A fresh take on well-trod self-improvement territory.
A debut motivational guide challenges readers to gain a new perspective.
Though the world may appear full of roadblocks that keep people from success and productivity, it is actually their mindsets that cause them to register these events as problems in the first place, according to Egan. “The crucial first step in creating sustainable growth and lasting change is to examine the limitations of your internal mindset,” writes the author in the manual’s introduction. “Shifting your viewpoint can enable you to use your perceived external limitations as catalysts for personal and organizational progress.” Influenced by modern psychology and Tibetan Buddhism, Egan seeks to help his readers initiate this shift in their own lives, thereby viewing the world in a way that is more beneficial to their contentment. Using anecdotes from his experiences as an educator, the author demonstrates how the way people see their lives is simply one possible interpretation, a tale that could be told from any number of perspectives. There is no need for readers to live forever in the stories they inherited from society or people in their past. Egan argues that readers can rewrite their narratives, alter their assumptions, find opportunities in the obstacles they face, and otherwise build new outlooks. Each chapter tackles a different area of life that is subject to transformation—difficulty, panic, attachment—and provides an exercise to help the audience recalibrate. The author’s prose is encouraging and plainspoken, more akin to a monk than a booster with a megaphone: “In Japanese martial arts, there is the concept of kuzushi, or disrupting the root or balance of the opponent….The secret to this is understanding what unbalances your opponent, and the only way to gain this understanding is, again, by staying connected to them.” While the book does not offer much that isn’t available in the many similar works in the motivational genre, Egan brings a self-awareness to the topic that imbues it with a sense of sincerity. That and the clean, simple structure should help this guide stand out from the crowd.
A fresh take on well-trod self-improvement territory.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5445-1048-4
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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