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
An entertaining and informative discussion of both the scientific and cultural impact of caffeine and alcohol.
Not many users of the world's two most popular drugs know the details of their chemical or biological effects; here's a good introduction.
Braun, a science writer and television producer, begins with alcohol, which was known to ancient Sumerians 5,500 years ago. Ethanol (the drinkable form of alcohol) is a waste product of the metabolism of sugar by yeast; it is poison to the yeast that produces it and (in sufficient quantities) to the human beings who drink it. So the body has developed complex ways of defending itself. Braun describes the progress of a shot of whiskey through the body, from the taste buds to the digestive tract, with amusing commentary on the journey. The alcohol's ultimate destination is the brain; scientists believe that it releases endorphins there, as do ether, valium, and morphine. Further chapters discuss alcohol's effects on sexual desire and performance, positive health benefits of moderate drinking, hangover cures, and current theories on the causes of alcoholism. Then caffeine gets a similar treatment, from its introduction into the Western world to its current popularity in forms ranging from espresso to soft drinks. Braun explains the decaffeination process (most of the caffeine removed from coffee is sold to soft-drink manufacturers) and explores such questions as whether caffeine aids mental processes (and which ones), to what extent caffeine is addictive, and how caffeine and alcohol interact (as in Irish coffee). Here, as in the chapters on alcohol, bits of interesting lore—women's protests against 18th-century coffeehouses, Theodore Roosevelt's impromptu endorsement of Maxwell House, the formation of the first Caffeine Anonymous group—add the human dimension to the scientific discussion. In the end, the author admits that caffeine was an indispensable aid to his writing of this book, but he has since moderated his use of both caffeine and alcohol.
An entertaining and informative discussion of both the scientific and cultural impact of caffeine and alcohol.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-19-509289-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
Rather tedious ramblings of a middle-aged, handicapped lesbian trying to decide whether her spiritual home is a Zen center in California or a meditation retreat in New York. Tollifson, whose lack of a right hand made her an outsider from birth, says that by the age of 33 she had ``tried alcohol and drugs of every kind, sex of all imaginable varieties, several forms of therapy, and revolution.'' A radical feminist committed to revolutionary violence when she first encountered Zen practice, she soon became a resident of the Berkeley Zen Center and even pictured herself becoming a priest there. Before this could happen, however, Toni Packer, a New York teacher of a form of meditation lacking the rituals and paraphernalia of Zen, captured her imagination. Enthralled with Packer, Tollifson left Berkeley and entered Packer's Springwater Center for Meditative Inquiry and Retreats. From 1988 to 1995, the eight-year period that is the focus of this memoir, Tollifson ricocheted between these two centers, continually searching not just for a spiritual home but for the perfect one. To a nonpractitioner of meditation, her concern over whether it is better to meditate on a cushion or in an armchair seems petty, her hero worship of her teachers seems juvenile, and her repeated changes of mind about the form of meditation that is right for her become wearisome. What Tollifson skims over and what might have made an interesting story is her transformation from a drug-dealing addict and alcoholic living in bars to an ultraleftist dedicated to fomenting revolution and then to a sober and celibate meditator. Tollifson's life has not been an ordinary one, and if she chose to, she could undoubtedly tell an extraordinary story. A mostly dull, often repetitious exercise in self-indulgence.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-517-88792-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bell Tower/Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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