technology. Some topics that Seo debated in classes and competitions have included the moral justification of ecotage, the media’s right to intrude into the private lives of public figures, and the admission of Turkey into the European Union. Analyzing the debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump led him to consider the debate styles of bullies: the dodger, the twister, the wrangler, the liar, and the brawler. He realized that a debate, “hijacked” by a bully and difficult to deflect, “could be a harmful force in the world.” As a journalist in Sydney, Seo covered the encounter between a champion debater and Project Debater, an artificial intelligence system with “a superhuman ability to marshal evidence.” Evidence, he saw, was not the only factor in convincing an audience. The author advocates teaching debate principles as part of a well-founded civic education: “Good arguments generate new ideas and strengthen relationships. An education in debate makes people more immune to the slick manipulations of political opportunists.”
A useful reflection on how to disagree, especially important in toxic times.Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-29951-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
Categories: EDUCATION | PSYCHOLOGY | BUSINESS | SELF-HELP | LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT & COMMUNICATION | GENERAL BUSINESS
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BOOK REVIEW
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
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All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
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More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | SELF-HELP
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