Though the book’s message isn’t new, patient readers may find new ways of thinking and relating to themselves and others.
Clark explores the idea of addiction as an American affliction, one that each of us must be aware of in order to recover.
In Clark’s debut, the sex therapist and addictions counselor presents the broad premise that nearly all Americans are addicts of one kind or another. According to the author, our addictions aren’t just to substances but to behaviors like shopping, texting, eating, sex and, most uniquely perhaps, to stress and obsessive thought patterns. She grounds her argument in a struggle between the limbic system (the “Caveman Brain”) and the prefrontal cortex (the “Enlightened Brain”), a similar duality to one that emerges later in the text—the pairing of “Adult” behavior and “Child” behavior as the two main forms of emotional communication. Clark provides personal stories as well as general anecdotes as she explains the way addiction works. The author offers communication and relaxation techniques, as well as a curious section at the end of the book in which she details the ways that her dog is the ideal model for “Connection.” While the book may serve as a good introduction to addiction and finding inner peace, its bibliography—which includes books such as The Celestine Prophecy—feels flimsy, and the overall approach lacks substance. At times Clark’s tone feels pseudospiritual, referring to the “many meanings” of God and intoning the author’s place as a sort of prophet by calling this book her gift to the world. Readers who can look past such moments are likely to find some gems of wisdom here. Clark underscores her message by capitalizing the words “Connection” and “Disconnection” whenever they appear in the text, the idea being that genuine connection with others is a constant struggle and the only way to move away from addictive behaviors.
Though the book’s message isn’t new, patient readers may find new ways of thinking and relating to themselves and others.Pub Date: June 6, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456505158
Page Count: 156
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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