A guide offers inspiration for life after Covid-19.
As a result of the pandemic, internationally known motivational speaker Kim saw her face-to-face business evaporate. Instead of surrendering, she conceived of four formulas to make “order out of chaos.” This book explores her “Reboot Formulas,” explains how to write a “Reboot Scenario,” and discusses how to survive in a post-pandemic world. The author begins with a pragmatic overview of the universal impact of Covid-19 on everyday life. She subsequently describes the four formulas, illustrating how she applied them to her own business as well as providing solid examples from other companies. The first two formulas revolve around transitioning from in-person to online communications and accepting the broader goal of digital transformation. Kim not only drove this metamorphosis in her business, she understood that the digital data she acquired about customers could be used to segment and personalize products and services. The third formula recognizes the way in which the pandemic has changed the relationship between employee and employer, creating the “Independent Worker.” The author believes millennials in particular have embraced working independently. Still, she perceptively thinks the workplace is changing, resulting in the need for everyone to consider becoming independent employees. In discussing the fourth formula, “Safety,” Kim accurately cites her native South Korea’s world-leading response to the pandemic: “The choice that Koreans made, even if it required loss and sacrifice, ended up saving Korea and its being acknowledged as an advanced country when it came to safety.” A particularly instructive portion of the book is the detailed, three-stage approach the author proposes for writing a reboot scenario, followed by her enthusiastic encouragement to become “a chaser,” someone who realizes it is never too late to take the first step toward a goal. Kim’s strong emphasis on self-education as well as learning from others is a critical part of a successful reboot. The author closes the manual on a philosophical note: “We may have lost everything but not ourselves.” Consistently positive throughout, Kim delivers wise, motivational words and actionable strategies for moving forward.
An affirmative, spirited prescription for coping in a post-pandemic world.Pub Date: June 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-54-452137-4
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | SELF-HELP
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The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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PERSPECTIVES
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
23
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All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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