Recovery from addiction never looked as appealing as it does in this volume by a recovered alcoholic.
Palmer, in his debut self-help manual, touches on the lives of many people who have been affected by addiction. Addicts often create broad swaths of misery and destruction in their own lives and those of their loved ones. The author set out to write a book to help them all understand the nature of recovery in vivid detail. Throughout, Palmer describes a variety of programs across the country suited to a multitude of different lifestyles: from everyday people to suicidal junkies, addicted prison inmates and public figures. A significant amount of advice centers on religious devotion as a component of recovery, but secular readers will still find tremendous hope here. Even those long recovered will identify with these intimate stories of those still in the thrall of alcohol or drugs. Palmer posits that addiction’s nefarious influence reaches far more people than society admits and asserts that successful recovery must be part of a larger family and community effort. This is made easier since “we now understand that addiction is a chronic disease necessitating a lifetime of change” and that recovery programs offer what may be the best strategy for coping. The author’s own story serves as a framework as he discusses the intriguing histories of organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon, and it blends perfectly with the other compelling stories sprinkled throughout. Even though the laborious descriptions of specific recovery facilities become monotonous, they may serve as a reference for those seeking a place to belong. In his mission to celebrate recovery, Palmer succeeds on almost every level. Part memoir, part reference guide, this detailed, intimate collection highlights the rich support network available for recovering addicts.
Pub Date: March 29, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4840-3246-6
Page Count: 348
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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
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