A thoughtful, insightful book that offers a calm voice in a turbulent business world.
A forward-looking blueprint for a more gratifying work life.
Entrepreneur Wu David’s (Hong Kong ABC, 2011) business book offers sound strategies for coping with the inevitability of change. The text targets senior professionals, but it’s also appropriate for people just starting on their career paths. The author divides her discussion into three parts (“Learn,” “Cultivate,” and “Maximize”) and first examines how globalization, disruption, and increased longevity are transforming “the way people see the future of work.” Some content in Part I is futuristic, but it’s also grounded in realism, noting that, although workers may not be able to decelerate change, they can become more agile, adaptive, and resilient. In Part II, Wu David concentrates on experiential learning, urging people to experiment, reinvent, collaborate, and find focus in various ways. She provides numerous examples of people (including herself) who’ve pursued experimentation and reinvention. A key underlying theme of this part is the importance of being willing to take risks; for example, Wu David writes engagingly about strategies for pursuing new opportunities, as when she discusses the notion of “Slashers” (such as a “violinmaker/psychologist,” a “pro-athlete/investor,” or a “CFO Company A/CFO Company B”). As a networker herself, the author is committed to the idea of collaboration, and she writes about the subject authoritatively; her collaborative “exercises and action steps” should be particularly helpful for those looking to find greater value in teamwork. Part III considers the impact that one’s actions can have on one’s long-term career. Here, Wu David proposes a new way of defining success, emphasizing the idea of finding one’s purpose. This is the most philosophical portion of the book and should inspire self-reflection. In closing, the author asks a most intriguing question: “What would life…look like if we spent more time on what mattered most?” Her encouragement to do an “audit” of one’s personal and professional lives may be intimidating to some, but the idea has merit. Overall, she offers compassionate advice, relevant examples, and involving exercises.
A thoughtful, insightful book that offers a calm voice in a turbulent business world.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5445-1360-7
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
