A piquant blend of oenophilia and self-study suggestions.
A retired professor discusses a new “philosophy of living” while drinking wine with friends in this debut self-help guide.
In the mid-1990s, Drinan, now a dean emeritus and professor emeritus at the University of San Diego, was traveling in Europe. There, he noticed that there always seemed to be about 12 drops left every time he and his wife polished off a bottle of wine. His daughter later gave him a book, A History of Wine in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage, which led to his discovery of cottabus, an ancient Greek game played at philosophical symposia. Largely a skills contest involving flinging wine dregs at particular targets, Drinan found it “not hard to imagine the zest of conversations as people played the game and speculated about what success or failure might mean in their lives.” Inspired by this idea, he sets forth “a new cottabus” in this book to serve as a “down-to-earth, regular way to tease out one’s philosophy of living.” His game is focused on shaping and sharing one’s “personal terroir,” the set of “practical wisdoms” that guide one’s life. He stresses a philosophy of “living” versus a philosophy of “life,” connecting his concept to Epicurus as well as Thomas Jefferson, an Epicurus-leaning wine lover. Drinan shares his affinity with Jefferson (he and his wife both attended the University of Virginia) and lists his own practical wisdoms, which include Voltaire’s maxim that “The best is the enemy of the good.” He readily admits that his idea for a book is rather playful, yet he rightfully emphasizes the often serious underlying value in frivolity. Certainly, his highly enjoyable exercise has merit, and today’s more thoughtful wine connoisseurs may particularly appreciate it. The author occasionally gets a bit too scholarly in his musings, such as when he imagines a dialogue between Epicurus and Jefferson, and he goes on a bit too long when setting up his initial thesis. Still, this is a charming book for anyone who relishes wine and wants to gain a greater understanding of oneself and others while imbibing it.
A piquant blend of oenophilia and self-study suggestions.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5023-5662-8
Page Count: 122
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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