by Jaime L., Jr. Prieto ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 10, 2010
More meditation than guidebook, Prieto’s work is compelling, motivating and useful, if occasionally hard to follow.
Christianity meets nonviolent communication in this earnest, emotional guide.
Prieto calls on his experience as both a Christian and a practitioner of nonviolent communication (NVC) to draw lessons from the Gospels on improving communication and interpersonal relationships. He reads biblical events—specifically the Fall and the Sermon on the Mount—as speaking to common emotional situations and mindsets; for example, the Fall is not so much about original sin as it is about our choice to judge others and ourselves. Prieto makes Jesus’ words personal, relating them to people’s feelings, needs and the strategies they use to get those needs met. He also provides an NVC-inspired take on Ignatius’ Examen of Conscience, a popular Jesuit practice of examining one’s day for instances of sin and grace, which, in Prieto’s hands, becomes an in-depth exploration of a specific, emotionally charged instance and its related feelings and communication breakdowns. The author provides discussion questions at the end of each chapter to organize its emotional and intellectual content, with a keen eye toward the range of reader responses to the text. The nuts and bolts of NVC come late into the book, and the occasionally hard-to-follow details are made more confusing by a proliferation of complicated, unclear diagrams. Fortunately, Prieto provides a few pages of NVC reference material at the end, and he cites plentiful sources where those interested in NVC can learn more. Some inappropriate citations, including Wikipedia, and some incorrect bibliographic information show the book for what it is: not the work of a slick professional, but rather the inspired efforts of a Christian helped by NVC who wants to share his experience with the world and help people better their lives. Prieto draws on plentiful examples from his own experience, including the death of his father, his divorce from his wife and his relationship with his son. These examples go a long way toward creating a bond between reader and author, which counteracts the sometimes overblown emotional quality of the writing.
More meditation than guidebook, Prieto’s work is compelling, motivating and useful, if occasionally hard to follow.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2010
ISBN: 978-0557664320
Page Count: 296
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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