Well-earned wisdom serenely imparted.
The author of Silence (2017) and Walking (2019) ponders discipline, courage, failure, and happiness.
Between 1990 and 1994, Norwegian explorer, art collector, and publisher Kagge completed three impressive feats: walking to the North and South Poles and climbing Mount Everest. In a slim volume illustrated by bone-chilling photographs of rugged glacial terrain, the author shares some of what he learned from those experiences as well as from other challenges—sailing across the Atlantic on a 35-foot boat severely battered by a storm, for example, and raising three teenage girls (“more daunting,” he admits, than climbing Everest). “What I know of discipline I learned above the tree line,” he reveals. Drawing on the insights of several other explorers—such as Roald Amundsen and Thor Heyerdahl—and thinkers including Socrates, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, Wittgenstein, Pascal, and Kant, Kagge meditates about fear, solitude, and the meaning of challenges. “For any undertaking to be truly challenging, you have to stand to lose something,” he writes. Humans need challenges to “make us feel like we have to earn the gift of life.” Although being able to surmount danger “feels like a confirmation of our own existence,” a challenge need not involve the kind of physical exertion Kagge undertook in the polar expeditions, where, he found, the hardest thing was getting up in the morning and leaving his warm sleeping bag. Challenge also involves finding purpose, taking responsibility, and nurturing one’s dreams: “having dreams, and wondering about the world around me, is what will keep me going,” he writes. For Kagge, the secret to a good life is to “keep your joys simple.” Having met thousands of people on his world travels, he has come to believe that most undervalue themselves. “It seems that many of us are afraid of our own greatness,” he writes, “and so we make ourselves less than we are.”
Well-earned wisdom serenely imparted.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4911-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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
BOOK REVIEW
A heartwarming and inspiring story for animal lovers.
The third volume in the Elephant Whisperer series.
In this follow-up to An Elephant in My Kitchen, Malby-Anthony continues her loving portrait of the Thula Thula wildlife reserve, which she co-founded in 1998 with her late husband, South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony, who published the first book in the series, The Elephant Whisperer, in 2009. Following his death in 2012, Malby-Anthony sought to honor his legacy by continuing his vision “to create a massive conservancy in Zululand, incorporating our land and other small farms and community land into one great big game park.” At the same time, the elephants gave her “a sense of purpose and direction.” In the Zulu language, thula means quiet, and though the author consistently seeks to provide that calm to her charges, peace and tranquility are not always easy to come by at Thula Thula. In this installment, Malby-Anthony discusses many of the challenges faced by her and her staff, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. These included an aggressive, 2-ton rhino named Thabo; the profound loss felt by all upon the death of their elephant matriarch, Frankie; difficulty obtaining permits and the related risk of having to relocate or cull some of their animals; the fear of looting and fire due to civil unrest in the region; and the ongoing and potentially deadly struggles with poachers. Throughout, the author also shares many warm, lighthearted moments, demonstrating the deep bond felt among the humans and animals at the reserve and the powerful effects of the kindness of strangers. “We are all working in unity for the greater good, for the betterment of Thula Thula and all our wildlife….We are humbled by the generosity and love, both from our guests and friends, and from strangers all around the world,” writes the author. “People’s open-hearted support kept us alive in the darkest times.”
A heartwarming and inspiring story for animal lovers.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781250284259
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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