A lovely guide to using journaling as a tool for self-awareness and self-expression.
Chapman (Celebrate Your Dream, 2002) offers a self-help book that aims to help readers find inner peace and joy through journaling.
In this modern age, much of what people write on a day-to-day basis consists of short, dashed-off, mundane texts and emails in truncated writing styles. But journaling, as promoted by the author, encourages a wholly different kind of communication with loved ones—and with oneself. Chapman does a fine job outlining ways that journaling techniques can help one achieve personal goals. In well-organized chapters, she shows how they can be used for problem-solving, self-healing, tapping into the subconscious, aiding dream analysis, and as inspiration to pursue one’s dreams. In addition, journaling can be used to help writers gain focus and clarity about what they want to communicate to others—whether in a letter to heal a troubled relationship or in an expression of love and appreciation to a friend or family member. “Even when you are living in the same house with someone, you may communicate differently in a letter than you would in person,” Chapman explains. In addition, she offers a variety of writing prompts that may help release writers’ aspirations or reveal unconscious emotions. The author also discusses the process of journaling in a group setting and her own first experience with it: “Each writer’s work was touched and shaped by the work of others....Each person’s learning was every person’s learning.” Although the book offers helpful examples of journal entries, some are so highly personalized that readers may find little context for them in their own lives, and they may find this trying and tiring at times. But overall, Chapman’s tone is reassuring and motivating, and even the most timid, inexperienced writers will likely be inspired.
A lovely guide to using journaling as a tool for self-awareness and self-expression.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-1490384238
Page Count: 224
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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