In this manual, Ogbonna illustrates the most damaging negative emotions and supplies strategies to master them and create worthwhile opportunities from adverse feelings.
This second edition of the author’s debut book offers a well-structured set of chapters that tackle tough subjects like anger, shame, grief, jealousy, and depression. Ogbonna expertly navigates the causes and symptoms of these strong emotions, often using anecdotes to depict experiences of people who faced uncomfortable situations and harnessed the resulting emotions in a way that led to growth and positive change. In one example, the author looks at the universal trigger of criticism, spotlighting a young woman who came under the fire of internet users who ridiculed her for an accidental typo in a LinkedIn article she wrote. The book discusses how she addressed the issue openly in a brave “letter” to readers. Ogbonna describes how maintaining productive routines and having the courage to speak publicly, publish work, or express ideas often draw criticism, an unfortunate symptom of a motivated life. Handling criticism, the author explains, requires the recognition that it was the daring act of writing that invited it and that no one should regret that winning path. Later, Ogbonna focuses on jealousy and grief, deftly unpacking these broad emotions. He explores the ways in which jealousy can be healthy or destructive, depending on its manifestation. Examining sorrow, the author distinguishes anticipated grief—such as the despair experienced in the long journey of coping with a terminal illness—from shorter term grief, which occurs unexpectedly and lasts for a brief duration. One central piece of advice here is to step away from the reactions to powerful emotions to give oneself time to ruminate and mold the response into something constructive. Whether the emotion is anger or shame, the author encourages reflection and exercises to determine the best course of action. The book delivers a wealth of worthy suggestions and exercises in its final pages to deal with and release negative emotions rather than falling victim to compulsions. In the last section, Ogbonna includes several valuable self-assessment quizzes to help readers understand the emotional surroundings of their family lives and the stresses and pressures that may be contributing to harmful emotions. Overall, the book provides an excellent resource for understanding and coping with the most distressing emotions humans can endure.
A useful, upbeat, and well-organized guide to managing emotions and building resilience and strength.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5255-1327-5
Page Count: 210
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
This early reader is an excellent introduction to the March on Washington in 1963 and the important role in the march played by Martin Luther King Jr. Ruffin gives the book a good, dramatic start: “August 28, 1963. It is a hot summer day in Washington, D.C. More than 250,00 people are pouring into the city.” They have come to protest the treatment of African-Americans here in the US. With stirring original artwork mixed with photographs of the events (and the segregationist policies in the South, such as separate drinking fountains and entrances to public buildings), Ruffin writes of how an end to slavery didn’t mark true equality and that these rights had to be fought for—through marches and sit-ins and words, particularly those of Dr. King, and particularly on that fateful day in Washington. Within a year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed: “It does not change everything. But it is a beginning.” Lots of visual cues will help new readers through the fairly simple text, but it is the power of the story that will keep them turning the pages. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-448-42421-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508629-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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