As comforting and engaging as talking to a thoughtful friend.
Urbanski offers personal essays about self-improvement and self-acceptance.
In a series of essays that can be read independently, the author writes about learning to temper perfectionism, examine priorities, and practice self-acceptance. Her grandmother, an early role model, would remind her in her childhood to “Slow down, dear one. Stop. Lock eyes. Listen more. Talk less. Be still. Be present. Relish each moment.” Urbanski approached adulthood at full speed, marrying a man named Bret and raising two children, Mackenzie and Mason, as she completed her doctorate degree and taught at high school and university levels. An injury and hip surgery at age 30 led her to a fulfilling yoga practice and taught her that “There is a gift in every problem.” The tenets that the author learned while becoming certified as a yoga teacher resonated in other areas of her life. She applied them to her family relationships, writing, and professional life, working toward the balance, gratitude, fulfillment, and stillness that her grandmother prioritized. Urbanski stresses that pursuing these goals is an ongoing process that is as important as achieving the objectives. (“What happens when we do the work to cultivate our roots and evolve is we develop a pretty hefty toolbox.”) Urbanski writes honestly about the unsustainability of taking life at a sprint—several essays that highlight examples from her life illustrate how “it will crush a girl to take the marathon of life at that pace” and how difficult it is to pause and practice stillness. One recurring theme—a tendency to feel she can handle everything, which often results in chaotic situations—will certainly be familiar to many women. It is a testament to her commitment to her work that she digs deeply to explore the roots of her actions. The text is often funny, even when the author describes difficult situations like having a panic attack: “I mean, who has a panic attack in yoga of all places?” Readers interested in taking a pause to examine their lives will find this book especially compelling, whether they practice yoga or not.
As comforting and engaging as talking to a thoughtful friend.Pub Date: April 24, 2024
ISBN: 9781960892201
Page Count: 116
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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