A fine collection of vignettes on meditation.
Li, in his debut self-help book, aims to convince readers that if he can meditate, anyone can.
Rarely has a subtitle more amusingly and accurately hinted at a book’s contents. The 28-year-old author turned to meditation to help ameliorate his obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and anxiety without turning to what he calls “lobotomizing” medications. Before and during his practice, he also battled Graves’ disease and lung cancer. Li is the first to point out his own imperfections; he notes that meditation wasn’t always easy for him, but he isn’t sorry that he persisted: “I don’t think there is anything special about me,” he writes. “I just kept believing it was possible.” In a series of passages, vignettes, poems, and blog posts, he shares his thoughts on meditation interspersed with his reminiscences and personal experiences. He also includes quotations from such notables as Friedrich Nietzsche (“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music”) and Cyndi Lauper and manages to find equal profundity in each. His refreshing honesty about his flaws—more than one vignette begins with a mention of a hangover, for example—makes meditation seem attainable by the masses, not just clean-living Zen practitioners. He repeatedly cites playwright Samuel Beckett (“Ever tried, ever failed, no matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better”) while encouraging practitioners to keep trying and to seek inspiration in failures. The chapters aren’t linear but rather follow Li’s stream of consciousness, including the “swerves” that give the book its title. As added bonuses, he includes Zhong’s colorful artwork (including depictions of Buddha statues) for concentration meditation as well as sources for his unique collection of quotes. Whether or not the book is useful to meditation practitioners, general readers will still find many amusing anecdotes and meaningful ideas.
A fine collection of vignettes on meditation.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1507664520
Page Count: 278
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Honest messages from one of America's best known women.
A compilation of advice from the Queen of All Media.
After writing a column for 14 years titled “What I Know For Sure” for O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine, Winfrey brings together the highlights into one gift-ready collection. Grouped into themes like Joy, Resilience, Connection, Gratitude, Possibility, Awe, Clarity and Power, each short essay is the distilled thought of a woman who has taken the time to contemplate her life’s journey thus far. Whether she is discussing traveling across the country with her good friend, Gayle, the life she shares with her dogs or building a fire in the fireplace, Winfrey takes each moment and finds the good in it, takes pride in having lived it and embraces the message she’s received from that particular time. Through her actions and her words, she shows readers how she's turned potentially negative moments into life-enhancing experiences, how she's found bliss in simple pleasures like a perfectly ripe peach, and how she's overcome social anxiety to become part of a bigger community. She discusses the yo-yo dieting, exercise and calorie counting she endured for almost two decades as she tried to modify her physical body into something it was not meant to be, and how one day she decided she needed to be grateful for each and every body part: "This is the body you've been given—love what you've got." Since all of the sections are brief and many of the essays are only a couple paragraphs long—and many members of the target audience will have already read them in the magazine—they are best digested in short segments in order to absorb Winfrey's positive and joyful but repetitive message. The book also features a new introduction by the author.
Honest messages from one of America's best known women.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1250054050
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Flatiron View Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.
The debut memoir from the pop and fashion star.
Early on, Simpson describes the book she didn’t write: “a motivational manual telling you how to live your best life.” Though having committed to the lucrative deal years before, she “walked away,” fearing any sort of self-help advice she might give would be hypocritical. Outwardly, Simpson was at the peak of her success, with her fashion line generating “one billion dollars in annual sales.” However, anxiety was getting the better of her, and she admits she’d become a “feelings addict,” just needing “enough noise to distract me from the pain I’d been avoiding since childhood. The demons of traumatic abuse that refused to let me sleep at night—Tylenol PM at age twelve, red wine and Ambien as a grown, scared woman. Those same demons who perched on my shoulder, and when they saw a man as dark as them, leaned in to my ear to whisper, ‘Just give him your light. See if it saves him…’ ” On Halloween 2017, Simpson hit rock bottom, and, with the intervention of her devoted friends and husband, began to address her addictions and underlying fears. In this readable but overlong narrative, the author traces her childhood as a Baptist preacher’s daughter moving 18 times before she “hit fifth grade,” and follows her remarkable rise to fame as a singer. She reveals the psychological trauma resulting from years of sexual abuse by a family friend, experiences that drew her repeatedly into bad relationships with men, most publicly with ex-husband Nick Lachey. Admitting that she was attracted to the validating power of an audience, Simpson analyzes how her failings and triumphs have enabled her to take control of her life, even as she was hounded by the press and various music and movie executives about her weight. Simpson’s memoir contains plenty of personal and professional moments for fans to savor. One of Kirkus and Rolling Stone’s Best Music Books of 2020.
An eye-opening glimpse into the attempted self-unmaking of one of Hollywood’s most recognizable talents.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-289996-5
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
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