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
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
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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