A fresh look at adversity and the ways in which it can enrich one’s life.
A thorough guide to seeing adversity as a tool, rather than as an obstacle.
Unlike many self-help books, motivational speaker Taylor’s (Black Men Rock, 2013, etc.) title avoids the tired mantra of “overcoming” and “avoiding” life’s negative aspects, such as stress, challenges, and unhappy emotions. Instead, the author unusually suggests that nothing is good nor bad until one decides it is. Readers are thus encouraged to rethink the way they encounter difficulties, seeing them not as “bad” parts of life, but as the work of life itself. The physical world, Taylor explains, is but one part of a human’s existence. This is because, as he puts it, “you are not actually a human being having a spiritual experience—you are a spiritual being having a human experience, and your body is just like the suit of clothes that you are wearing.” When things don’t turn out as planned, whether they’re related to career, relationships, child-rearing, or educational goals, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing, he asserts. Instead, he encourages readers to practice mindfulness—the art of experiencing emotions from an observer’s point of view—and then determine how best one can use those feelings. He also suggests contemplation, a spiritual exercise of focusing on one aspect of life and looking at it from all angles. Taylor delivers cogent ideas in this book, backed by strategies that anyone can follow. For practice, he provides exercises to get readers in touch with what is truly important: “What are your deepest values? Select 3 to 6 and prioritize the words in order of importance to you.” These will speak to any reader searching for new perspectives on growth and living in the now.
A fresh look at adversity and the ways in which it can enrich one’s life.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9641894-6-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Creation Publishing Group
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
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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