A lively, if familiar, guide that urges readers to embrace their inner compasses.
An outspoken blueprint focuses on finding true passion in life.
Rooney opens her advice book with a series of basic questions that many of her readers have likely asked at some point in their personal and professional development. “Do you long for recognition and kudos because you are a rock star, but hear crickets?” she asks. “Do you crave external validation to quiet the self-doubt brewing in your brain?” Dramatized by several incidents that the author presents throughout the guide, these questions—and the unsatisfying answers people often receive from their corporate superiors—raise the subject of what Rooney calls “Heart Value” (“Your understanding—on a cellular level—of who you are and what lights you up, and how that synergistically connects with others”). She urges her readers to remember that they are the world’s leading experts on themselves and that their own instincts already know how to help them reach what the author refers to as their “True Stride” (“Your metaphor for trusting your inner compass to direct your life, set your pace, overcome resistance and honor your Heart Value with each step you take”). Rooney fills each energetic chapter with vivid anecdotal stories, inspirational quotes, and exercises she calls “checkpoints,” all designed to remind her readers that they know themselves best; their instincts are ultimately trustworthy; and their ambitions should be for others to recognize their Heart Value. Her repeated emphasis on implicitly trusting instincts will raise flags with readers who favor manuals that stress rational planning. And many of the pieces of homespun wisdom she dispenses verge on clichés (if you feel stuck, for instance, she suggests trying an introspective activity like taking a walk or running a bath). But Rooney’s legion of loyal “Striders” will love having her invigorating life plan in book form.
A lively, if familiar, guide that urges readers to embrace their inner compasses.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73686-097-7
Page Count: 308
Publisher: True Stride
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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
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