A punchy and readable “journey from ignorance to integration” focusing on conflict resolution.
A concise manual offers advice on improving thinking and communicating.
In this guide, former trial lawyer Aylward presents a sharp, concise analysis of negotiation and conflict resolution, with six methods for improving both. The labels for these steps are deceptively simple-sounding, things like “set parameters,” “describe issues,” and “generate options.” The author sets them in a dialogue with Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury, which he refers to as “the foundational text for the whole field of Conflict Resolution.” Drawing on his extensive legal experience, Aylward analyzes the “adjudicative model” for conflict resolution that he contends has dominated the field for most of human history. In this model, participants identify only a small number of alternatives in a situation, debate the pros and cons of each, and then make a choice between them. He contends that this model is no longer as useful in the modern, diverse, and inclusive world, and in these pages, he makes the case for something he calls “the collaborative model” of communication. In this approach, no solutions are suggested, no “dichotomy for choice” is identified, and no blame is imputed to any participant for being responsible for the problem in the first place. The long-standing assumption that there are obvious positive sides to conflict is squarely in the crosshairs here, with the author championing an alternative model of principled negotiation in which resolution happens without antagonism. “Conflict,” he writes, “is not a growth industry.” Throughout the book, Aylward uses a crisp, very readable prose and combines it effectively with well-placed graphics to illustrate his points. In light of how divisive and divided contemporary society tends to be, many readers will feel that those points—particularly the author’s advocacy of the collaborative model—take on a greater importance. Aylward’s exhortation to halt and reverse the “downward spiral” of unresolved tension will strike many readers as more urgent than ever.
A punchy and readable “journey from ignorance to integration” focusing on conflict resolution.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 126
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
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. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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