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SOUL AFTERLIFE

BEYOND THE NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

A comprehensive look at the mysteries of mortality through the lens of Eastern religions.

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In Megargee’s spiritual guide, the shock of a near-death experience presents a unique opportunity for reflection and purpose.

The author, a health care lobbyist, opens his book by sharing his thoughts on the possibility of an afterlife and how his questions about death have affected him personally. Starting with the first chapter, “The Octopus Analogy,” he traces his path on a long and winding road toward spiritual discovery, covering such topics as reincarnation, Buddhist tenets, and karma. The author includes transcriptions of engaging conversations between him and his “soul guide,” Laz, which offer a measure of clarity on the book’s heavier metaphysical topics. The author’s intimate thoughts are often engaging, but readers may sometimes feel as if they’re reading a personal diary instead of a self-help book. Nonetheless, Megargee’s tone is gentle and sincere throughout, and he has no qualms about admitting his uncertainty when faced with great mysteries of life. Such a sense of humility is refreshing in a spiritual guide, and it’s the book’s greatest strength. In an author’s note, for example, Megargee states simply, “I am unpretentiously asking nontraditional questions and, in doing so, pressing up against the boundaries of my long-established spiritual beliefs.” As a practicing Buddhist, the author makes many references to Buddhism’s teachings and how they’ve influenced his overall perspective. He focuses strongly on the idea of ego dissolution and whether it enhances or thwarts spiritual awakening. The book also discusses, at great length and from multiple perspectives, how souls originate and where they go after death. This is definitely not a book for spiritual beginners, but it’s safe to say that readers at all levels will find plenty of aha moments in each chapter.

A comprehensive look at the mysteries of mortality through the lens of Eastern religions.

Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2020

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 233

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: June 10, 2020

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GREENLIGHTS

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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THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-670-88146-5

Page Count: 430

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998

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