Inspiring as the affirmations can be, the book is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.
A collection of affirmations selected from the author’s daily tweets.
Twitter discourse is not distinguished by its positivity. But amid the rants, complaints, and depressing news, Miranda, the creator of the megahit musical Hamilton, offers daily inspirational greetings to start and end the day. These tidbits offer occasions for reflection and gratitude, and at their best, they spur confidence, resilience, and even happiness. Unfortunately, the magic doesn’t carry over from social to printed media. Even when the advice is good—e.g., “Gnight! / Your mind is yours alone. / Do what it takes to make yourself comfy. / Draw the blinds, kick out unwelcome guests. / Make it your home” or “Do NOT get stuck in the comments section of life / today. / Make, do, create the things. / Let others tussle it out”—reading more than a couple at a time is like going to the store and reading all the birthday cards. Eventually, they begin to sound sentimental or pat. Miranda describes his method for composing these tweets in his introduction: “I’m writing what I wish somebody would say, / Then switching the pronoun to you.” Readers will do well to invert this formula and switch the pronouns back to I as they read. This strategy allows an escape from awkward questions about why the author is saying these things to you. Although even reading “[I] did good today” forces the question, did I? Better is the playful specificity of something like “get some food in you, maybe a banana.” This brief collection is best when the author deviates from straight inspiration and surprises readers. Sun’s (everyone’s an aliebn when ur a aliebn too, 2017) line drawings, which enhance the book’s lighthearted side, are a notable addition to the print version of Miranda’s affirmations; they are a fun and refreshing presence throughout.
Inspiring as the affirmations can be, the book is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984854-27-8
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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