An engaging vision of the enduring nature of the human soul.
Spiritual counselor Rippy’s book offers accounts of the afterlife and assert the presence of unseen miracles in our midst.
Much of this book is made up of transcripts of nine past-life regressions in which Rippy says he helped people explore aspects of their previous existences. For each, he includes historical and relationship context and information about the causes of death of his subjects’ past lives. Stories include the life of Liza, a nanny in early-20th-century Boston who died of an allergic reaction to penicillin—in the company of a man that she only ever knew as a ghost. In another account, Rippy tells of a young woman who experienced a past-life regression to an orphaned boy named Elliot, who lived in 1910 and whose twin brother, Peter, was reincarnated as the young woman’s father. In a particularly compelling story, he describes a female subject who recalls serving as Lt. Hertzof, a member of a Nazi battalion that captured Brussels in World War II. Killed when his tank blows up, Hertzof then experiences hell for 1,000 years before God forgives him. Most of the stories of past lives end tragically in suicide, murder, or alcoholism, but their accounts of the afterlife may bring solace to some readers. Intriguingly, Rippy’s work doesn’t offer one consistent view of heaven, instead showcasing different versions that include spirit guides and councils, farms, spiritual “hospitals,” and other ways in which souls prepare for rebirth. This compelling book not only tells of hypnotic regressions conducted by the author, it also provides informative asides outlining how he helped clients focus during unfamiliar or startling experiences. He also informatively describes the steps that he says he uses to catch potential fabrications. In addition, readers learn of his techniques for keeping subjects from becoming retraumatized by past-life events and how he uses protective prayers and imagery to bring comfort to those entering hypnotic states.
An engaging vision of the enduring nature of the human soul.Pub Date: July 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-15064-1
Page Count: 422
Publisher: Vision Peak Resources LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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