The expectation of stable children must be founded on a family rooted in security, safety and rational communication, according to this husband-and-wife team.
Psychotherapists MacMannis and Manchester MacMannis aim their self-help book at parents, opening with a plea that parents not expect their child to find stability or functionality in his or her life without first being given a sound home environment with each of those elements. It’s in this exchange that the authors place the onus upon the reader (the parent) to explore the family structure in terms of the system created by the authors. Following a self-evaluation to be completed by the reader, the authors walk through a series of “keys” (“Talking and Listening,” “Adapting to Change,” “Seeing the Positive,” etc.)—each a pillar in the overall foundation of healthy emotional familial relations. Peppered throughout the text are anecdotes and wisdom gained from the authors’ experiences as family therapists, and each anecdote is made relatable to the subject at hand. The authors weave popular quotations and psychological facts throughout, which teeter between complementary and distracting. Overall, the text provides a sound guide for a healthy emotional approach to any familial relationship one may encounter, be it parental or romantic. However, with such a strong introductory framing of the tools presented here as being effective in healing a family that finds itself at a breaking point, practical application is not gone into with much detail; techniques for putting the ideals set up here to use when years of poor habits don’t allow for immediate integration are glossed over in what seems to be a quick wrapping up at the end of a great deal of information, knowledge and practicum. But still there is much to be learned from this thoughtful text. A fine guide through the emotions, challenges and proper approaches to family life for anyone on the brink of entering or already within a family unit.
Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2011
ISBN: 978-193640125
Page Count: 207
Publisher: Two Harbors
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
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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