This guide shares plenty of principles for success, but it will be up to readers to figure out what to do with them.
A self-help book about using nature’s lessons to achieve an optimal way of life.
Bryan (The BestPossible Enterprise, 2013, etc.) presents a highly optimistic guide to “living with purpose and defining our goals to be the best we believe we can achieve.” The lessons that he shares are drawn from his observation of nature—including human nature. Unlike many authors, who see the human condition as being carnal or evil, Bryan asserts its goodness and positivity, claiming that “we all came into this world as pure moral creatures.” By mixing philosophical commentary with his own personal stories, starting from when he became a young entrepreneur in the 1940s, the author touches on dozens of principles that lead to what he calls “BestPossible” living. These include developing one’s cognition and reasoning abilities by applying them to events regularly, adding depth and color to one’s character by pursuing a diversity of experiences, and “seek[ing] to develop friends…where stress-free win-win situations are likely to prevail.” The topics themselves aren’t tightly organized, but the chapter separators and plenty of subheadings will keep readers oriented. From the very beginning, Bryan shows an air of confidence, both in himself and in his audience, which instills trust in his message. Unfortunately, for a self-help book, it’s very heavy on theory and scanty on application, much like a recipe book that specifies all the necessary ingredients but lacks cooking directions. This won’t be a problem for self-motivated readers, but some might have appreciated more concrete methods for applying the author’s wisdom to their lives, through clear directives and introspective questions. Also, although tying everything back to nature gives the book a nice solidarity, this topical umbrella eventually becomes so wide that it’s difficult to remember what “in tune with nature” means in context. Nevertheless, the principles are solid and eloquently expressed, and there’s certainly a wealth of them.
This guide shares plenty of principles for success, but it will be up to readers to figure out what to do with them.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 135
Publisher: BestPossible Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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