An intimate, if underdeveloped, image of one woman’s growing faith.
A memoir about one woman’s quest to form a personal relationship with God.
Irene (My Priority, 2014, etc.) states in the introduction that “God most definitely does have a personally designed plan for each one of His beloved children,” and she shares the discovery of her own plan with the reader. Six years prior to the writing of the book, she “was not really into reading The Bible.” More recently, however, she has come to appreciate its many messages. The author describes herself as a divorced physical education teacher in Florida who has, in the past few years, attempted to more closely align herself with Christ’s teachings. As a single woman, she has become careful about whom she dates and wonders “how men of my age group will receive me in my new obedient lifestyle.” She has enjoyed giving people Bibles and consulting the teachings of pastors like Charles Stanley and Joel Osteen. She took a Christian cruise to Alaska, the details of which are scarce, though the reader is assured that there was “no gambling and no bars open for the entire cruise.” Irene conveys a positive feeling about the changes in her life and how she has adopted an “attitude of gratitude,” but endorsements of Christianity can come across as oversimplified; for example, the author states that at one point she “felt sad and lonely, but then realized God is protecting me and helping me stay free of temptation.” Aspects of the author’s secular life prove to be the most memorable, such as a near accident while boating on the Alafia River. The Bible is undoubtedly an important aspect of this memoir, but additional color about the author’s past (such as more information about her former attitude of “if in doubt let’s go for it”) would have added interest and nuance. One doesn’t question the author’s new religious commitment, but a clearer outline of how she came to have such a commitment is needed.
An intimate, if underdeveloped, image of one woman’s growing faith.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4497-6303-9
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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