An engaging self-help book about achieving one’s dreams through focused effort.
Desplechin, an expert mindset coach, draws on his experiences as a chef in a powerful book about growth mindset.
Many professionals aspire to have the skills of an acclaimed chef—someone who’s honed their skills to lead their kitchen staff to greater heights, and who can create an edible masterpiece with precision. In these pages, Desplechin—a chef at Michelin-starred restaurants, including Arles, France-based L’Atelier de Jean-Luc Rabanel—has condensed his own life’s stories into valuable lessons in an accessible work which focuses on growth mindset—the ability to improve one’s talents with practice and determination: “It is clear to me that those who adapt, who learn, and who commit to self-improvement will be the ones who lead the way forward,” he notes early on. From the start, it’s evident that the author speaks from credible experience, as described in a foreword from renowned restaurant owner Jean-Luc Rabanel, praising the chef’s skills and his engaging stories; Desplechin says that the tales included here were “born from the daily grind of hospitality and refined in the heat of the kitchen.” Each story supports his self-help assertions, elegantly weaving narratives into more meaningful lessons and action-oriented encouragements that readers can practice right away. For example, his charming narrative about how his passion started in the kitchen with his parents in his hometown of Châteaulin moves into a broader lesson about curiosity; his anecdote about being “restless” in traditional school at age 14 turns into a call to action about “defining your vision”; and a tale of a brief three-month stint as a pastry chef tells readers that they could also experience career-altering lessons by embracing the unexpected. Bulleted lists might have further sharpened his points; an early paragraph that urges the reader to “paint a picture in your mind” could have helpfully used such an approach. Overall, Desplechin’s message about growth mindset—"that you can become more than the person you see in this moment”—shines through on every page. Eating while reading is advised.
An engaging self-help book about achieving one’s dreams through focused effort.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9798218737924
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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