A gentle, nonjudgmental guide to healing childhood wounds and developing full, satisfying relationships in adulthood.
Debut author Narang, a Buddhist clinical psychologist in Santa Monica, Calif., explains how readers with attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, or elements of both, can overcome them by using targeted exercises and mindfulness. People with attachment anxiety, the author writes, may have had caregivers with inconsistent emotional responses. This has left them perpetually unsure of whether relationships will meet their emotional needs. Those with attachment avoidance, on the other hand, may have had caregivers who were completely unresponsive, causing them to deny their emotional needs during adulthood. Narang, in this book, seeks to pre-emptively identify barriers to emotional success, and his soothing tone (“[r]emember, I am flawed, you are flawed, this book is flawed, and we are all also deeply good”) enhances the work considerably. He restates key points with subtle variations, but the repetition enhances readers’ understanding instead of feeling monotonous. The author clearly explains the workbook’s overall format and each activity’s rationale (“you will address the problem first and then move toward building strength, much in the way that if you had an infection in your foot, you would heal that infection first before moving on to building muscles by running”). He also fully defines all psychological jargon to make the book accessible to a broad readership, although some exercises might have benefited from deeper explanations. That said, the variety of exercises is impressive; the attachment anxiety section, for example, includes activities titled “Why Do I Feel Desperation and Cling to Others?” and “I Get Really Mad When Others Don’t See Things the Way I Do”; for attachment avoidance, Narang offers “I Am Already Enough, Even Before Improving More” and “Beyond Constant Problem Solving.” Not every exercise will apply to every person, he explains, which allows the reader to tailor the workbook to his or her own needs. This flexible approach, combined with the author’s easily understandable, peaceful style, make this a restorative work for a wide audience.
A curative, uplifting attachment workbook.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2014
ISBN: 978-0615860893
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Stronger Relationships
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508629-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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