A valuable manual with tips and tricks on how to achieve complete contentment.
A guide urges readers to learn how to enable their own long-lasting happiness using the principles of inner knowledge.
Kaalmly recalls that he was a “generalist.” He specialized in looking at challenges from broad perspectives to pinpoint practical solutions both professionally and personally. He uses this approach in his book, the first installment of a trilogy. The series aims to guide readers through topics of inner knowledge, outer knowledge, and “the advanced application of inner and outer knowledge such that happiness becomes effortless.” This installment focuses on the pursuit of inner knowledge by looking at happiness from a holistic perspective. The guide uses a healthy blend of science and spirituality, featuring ancient wisdom, like Tao and yoga, and modern sciences, such as biology and psychology. The first part, titled “Inner Knowledge,” is all about getting in touch with the inner self and soul by asking questions: Who am I? What do I want? How do I walk in the outer world? What happens when things go wrong? The second part also utilizes such questions, but it expands beyond basic inner knowledge into what Kaalmly calls “Prime Inner Knowledge”: Why don’t I listen? How do I take charge of my life? The author uses poignant anecdotes from his own life throughout to show the power of change and a long-term commitment to happiness. He argues that total inner understanding—of self, happiness, and emotions—is entirely possible through awareness, self-realization, and a calm, unshakeable foundation. Using an easy-to-follow structure, he expertly distills scientific concepts that readers will understand and connect with in this manual. Despite offering occasionally complex content, he maintains a warm writing style that invites readers into their own processes of developing happiness by encouraging the necessary inner work that many prefer to avoid. As a result, this is the ideal book for readers who feel disconnected or burned out from their everyday lives and who want an introductory guide to inner and outer change.
A valuable manual with tips and tricks on how to achieve complete contentment.Pub Date: March 6, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 311
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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