An often uplifting and refreshingly brief outline of basic mental and physical self-care.
A compact and comprehensive system for finding health and happiness.
The latest from medical doctor, professor, and entrepreneur Epler (Fuel for Life, 2013, etc.) is a read-in-one-sitting book with one clear goal—to give its readers more good days, the kind in which everything goes just right, when they’re feeling healthy, happy, and well-adjusted. To that end, the author’s approach is two-pronged. On the one hand, he lays out five “components” of well-being, including “being engaged in life,” “finding meaning in your life,” and having positive social interactions. He matches these strategies with 10 health practices—basics that most people already know, such as a nutritionally balanced diet, regular exercise, plenty of sleep, and constantly learning new things. Epler’s prose is clear and energetic throughout, whether he’s writing about ordinary subjects, such as the benefits of regular daydreaming, or extraordinary ones, such as the puzzling assertion that people can learn to heal their own “complex dysfunctional disease” by using the power of the mind. The bulk of the book offers elaborations on the five components and 10 health practices. Some are very specific and helpful, such as Epler’s discussion of the dangers of trans fats and saturated fats. Other are less so, such as the vague and aphoristic encouragements that pepper the book (“Live and enjoy the moment”). Epler dramatizes and humanizes his points with short vignettes that depict ordinary people dealing with situations that relate to the topic at hand (“Let me tell you about my friend and work-out partner John”). His own experience as a medical doctor comes through in every discussion, whether it’s about the dangers of processed sugars or the benefits of getting enough sleep and steering clear of caffeine late in the day.
An often uplifting and refreshingly brief outline of basic mental and physical self-care.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-939116-58-1
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Waterside Press
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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