A vigorous but unfocused Christian study.
A book that combines close-read Bible study and medical advice.
Solutin (We Are Gods, 2015, etc.) begins with a two-point combination that’s fairly typical in books in its genre: a series of unconventional health measures and a disclaimer that the author is “not a health care professional, which means nothing in this writing may be construed as prescription.” Solutin advocates twice-daily intakes of 1000 milligrams of vitamin C, 400 international units of vitamin E, and one scoop of whey protein mixed with water; he asserts that this regimen has cured him of diarrhea, headaches, vertigo, asthma, chest pains, and other ailments. The author later broadens the scope of his book to a more general examination of how Satan implemented “death programming” into humans to thwart the will of God, as “the original program of God with Adam was everlasting life.” He then embarks upon a deep analysis of and commentary on some fundamental Christian debates, such as the correct day of the Sabbath or the correct name of Jesus (“we know that the word LORD here is supposed to be YHWH which should be pronounced YaHuWaH,” he writes, although he confusingly refers to Jesus as “Yahushua” later in the book). He goes on to offer a detailed study of the Ten Commandments, including word-for-word translation analysis, and much of this section is engaging. However, it sits awkwardly alongside many of the book’s more unusual claims, such as that the concepts of karma and reincarnation are biblically supported, that there’s scientific evidence of past lives and near-death experiences, and that Lucifer created prehistoric man. Overall, the energy and innovation of the book’s scriptural analysis will likely interest readers of religious texts. However, they may have less use for the book’s nutritional supplement advice or pseudoscientific claims.
A vigorous but unfocused Christian study.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4953-4742-9
Page Count: 225
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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