A convincingly argued, if overly self-promotional, case for the value of negotiation skills in everyday life.
Business strategists and consultants discuss the value of negotiating in this self-help book.
“Whether you realize it or not,” Smith and Gaunt write in the book’s introduction, “your day is a series of negotiations.” While often associated with high-level business transactions and hostage situations, the art of negotiation (defined here as “any interaction where someone wants or needs something”), per the authors, is skill applicable to all facets of one’s daily life. At the heart of their project is the concept of “Tactical Empathy,” or a “calibrated application of emotional intelligence to recognize and express the perspective of your counterpart.” Building an empathetic relationship with one’s counterpart (be it a spouse, employer, business rival, or even a toddler) ensures that they will be more likely to be in “collaborative state of mind instead of a combative one” when time comes for negotiation. Grounding their theories in practical applications, Smith and Gaunt provide detailed examples and case studies to demonstrate their negotiation tactics. The authors discuss the value of summarizing the circumstances from the perspective of another; expressing your understanding of their frustrations, concerns, or desires deliberately slows down the conversation and makes them “feel understood.” Smith and Gaunt outline low-stakes ways to practice the skill of paraphrasing, such as summarizing podcasts, meetings, or family conversations. Overall, the work makes a convincing case that negotiation skills are not just useful for business, but are fundamental “life skills.” Both authors have expertise in training both corporate and law enforcement negotiators, and they provide ample real-world examples from their own experiences. Smith and Gaunt currently work with the Black Swan Group, a firm that offers negotiation consulting services and training. With a forward by the organization’s CEO, Chris Voss, the book occasionally reads like an extended advertisement for Black Swan’s training materials, replete with references and QR code links to additional books and training materials.
A convincingly argued, if overly self-promotional, case for the value of negotiation skills in everyday life.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781684016525
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Amplify Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
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