An inventive, entertaining mix of history, research and self-help.
Debut authors Lowell and Lola’s thoroughly researched, compelling self-help work focuses on undoing “fixed mindset thinking.”
From Isaac Newton to the Nazis to the unbounded potential of the 21st century, this hybrid of self-help guide and historical document explores the concept of the “fixed mindset”—the cultural, intellectual and emotional forces that encourage people to limit themselves from growing in their accomplishments, abilities and self-esteem. Lowell and Lola frame two camps: those who assume a fixed mindset approach toward life and whose intelligence and abilities are therefore inherently unchangeable and those who embrace the notion of personal growth. The authors explain: “Instead of accepting difficult challenges, learning from their failures, and sometimes being pleasantly surprised when they succeed, people with the fixed mindset only undertake challenges at which they are sure they will be successful. By doing so, they continuously confirm the level of ability they believe they have, and further reinforce their beliefs about their lack of talent.” The book elegantly transitions from scientifically documented studies and historical anecdotes to exercises designed to help participants understand the psychological blockages they carry within themselves. The penultimate section, a workbook, includes prompts that encourage readers to write down ideas that will help them break through their self-imposed barriers. The clearly written text is engaging both as a self-help guide and as a striking compendium of facts. Nazi Germany, for example, began involuntarily sterilizing people only after finding precedent in American practices of the period. The unusual perspectives on geniuses such as Einstein, Newton and others provide a welcome change from typical portraits.
An inventive, entertaining mix of history, research and self-help.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0990805700
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Practical Manifestations, LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
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
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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