by Michael Gurian ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 18, 2013
An engaging warning against a hopeless search for the fountain of youth that overlooks some of the painful issues of...
Mental health counselor and self-help guru Gurian (The Invisible Presence: How a Man's Relationship with His Mother Affects All His Relationships with Women, 2012, etc.) moves up the age spectrum to discuss how to embrace the experience of getting older.
Taking 50 as his starting point, the author divides the process into three stages. The years from 50 to 65 he calls the age of transformation—the proper time to begin preparing to become an elder. Gurian advocates the process of beginning to kick back at 50. Having reached a pinnacle of success, our minds and bodies are beginning to slow down. The arduous phase of child-rearing is coming to an end, allowing parents the opportunity to reconnect and opening the possibility of developing a second career or creative hobby. The next phase is from 65 through the 70s, a time for senior citizens to celebrate their accomplishments and re-examine their spiritual values. The last phase he calls “the age of spiritual completion,” a time for renouncing material values and looking toward the “wonder of dying and death.” Gurian offers concrete examples of ways to deal with problems of aging, such as loss of sexual prowess, and he suggests that a slow death can be preferable in that it allows us to “experience dying fully.” Still, he admits that “dying and death can be terrible and upsetting.” He questions the desirability of such procedures as knee replacements for those over the age of 80 and supports the right of individuals to assistance in terminating their lives.
An engaging warning against a hopeless search for the fountain of youth that overlooks some of the painful issues of retirement, such as loss of savings, debt and adult children needing financial and emotional support.Pub Date: June 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-0669-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
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by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
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
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by Cheryl Strayed ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2015
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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