A helpful handbook for those who sometimes let their emotions rule.
A debut book repackages common self-improvement themes into a useful manual for reducing stress and achieving goals.
Psychologist D’Agostino believes emotions can get in the way of thinking. That’s why he employs the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy to help clients overcome problems through “naked thinking,” which he describes as “thinking with the suffocating cloak of emotions stripped away.” Dividing the book into two sections, the author first explores different aspects of naked thinking and then, through anecdotes, demonstrates how it can be applied to various situations. The material is not unique: topics such as managing emotions, decreasing stress, improving self-confidence, and setting goals are well-trodden in self-help volumes. Still, D’Agostino writes with a breezy, down-to-earth style that, while authoritative, feels informal and friendly. He also has a way of crystallizing ideas and conjuring up just the right definition for concepts that could be amorphous. He defines courage, for example, as “the ability to face any strong emotion that leads us in a different direction from our intended goal, and still do the right thing regardless of how we feel.” It is the second section of the book in which the concept of naked thinking comes to fruition. Here, D’Agostino deftly delivers numerous stories that appropriately make certain points, sometimes in dramatic fashion. Often, the moral of each tale is different than what one might expect. For example, a story about a man who unfailingly does the right thing, even though it costs him his job and marriage, seems to illustrate the fact that “virtue is its own reward”; in reality, the tale is meant to suggest that “anything, including pursuing a supposed virtue, can be destructive when it’s made to be the entire focus of a person’s life.” The outcome of each episode, coupled with the author’s keen observations and insights, creates vivid life lessons that should resonate with any reader. Another nice touch are the sidebar boxes that encourage the reader to write down thoughts related to the content, thus “personalizing” the work.
A helpful handbook for those who sometimes let their emotions rule.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-5320-0598-5
Page Count: 236
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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