by Charles Paul Curcio ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 30, 2012
Engaging leap-of-faith answers to the big questions.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
Entrepreneurial advice and astonishing tales from a tire company founder and pitchman retracing his spiritual journey.
Charles “Chuck” Curcio first made his mark starring in his own late-night television commercials for Tire Kingdom, the highly successful South Florida–based company he built from scratch. The inventive musical parodies and his colorful personality have achieved near-cultish adoration; the ads are still viewable on YouTube. But in this cosmological autobiography, Curcio says he always had other talents, particularly as a healer and psychic. One October morning in 1995, his life changes forever when he pauses beneath a banyan tree while riding a golf cart across his 10-acre Jupiter Island oceanfront estate. From out of the blue—and out of the author’s own mouth—God speaks to him, asking if he is ready to fulfill his purpose as a divine servant. It’s the dawning of a new day, as referenced in the title. So, Curcio embarks on a fantastic—arguably a bit too fantastic—journey of metaphysical discovery that, he says, is now more open than ever for all humanity to join. His path leads him to the Great Pyramid in Egypt to the healers and channelers of Brazil and elsewhere, and ultimately to Delphi University of Spiritual Studies in Georgia, where he’s a director and teacher. Along the way, he leaves his wife and children for his teacher and soul mate, a striking blonde with exceptional psychic credentials whose entry into Curcio’s life had been foretold to him. Curcio doesn’t merely believe in what the earthbound would call miracles; he witnesses and performs them frequently and even suggests that his healing work extends to curing the gravely ill and raising the dead. A chapter entitled “Signs and Wonders” begins with the author’s bare back to the sun as he absorbs what he calls the Christ energies, “which many believe emanate from the Sun.” This spiritualist path will be a revelation to the uninitiated, as will many of the book’s other esoteric, believe-it-or-not pronouncements. Gratuitously over-the-top asides may further raise doubts about the veracity of the whole. In one example, Curcio says he can send love over telephone lines, such that loved ones on the other end feel their receivers warming from the abundance of love energy. The latter part of the book is pure Christian–Eastern mystic theology, where explanations of reincarnation and karma appear to show clear understanding of these theories. Why did God come out of the void in the first place? As He tells Curcio, “Charles, I just couldn’t contain my Self.”
Engaging leap-of-faith answers to the big questions.Pub Date: May 30, 2012
ISBN: 978-0578105567
Page Count: 222
Publisher: Delphi University Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Share your opinion of this book
by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
Share your opinion of this book
More by Paulo Coelho
BOOK REVIEW
by Paulo Coelho ; illustrated by Christoph Niemann ; translated by Margaret Jull Costa
BOOK REVIEW
by Paulo Coelho ; translated by Eric M.B. Becker
BOOK REVIEW
by Paulo Coelho ; translated by Zoë Perry
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.