A touching testimonial to one man's life and an expression of the depth of love that bound two people together even beyond...
A personal account of one woman's experiences and revelations of an afterlife following her husband's sudden death.
Hewson's debut relates the series of events and experiences that led her to believe in life after death despite her initial skepticism. Ed, Hewson's husband of 34 years, died suddenly in May 2003. As she struggled with her grief and the responsibilities of maintaining a 14-acre farm as well as a high-pressure job, friends encouraged her to be aware of signs that Ed's spirit was still with her. Gradually, Hewson became conscious of a series of unexplainable events, such as the loud ticking of an old clock long thought to be broken, unusual beeps heard through the phone and other inexplicable happenings, which she interpreted as the spirit of Ed reminding her that he was still with her. Describing herself as an agnostic and nonbeliever, Hewson began to consult mediums and read a series of books describing near-death experiences. Combined with her own experiences, she concludes that there is life after death and that humans are all immortal in spirit. Although Hewson frequently refers to her background as a chemist and a scientist, this book does not attempt to present a scientific study. For those who are already familiar and comfortable with the idea of spirit, this book will affirm those beliefs and comfort those who are seeking to regain a connection with a lost loved one. For those who do not believe, the book provides little evidence to the contrary beyond Hewson’s anecdotes. What is most clearly represented is the author's love for her husband and her desire to maintain her connection to him. Through her descriptions, Ed comes to life as a likable and interesting man. Her memories of their life together do more to keep him alive than any of the quasi-supernatural events she presents as evidence.
A touching testimonial to one man's life and an expression of the depth of love that bound two people together even beyond death.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1452532042
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Balboa
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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