by Jim Wallis ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2013
An admirable, worthy message that could be contained on a bumper sticker.
A manifesto for the common good, long on sense, short on inspiration.
Wallis (Rediscovering Values: A Guide for Economic and Moral Recovery, 2011, etc.) presents a sober, common-sense argument that our political and religious institutions have lost their way in partisan infighting and ideological confusion and should return to first principles in the interest of serving the common good. In clearly reasoned, lucid prose and without rancor or dogma, Wallis traces the decline in civility in both the public and private sectors, the destructive effect of financial interests holding sway in politics, the importance of family to the development of individual and communal morality, and other such social issues. This even-tempered, mild, avuncular approach actually works to the book’s detriment. Wallis’ positions are so reasonable and obvious that some invective, zeal or sense of dramatic urgency is necessary to offset the essential banality of his arguments. As it stands, Wallis’ plea for a kinder, deeper, more caring world has all of the revolutionary fervor of a speech from Mr. Rogers on the necessity of playing nicely together. Wallis can be charming, with his childlike devotion to the Narnia stories of C.S. Lewis and baseball, and the messages of tolerance and cooperation to be found within them (he is refreshingly progressive on such topics as same-sex marriage), and his friendly, conversational tone makes the book a relatively painless read. But the moral lessons presented here should be self-evident to any reasonably bright and engaged young teenager. That may in fact be Wallis’ point, but the delivery of the message is simply too anodyne to make any kind of emotional or intellectual impact.
An admirable, worthy message that could be contained on a bumper sticker.Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-58743-337-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Brazos
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
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by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy & Justin O'Brien
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by Albert Camus translated by Arthur Goldhammer edited by Alice Kaplan
by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
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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