A realistic if sobering look in the mirror for individuals with aging parents or for those who are aging themselves.
An engaging, frank handbook that focuses on how to avoid looking and feeling old.
Hecht, a former educational consultant who retired in 2013, has written a guide that approaches aging with honesty, humor and insight. She takes somewhat of a risk of alienating her intended audience by addressing the unpleasant aspects of aging in Part 1, which she titles “Annoying Habits of Old People.” Hecht can be exceedingly blunt: “Take note of how much grunting you do, and resist making sounds that show how much effort it takes for you to get up from a chair, get out of a car, etc.” The author talks openly about the aging body, eyes, ears, nose, throat, teeth, face, hair, skin and mind—and that’s just Part 1. But Hecht tempers what could be unsettling for the reader by including specific, easy solutions in each chapter: “Keep a positive attitude toward yourself and your body; start by smiling instead of frowning.” She also appends several short anecdotes and vignettes at the end of each chapter in which real people relate their own relevant experiences, offering readers a sense of comfort that they aren’t alone in dealing with physical, mental and emotional changes. Part 2 includes a range of important topics, such as finances in retirement, protection from identity theft and mugging, leaving a legacy, and the often taboo topic of aging and sex. As in the first part, Part 2 includes specific solutions and short anecdotes. Hecht approaches each of these subjects without being judgmental as she explains her point of view in language that is simple yet not condescending. Chapters are brief and to the point; some readers may in fact find the content a bit too cursory rather than comprehensive. Still, in a book intended to convey 250 quick tips, Hecht manages to achieve a decent balance of detail—not too little, not too much.
A realistic if sobering look in the mirror for individuals with aging parents or for those who are aging themselves.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-1490565101
Page Count: 104
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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
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