A heartfelt but unexceptional book.
An award-winning television journalist muses on how to successfully negotiate the challenges of living in the modern world.
Shriver (Just Who Will You Be?, 2008, etc.) grew up a member of the storied Kennedy family. Despite great privilege, however, she has continually struggled with defining what constitutes a “meaningful life,” especially in an age when we are all “inundated with news and information about how terrible everything is.” This collection, which emerged from the author’s “I’ve Been Thinking” column in her digital newsletter, The Sunday Paper, provides a series of short meditations on everything from the power of gratitude and positive thinking to the blessings of love and family. Each piece begins with quotations from the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Oprah Winfrey, and Gandhi and ends with personal prayers that reflect Shriver’s deep devotion to her faith. The author begins with observations on the need for cultivating self-acceptance and “intestinal fortitude” to withstand a world that has become increasingly hostile and “unsteady.” As she celebrates female empowerment, she also remarks on the need for people—and women in particular—to care for their physical, mental, and spiritual health, now more than ever. In speaking of the work she has done in her life as a journalist and advocate for Alzheimer’s education, Shriver notes that motherhood, “the biggest, most powerful, most all-encompassing job on the planet,” has been her greatest challenge. Her four children have been bearers of important lessons in “patience, kindness, and acceptance” as well as the most difficult but necessary lesson of all: letting go. What partially saves this well-intentioned book from reading like a series of trite platitudes is Shriver’s underlying understanding of current events. Beyond positive thinking, what we all need are “leaders who bring us together” and citizens who can “listen with open minds…to find a common thread.”
A heartfelt but unexceptional book.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-52260-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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