A collection of photographs and inspirational stories of individuals who have overcome obstacles or worked toward humanitarian causes.
In this debut coffee-table book, Maroney brings together dozens of personal stories, each accompanied by photographs of the narrators and identified with thematic titles—gift, heritage, winning, resolve, etc. Each narrative is a series of sentences beginning with “Imagine...” followed by an element of the narrator’s story: For instance, “Imagine...appreciating what you’ve left behind only after seeing this new and different land,” says a woman who moved back and forth between Japan and the United States. Or “Imagine...standing at a stranger’s door, a can of paint and paintbrush in your hands, hoping they will let you paint their house—for free,” from a man who found new purpose in good deeds after his wife died. Some stories reflect the narrator’s triumph over a difficult past—a teenager who grew up in the foster care system and went on to win a national financial literacy competition, a musician who performs despite being born with cerebral palsy, etc.—while others are more about the individuals’ choices, such as using yoga as the basis for a microfinance operation. A few of the featured individuals have been associated with headline-making events, such as the ER staff who treated the mass-shooting victims in Aurora, Colorado, and a Columbine High School graduate who learned forgiveness. But most share victories on a smaller scale, acclimating to an adopted homeland or touching lives through low-budget philanthropy. While all the contributors’ stories are uplifting, they avoid the clichés of motivational speeches, and the spare prose keeps even the most tragic stories from becoming maudlin. The book is well-designed, too—a simple blue, black and white palette allows the words and pictures to draw the reader’s full attention.
An attractive, compelling collection of stories and photographs related to conquering adversity and imagining vibrant possibilities.
Pub Date: April 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-0988995109
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Yampa Valley Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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