The author demonstrates great intellectual breadth, entertaining enthusiasm and far right-brained thinking, but readers may...
A method for exploring the relationships between different emotions using simple, non-numeric mathematical equations.
Presenting what appears to be a fully realized if not always easy-to-comprehend original idea, boutique hotelier, self-actualization speaker and author Conley (Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow, 2007, etc.) suggests that what he terms emotional mathematics can help solve personal and organizational problems. Using a never-too-revealing autobiographical approach, he describes his own emotional torment in 2008, a year in which the hospitality industry all but collapsed and when he suffered heart failure minutes after making a business presentation. This capped other traumas—including the suicides of five friends, a failed relationship and the unjust incarceration of a family member in San Quentin State Prison—and threw Conley into deep despair. He describes how he pulled himself up by re-reading psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor Viktor Frankl’s memoir Man’s Search for Meaning and distilling its message into his own book’s central formula: Despair = Suffering - Meaning. “In other words, despair is what results when suffering has no meaning,” he writes. The equation, while profoundly meaningful to the author, falls short of being intuitively obvious, as do several others in the book. Does joy really equal love minus fear? Is jealousy equal to mistrust divided by self-esteem? Is anxiety equal to uncertainty times powerlessness?
The author demonstrates great intellectual breadth, entertaining enthusiasm and far right-brained thinking, but readers may wonder about the absence of the exactitude that prevails in real mathematics.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-0725-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
A succinct, passionate guide to fostering creativity.
A noted critic advises us to dance to the music of art.
Senior art critic at New York Magazine and winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism, Saltz (Seeing Out Louder, 2009, etc.) became a writer only after a decadeslong battle with “demons who preached defeat.” Hoping to spare others the struggle that he experienced, he offers ebullient, practical, and wise counsel to those who wonder, “How can I be an artist?” and who “take that leap of faith to rise above the cacophony of external messages and internal fears.” In a slim volume profusely illustrated with works by a wide range of artists, Saltz encourages readers to think, work, and see like an artist. He urges would-be artists to hone their power of perception: “Looking hard isn’t just about looking long; it’s about allowing yourself to be rapt.” Looking hard yields rich sources of visual interest and also illuminates “the mysteries of your taste and eye.” The author urges artists to work consistently and early, “within the first two hours of the day,” before “the pesky demons of daily life” exert their negative influence. Thoughtful exercises underscore his assertions. To get readers thinking about genre and convention, for example, Saltz presents illustrations of nudes by artists including Goya, Matisse, Florine Stettheimer, and Manet. “Forget the subject matter,” he writes, “what is each of these paintings actually saying?” One exercise instructs readers to make a simple drawing and then remake it in an entirely different style: Egyptian, Chinese ink-drawing, cave painting, and the styles of other artists, like Keith Haring and Georgia O’Keeffe. Freely experiment with “different sizes, tools, materials, subjects, anything,” he writes. “Don’t resist something if you’re afraid it’s taking you far afield of your usual direction. That’s the wild animal in you, feeding.” Although much of his advice is pertinent to amateur artists, Saltz also rings in on how to navigate the art world, compose an artist’s statement, deal with rejection, find a community of artists, and beat back demons. Above all, he advises, “Work, Work, Work.”
A succinct, passionate guide to fostering creativity.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-08646-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
More Insight Lite from bestselling author De Angelis (Are You the One for Me?, 1992, etc.), this time on the need to stop and smell the roses. Once again, De Angelis takes a common-sense proposition (in this age of anxiety, as she points out with more sincerity than originality, we need to slow down, take a deep breath, and learn how to live in the moment) and stretches it into a book. In the process, she provides generally superficial analyses, credulously regurgitating factoids (``I recently heard a sociologist on the radio share an amazing fact: With the use of satellites, television and computers, you and I receive more information in one day of our lives than our ancestors of several generations ago used to receive in 1000 days!'') and mixing Eastern meditation techniques, neoNative American philosophy, pop psychology, and personal anecdotes into a thin New Age gruel. She liberally salts it with quotes from other grocery store gurus, such as ``Dan Millman, who's written several wonderful books about what he calls the `peaceful warrior.' '' But De Angelis's basic premise, and her advice on how to tune out the static of modern life and concentrate on what matters, are sound, if simplistic. She offers shortcuts to inner peace and harmony for harried Americans eager for a quick fix, including a sort of modern mantra (``Right now'') to help readers focus on the present and a formula for keeping the magic in your marriage (give your partner ``Love Snacks''—a quick kiss, hug, or kind word—several times a day). For people who regret the lack of spirituality in their lives but aren't inclined to seek it through organized religion or rigorous soul-searching, this upbeat, easy-to-digest self-help book could be just the ticket. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-31068-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
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