An account that should easily resonate with Christian readers who have experienced trauma.
A debut author recalls his family’s struggles with poverty and his alcoholic father as well as the personal relationship with God that lent him guidance in times of hardship.
Simmons’ salad days are tied to being 6 years old and growing up in his family’s eponymous “Blue House” in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, in the latter half of the 1950s, a simpler time when life’s greatest questions could be answered by his mother while she worked at her ironing board. His father’s heavy drinking and inability to hold a regular job cost the boy this innocence, leaving the family nearly destitute, constantly moving to new, small, sometimes-unfinished, sometimes-decrepit homes. With little support, Simmons’ mother was forced to weather these adversities and disappointments in order to provide for her five children, often buying groceries on never-to-be-repaid credit and once resorting to picking cotton just to give the family a Christmas celebration. Through the intervention of active pastors and a short time with a loving, devout woman named Mrs. Tompkins, the reserved Simmons was able to cultivate a relationship with God that stayed with him throughout his life, granting him the support and answers he needed in a world far more complicated than his early days in the Blue House. Highly personal, much of the memoir reads like a Christian testimonial, as Simmons shares intimate conversations he had with God, not just concerning his problematic father, but also his mother’s and siblings’ safety in the face of abuse. Over the course of his life, he received similar protections and directions as he joined the National Guard, worked for General Electric, dipped a toe in politics, and started a family of his own, often advocating to friends and family about the word of the Lord. This is no casual religious text—it’s anti-abortion and concentrates regularly on Bible passages, with each chapter accompanied by pointed “Life Lessons” by Middlebrooks, using Simmons’ experiences as opportunities to introduce guide questions for Bible study. These emphatic lessons will likely appeal to Christian audiences with similar views. They are a mix of metaphors, Proverbs, and Scripture, with a focus on self-reflection and individual responsibility, both spiritual and secular.
An account that should easily resonate with Christian readers who have experienced trauma.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-2161-9
Page Count: 248
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2017
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
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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