An entertaining and inspiring memoir by a fellow who’s nearly impossible to pigeonhole—and good thing, too.
The British inventor and vacuum-cleaner magnate delivers a paean to creativity and creation.
Now 74, Dyson grew up in a household headed by an “ever-cheerful polymath” who died of cancer when the author was a teenager. He had instilled in his young son self-reliance and the joys of experimentation and failure (if you don’t fail, you don’t learn). Dyson trained as an artist and industrial designer, but his real interest was to “pioneer a better solution to existing technologies and products.” By his count, slogging through engineering textbooks and manuals, he failed precisely 5,127 times before coming up with the cyclonic vacuum cleaner that would separate dust and dirt from air while using as little energy as possible. The result was considerable wealth and a product so popular that Dyson’s British plant could not fulfill demand, which forced him to relocate manufacturing to Asia. About this Dyson is sanguine: His company is privately held, allowing him to do as he pleases, and Europe and North America, while important markets, are less vigorous than Asia, which “is growing at three times the rate of Western economies.” The author is ever the geeky scientist and engineer, as when he writes of the biological parameters of building the perfect hair dryer: “Over 230°C (450°F), hair begins to burn or melt with strong disulphide bonds breaking down quickly. The surface of the hair becomes cratered, with reflectiveness lost, leading to a reduction in shine and gloss, along with damage.” His overarching point is very well taken: He makes a powerful argument that our educational systems are not giving sufficient attention to fostering creativity and the independent spirit required of the inventor, thereby stifling innovation. Against this, he has built a university combining in-class and apprenticeship learning even as he indulges in a newfound passion: farming.
An entertaining and inspiring memoir by a fellow who’s nearly impossible to pigeonhole—and good thing, too.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-982188-42-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
A fascinating and funny look at the life of a famous actor who found further fulfillment through giving back.
The actor discusses his career on the stage and in film, and his life focusing on the value of art and public service.
Now 66, Stern, perhaps best known for his roles in Home Alone and City Slickers, is no longer "the precocious teenager who moved to New York as a seventeen-year-old, at least ten years younger than all of my friends, the youngest dad at all my kids’ school events.” As he discusses his childhood in Maryland, his introduction to the theater, and writing a musical version of Lord of the Flies, the author's love of the work shows through on every page—as does his family’s legacy of a strong work ethic (his mother told him, “I don’t care what you do but you are out of this house when you turn eighteen”). Realizing that “academics were not going to get me anywhere,” he committed to acting. After some early stage work, he began working in films, appearing in a number of critically successful projects in the late 1970s and early ’80s, including Breaking Away and Diner. Stern analyzes key moments in the development of his craft, as well as the twists and turns of a very public life, which included work with the USO and the experience of being sued for $25 million over a TV show. Although readers may pick up the book to learn more about Hollywood, his focus on his work-life balance brings some of the most memorable passages, from his narration and directing work in the TV series The Wonder Years (which included no on-screen billing), which helped him overcome his childhood dyslexia, to his experience working with the Boys & Girls Club and his lifelong focus on public service.
A fascinating and funny look at the life of a famous actor who found further fulfillment through giving back.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781632280930
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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