An insightful and demystifying look at mindfulness practice.
A beginner’s guide to the basics of meditation.
Debut author Sazima’s work as a practicing psychiatrist in San Jose, California, often brought him into contact with people who wanted to be “collaborators in their treatment.” He and his colleagues noticed that several patients seemed stuck in a cycle of poor health. However, after the author established a class on the basics of breath control and meditation, some patients quickly showed improvement, he says. Sazima goes on to recommend these same methods to his readers, offering a series of painless, jargon-free introductions to their basic tenets. His overviews present clear instructions and explanations, as when he urges the reader to concentrate, during meditation sessions, on the simple beating of one’s heart: “The stilling of activity to allow witness of the heart beating,” he writes, “can itself bring great calm, even literally allowing that beat to gently rock the body at rest.” In addition to these general approaches, Sazima also provides a steady thread of simple encouragements aimed specifically at beginners who might be frustrated by minimal initial progress: “The overall trajectory for just about everybody…is of overall improvement.” The combination of Sazima’s expertise and upbeat spirit make his book an inviting reading experience. It also uses helpful photos, graphs, and illustrations to make its points, and Sazima makes the inspired decision to often adopt a carefree, joking tone; he knows that his subject may be intimidating to newcomers, and his occasional wisecracks (such as the chapter title “You’d Better Sit Down for This: A Few Preparatory Words on, uh, Sitting”) effectively work to defuse that reaction. At the same time, he makes it clear throughout his book that the key enemy of meditation is distraction and that regaining the power to focus is of great value.
An insightful and demystifying look at mindfulness practice.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64250-437-8
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Mango
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 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
BOOK REVIEW
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