A good yardstick by which self-improvement books should be measured.
An in-your-face guide to living with integrity and finding happiness in sometimes-painful places.
Popular blogger Manson (Models: Attract Women Through Honesty, 2011) criticizes self-help books for their fundamentally flawed approach of telling readers they're special, assuring them that they can surpass—but, notably, not solve—problems, and encouraging them to embrace their exceptionalism. The author sternly disagrees, showing readers "how to pick and choose what matters to you and what does not matter to you based on finely honed values." Unlike simple affirmations or personal growth books designed to flatter or soothe, Manson urges readers to "change what you value and/or how you measure failure/success.” Having better values creates better problems to solve, and those achievements will lead to a legitimately improved life. Throughout, the author continually slaps readers sharply across the face, using blunt, funny, and deceptively offhand language when expanding on his key principle: "Not giving a fuck does not mean being indifferent; it means being comfortable with being different….There’s absolutely nothing admirable or confident about indifference. People who are indifferent are lame and scared. They’re couch potatoes and Internet trolls….They hide in a gray, emotionless pit of their own making, self-absorbed and self-pitying, perpetually distracting themselves from this unfortunate thing demanding their time and energy called life.” Manson's cheeky but thoughtful opinions combine with in-depth advice in such sections as "You're Wrong About Anything (But So Am I)" and "How To Be a Little Less Certain of Yourself” (hint: “if it’s down to me being screwed up, or everybody else being screwed up, it is far, far, far more likely that I’m the one who’s screwed up”). This book, full of counterintuitive suggestions that often make great sense, is a pleasure to read and worthy of rereading.
A good yardstick by which self-improvement books should be measured.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-245771-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Neo-Luddite/New Age pop apocalypticism from the author of Magical Child Matures (1985), The Bond of Power (1981), etc. There's precious little here that hasn't cropped up in Pearce's other books, reshuffled but adding up to the same old message: that we make the world that we inhabit (``our world is a construction of knowledge and each act of knowledge brings forth a world''), and that modern living is mucking it up. Human intelligence, says Pearce, consists of ``fields of potential'' ready to be awakened by the right ``model environment.'' Pearce looks at how this process unfolds in thinking, dreaming, sight, hearing, memory, and the like, finding support for his ideas in various New Age dogmas, as well as in the religious teachings of Castaneda and Muktananda. What emerges is a cogent if scientifically dicey sketch of the ``self-organization'' of perception. Upon this platform, Peace constructs a novel three-stage model of human development: heart-mind synchrony, which occurs in infancy; postadolescent synchrony of the physical self and the creative process, which few of us attain; and a final mystical stage, nearly unknown, that ``moves us beyond biology.'' Why do so few people reach the top of the ladder? Because our potential is poisoned by ``barbaric'' practices like circumcision and premature snipping of the umbilical cord. Pearce saves his worst news for blacks, a ``high percentage'' of whom are ``uneducable'' because of the ``psychic shock'' of not using midwives! As for children who squeak through infancy, they face such horrors as day care, TV, toy stores, and Little League, which ``prevent neural development'' or at least warp creativity. A singular theory of human development, placed on an attractive epistemological base and then eroded by technophobia, hyperbole (in proper birthing, ``our civilization, as well as our species, is at stake''), and hints of racism, until what remains seems curiously deformed—a jeremiad without common sense.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-06-250693-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
Peck's megahit, The Road Less Traveled (1978), offered cures for the psychospiritual ills of lone men and women; this does the same for human clusterings, large or small. As Peck (A Bed by the Window, 1990, etc.) sees it, society is an unholy mess. The reason? Loss of ``civility,'' defined as ``consciously motivated organizational behavior''—that is, the ability to behave with attention and love toward other human beings. The solution? Certainly not a ``return to Eden,'' which some seek through drugs or alcohol. Rather, the answer is painful evolution into a higher awareness of self and other. Peck speaks despairingly of the ``hole in the mind,'' which is our propensity to act unconsciously in organizations. To teach us how to plug the hole, Peck makes use of systems theory, management training, lessons drawn from his psychiatric practice and personal life, and heavy doses of religious insight. The bottom line here is God and his unconditional love for all human beings. God exalts us; our job is to accept and work with this elevated status. As individuals, this means finding the right job and doing it well. Peck offers useful advice on both accounts (the best way to husband time, he says, is to spend some of it doing nothing—that is, in prayer and meditation). As for organizational life, this begins for many people with marriage. Echoing the realism he sounded in Road, Peck sees the only good reasons for marriage as kids or ``friction,'' i.e., struggle that leads to new life. Business, too, must be rooted in ethics, in which management styles from authoritarian to consensual have a place. In closing, Peck details the work of his Foundation for Community Encouragement, which holds workshops on community-building in businesses and other organizations. A peck of hardheaded, kindhearted advice; the author's best since Road. (First printing of 100,000)
Pub Date: March 15, 1993
ISBN: 0-553-09307-X
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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