A heartfelt but sometimes uneven collection that promotes happiness.
A debut collection of 16 sermons analyzes personal and collective happiness.
As a co-founder and past president of Gross National Happiness, USA—a nonprofit organization working to promote people’s well-being—Sassaman believes that government policies can help individuals find joy. Based on the Kingdom of Bhutan’s philosophy of Gross National Happiness (as opposed to Gross National Product), the author’s American group claims that collective well-being can be achieved by changing how success is measured. As a layperson at the First Universalist Church and Society of Barnard, Vermont, Sassaman delivered sermons based on her happiness philosophy, and those impassioned speeches are presented here. The author’s conversational essays, which can be read in any order, cover a wide range of upbeat topics—economics and happiness, the interconnected happiness of humans and animals, and the extraordinary value of everyday beauty. She uses some compelling personal anecdotes—like her 300-mile participation in Gross National Happiness, USA’s nationwide walk—and her essays are well documented with sources, such as psychologist Rick Hanson’s 2018 book, Resilient. But some of the concepts presented here will likely make many Americans—who value freedom and ideas like home ownership—somewhat uneasy. For example, concerning President Donald Trump’s planned revision of the Endangered Species Act, Sassaman is disgusted by the “rights of private landowners versus species extinction.” Often dogmatic in tone, this soapbox assemblage tends to present complex issues from only one angle. For example, in a discussion of Florida’s 2018 red tide, farm runoff is blamed, but sewage from beach houses isn’t mentioned. In her weaker arguments, Sassaman relies on assumptions to support her claims, and many Americans are painted with the same broad brush. In a chapter on the moral obligation to change economic paradigms for everyone, she compares American life to a board game where players win by greedily consuming products.
A heartfelt but sometimes uneven collection that promotes happiness.Pub Date: May 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-57869-026-8
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Rootstock Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
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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