A brisk and brightly inviting call to simplify and revivify one’s existence.
A wide-ranging plan for increasing mindfulness in daily life.
Certified holistic health counselor Sokolova declares at the outset of her nonfiction debut that it’s her hope to share with her readers the “radiant health, enjoyable nutrition, and a lovable lifestyle” that she’s pursued and studied her entire life. She invites readers to join her on a quest for a deeper sense of happiness, which she defines as “creativity, a healthy mind, abundance, and growth.” She touts a long list of benefits that can specifically result from embracing mindfulness on a day-to-day basis, such as improved sleep, reduced stress, better decision-making ability, greater productivity, and healthier eating habits. Using aspects of the “two extraordinary philosophies” that have influenced her the most—the Chinese practice of finding harmony in one’s environment known as feng shui, and the minimalist organizational methods of bestselling author and TV personality Marie Kondo—Sokolova explores the nature of her own mindful worldview, which she applies to such topics as managing personal finances and dealing with adverse health issues. Along the way, she touches on such topics as numerology and tarot card reading, which she calls “navigational tools that can help us choose a better life direction.” Each chapter opens with a few inspirational quotes and contains many bulleted points for easier retention, and there are even a few recipes to try. This all results in a high readable work in which Sokolova assumes a rhetorical position of a wise, enthusiastic guide and coach. Throughout, she effectively stresses joy and gratitude, encouraging her readers to focus on every detail of their lives, from work to diet and nutrition, in their journey toward healthier living. She takes an upbeat but realistic tone—mentioning, for instance, that happiness can only come about through “inner work”—and this is likely to appeal to experienced self-help readers.
A brisk and brightly inviting call to simplify and revivify one’s existence.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66242-726-8
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2022
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
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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