Like The Good Place, this is a humorous and thought-provoking journey into some of life’s hardest questions.
The acclaimed showrunner and TV writer considers philosophy and ethics.
Like Schur’s work on The Office, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place, this book is both heartfelt and funny. With the assistance of "philosophical nitpicking" by professor May, Schur takes us through 13 chapters, beginning with the question “Should I Punch My Friend in the Face for No Reason?” He then moves on to increasingly trickier philosophical concepts and how best to approach them in our daily lives. Fully admitting his own limitations, Schur stresses the importance of personal connection. “The works discussed in this book are simply the ones I liked and connected with,” he writes. “They’re the ones that made sense to me, in a cartoon-lightbulb-turning-on-above-my-head kind of a way. This simple sense of connection matters with something like philosophy, which is a massive and diverse rain forest of ideas.” In addition to delightful explorations of the history of philosophy, the author shows behind-the-scenes moments from The Good Place and touches on the strangeness that exists in the discipline—e.g., Jeremy Bentham’s decision to house his remains in a hideous “skeleton-wax-head contraption” he called an “auto-icon,” now on display at University College London. Moving both carefully and conversationally through progressively more difficult questions, Schur makes good on his promise to “wade into some deeply confusing and painful applications of moral philosophy, stretching and straining and chewing on really tough questions that plague us in our daily lives, that cause us anxiety and anguish and often lead to loud arguments with our closest friends and family. But in a fun way!” Whether discussing how to enjoy something that is morally problematic or debating whether we need to make moral decisions at all, the text is a relatable and consistently amusing introduction to practical philosophy.
Like The Good Place, this is a humorous and thought-provoking journey into some of life’s hardest questions.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982159-31-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
Fans will find comfort in Lawson’s dependably winning mix of shameless irreverence, wicked humor, and vulnerability.
The Bloggess is back to survey the hazards and hilarity of imperfection.
Lawson is a wanderer. Whether on her award-winning blog or in the pages of her bestselling books, she reliably takes readers to places they weren’t even aware they wanted to go—e.g., shopping for dog condoms or witnessing what appears to be a satanic ritual. Longtime fans of the author’s prose know that the destinations really aren’t the point; it’s the laugh-out-loud, tears-streaming-down-your-face journeys that make her writing so irresistible. This book is another solid collection of humorous musings on everyday life, or at least the life of a self-described “super introvert” who has a fantastic imagination and dozens of chosen spirit animals. While Furiously Happy centered on the idea of making good mental health days exceptionally good, her latest celebrates the notion that being broken is beautiful—or at least nothing to be ashamed of. “I have managed to fuck shit up in shockingly impressive ways and still be considered a fairly acceptable person,” writes Lawson, who has made something of an art form out of awkward confessionals. For example, she chronicles a mix-up at the post office that left her with a “big ol’ sack filled with a dozen small squishy penises [with] smiley faces painted on them.” It’s not all laughs, though, as the author addresses her ongoing battle with both physical and mental illness, including a trial of transcranial magnetic stimulation, a relatively new therapy for people who suffer from treatment-resistant depression. The author’s colloquial narrative style may not suit the linear-narrative crowd, but this isn’t for them. “What we really want,” she writes, “is to know we’re not alone in our terribleness….Human foibles are what make us us, and the art of mortification is what brings us all together.” The material is fresh, but the scaffolding is the same.
Fans will find comfort in Lawson’s dependably winning mix of shameless irreverence, wicked humor, and vulnerability.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-07703-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A provocative and original examination of the flaws in mental health treatment.
Fay's incisive, wide-ranging debut explores her decadeslong immersion in the mental health system.
Beginning when she was a teenager, Fay was diagnosed with six different mental illnesses, sometimes one by one, sometimes in combination, and often based on the skimpiest of evidence. Therapists and physicians concluded that she was suffering from anorexia, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, ADHD, OCD, and bipolar disorder. They prescribed medications accordingly, and Fay dutifully swallowed both the diagnoses and the pills—and then found it nearly impossible to extricate herself from either. The narrative, justifiably soaked with anger but also darkly funny at points, does not follow the course of the usual mental health memoir, in which the subject finally receives and responds to the “correct” analysis of her problems and lives happily-ever-after. Instead, Fay, still troubled, still medicated, stepped out of the loop of therapy and began to refute its basic tenets. The author boldly combines three strands: an account of her trip down the rabbit hole of the mental health system, where she tried valiantly to persuade herself to accept diagnoses that didn’t seem to correspond to her actual life; a dynamic critique of the various incarnations of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which serves as a guidebook for many clinicians; and, unexpectedly but beguilingly, analyses of the ways punctuation can reveal and structure thought. While criticism of the DSM is not new, Fay's position as an insider suffering from the results of its application as a method of analysis gives her a unique perspective. Sharply personal and impeccably detailed, the book is bound to raise questions in the minds of readers diagnosed with any number of disorders about the validity of trying to cram individual experience into what Fay contends are essentially imaginary categories.
A provocative and original examination of the flaws in mental health treatment.Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-306868-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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