A thoughtful discussion and sometimes-passionate plea for civility and consideration in conversation.
In this era of social media and increasing political and cultural polarization, we need to think more about how and why we converse with one another.
Headlee—who hosts the daily news show On Second Thought on Georgia Public Broadcasting and has been involved in radio broadcasting since the late 1990s—debuts with a book offering different moves and steps to the oft-heard music of the self-help genre. Serious readers will be glad to see the text is not chockablock with bullet points and other graphic favorites (and clichés) of the genre. Instead, the author delivers well-researched and careful analysis of how and why we talk with one another—our strengths and (myriad) weaknesses. Throughout, Headlee surveys psychological and neurological research, reminding us, among other things, that we are not good at multitasking, that areas of our brains light up when we talk about ourselves, and that we have the attention span of a goldfish. The first half of her text is roughly a theoretical foundation of the second, which offers her “specific strategies” for conversing. She suggests that we keep conversations short, eschew preaching, recognize and acknowledge the limits of our knowledge, and listen. Most significantly, she continually returns to her theme of empathy, a factor missing in so many conversations. We are so eager to tell our stories that we neglect to listen attentively to what the other person is saying. Occasionally, Headlee falls victim to platitudes: conversation is like a river; we need to be “fully present” in our conversations, etc. Still, she is appealingly self-deprecating, repeatedly discussing and dissecting her own conversational failures and disasters, and she alludes to a range of authorities on the topics.
A thoughtful discussion and sometimes-passionate plea for civility and consideration in conversation.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-266900-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper Wave
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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