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All That Is (and All That Will Ever Be)

Name: All That Is (and All That Will Ever Be)
Author: David John Black
ISBN: 978-1452525952

by David John Black ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 2014

Economical entreaty to the mighty wisdom of the “Eternal Now.”

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A pocketful of daily miracles to contemplate on the go.

At 34, Black had lost seemingly everything, from his house to his friends. Fearing he might also be losing his marbles, he did what scores of other shamans, gurus, and mystics have done before him: he camped out in a tent and invited the universe to grant him wisdom. This collection of quasi-Buddhist thoughts and Oprah Winfrey aha moments is the result of that desperate soul-searching. Far Eastern–tinged wisdom doesn’t get any easier to digest than the bite-sized offerings Black provides in this slim volume. Whether taken whole or parceled out over the course of a few days, these Zen-rooted gems might just be what the uninitiated need to get started on their own eightfold path—or at least get out of his or her own way. Each of the concise offerings occupies a page. Some, like “There’s a big difference between putting the effort in—and trying too hard” or “By constantly trying to solve other people’s problems, we’re avoiding solving our own,” already seem familiar and are thus readily absorbable. Others, however, such as “Life is a remembrance of who we truly are” or “our labyrinth is thoroughly known,” are a bit more esoteric and harder to grasp. In either case, the author urges earnest readers to ask what each of the sayings might mean to them and how the concepts might apply to their individual lives. Building from “Once we make a start, we are shown The Way” and continuing through “All is One,” each of the modest tracts is meant to subtly progress in profundity. A short “interview” section follows the collection of koans. In it, Black provides a little more background about himself, his philosophy, and how his observations coalesced following his own “dark night of the soul.”

Economical entreaty to the mighty wisdom of the “Eternal Now.”

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2014

ISBN: 978-1452525952

Page Count: 128

Publisher: BalboaPress

Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2015

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION

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THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-670-88146-5

Page Count: 430

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE
by Robert Greene

- BOOK REVIEW
MASTERY
by Robert Greene

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Drake Producing 48 Laws of Power Show

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THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

AND OTHER ESSAYS

by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955

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This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.