by Michael Walker ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 29, 2018
A passionate but somewhat simplistic call to return to God’s ways when addressing modern-day problems.
A minister of religion in Britain looks at some key societal problems and offers solutions based on Christian writings.
In his nonfiction debut, Walker deals with three prominent, contentious issues in modern society: the scourge of depression, the difficulties of child-rearing, and the degradation of the environment. In all these cases, his approach should be familiar to his fellow fundamentalist Christians: The word of God is the only guide, the only safeguard, and the only accounting. “God will never abandon you,” the author assures his readers. “You are the most precious thing he has created, and as the Father, he will always be there for you, in whatever situation you are in.” In this way, he contextualizes his subjects along biblical lines. While examining pollution, for instance, he reminds his readers that in the book of Genesis God originally charges Adam to “tend” the Garden of Eden. Walker then deftly broadens his assessment to deliver a fervent call for greater environmental conscientiousness when it comes to things like recycling plastic. His passages on depression are more worrying. He urges his readers to resist the devil and his minions when it comes to fighting their way through depression. Depression is not caused by demons, and stating otherwise is incredibly baffling in the 21st century (the author references the story of Jesus and the Gadarene swine). Walker’s long section on parenting is full of basic and useful advice: that homes should be kept neat, that families should stay together, that children should be raised responsibly, etc. The author asserts that “we are instructed by God on how we are to bring up our children”—which requires selective Scripture quoting in order to avoid God’s instruction that rebellious children should be executed by their parents. Christian readers will likely be acquainted with these kinds of carefully sculpted homilies.
A passionate but somewhat simplistic call to return to God’s ways when addressing modern-day problems.Pub Date: June 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5462-9091-9
Page Count: 108
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 13, 2012
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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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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