Not a comprehensive manual on end-of-life issues, but a decent reference for couples, especially valuable for older readers...
Part checklist, part memoir, this nonfiction book offers practical advice to help prepare for the loss of a spouse.
When Post learned that her husband had a terminal illness, both of them felt blindsided by the news. In their struggle to cope with his diagnosis and quick decline, they avoided talking about the practical, day-to-day issues of life without a partner. After he passed away, she regretted not having those conversations—particularly when the toilet flooded and she realized she didn’t know where to find the water shut-off valve. To prevent other couples from experiencing the same frustrations amid their heartbreak, Post wrote this book, her debut, which offers general advice and lists alongside entries from her journal and her personal recollections of her husband’s final months. The book engages readers from the beginning, especially in the introduction, where Post warmly invites readers to “use the ideas in this book as your permission and your incentive to approach these subjects with your partner.” She goes on to discuss financial assets and liabilities, wills, estate planning, funerals, burials, hospice care and more, including the emotional challenges of living without a spouse. Post writes in a friendly, conversational tone that makes difficult topics seem less overwhelming. However, a few sections rely more on anecdotes than facts, making the book feel less like a guide and more like a memoir—a style that may win over some readers while alienating others. Many of Post’s stories and comments are geared toward senior citizens, and a handful of her suggestions appear a bit dated, from Chapter 3’s gender-specific breakdown of unfamiliar household tasks (home maintenance for widows, cooking for widowers) to the chart of average funeral costs last updated in 2009. But while Post’s specific experiences may not be universally relatable, they could prove quite comforting to readers going through a similar situation.
Not a comprehensive manual on end-of-life issues, but a decent reference for couples, especially valuable for older readers and caregivers.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1490575452
Page Count: 164
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 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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