by FE Taylor ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
Featuring engaging concepts, this inventive work depicts an insightful view of death.
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A debut picture book for adults presents interpretations of platitudes offered after the death of a loved one.
“Before we are eligible for Heaven there is an earthly journey,” Taylor begins, proceeding to rephrase common funereal phrases, such as “his journey came to its conclusion,” and pair them with a simple, black-and-white line art image of a hiker in the mountains. On each page, Taylor—whom the back cover describes as a dyslexic author—provides an interpretation of common sayings about death and heaven, given as excerpted phrases. Sometimes these interpretations are quite literal, like the image of a construction worker punching out on a clock paired with the phrase “ended his shift,” or a pole with speakers on it that evokes a divine public address system for when “God called her home.” Others are more abstract, such as a solidly outlined body becoming fainter, with a dotted figure hovering above it to express the idea of transition. The spacing of the lines, along with the added details in some of the author’s drawings, makes the images suitable for an adult coloring book. It is Taylor’s unique view on how many of these phrases are heard by those who grieve that delivers the most engaging part of the narrative, both in the text and the paired images. Despite the Christian phrasing, the book deals more with common imagery about death than with religious terms.
Featuring engaging concepts, this inventive work depicts an insightful view of death.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-7326539-9-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: FE Taylor Group, LLC
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Anne Heche ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 24, 2023
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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