An approachable and intriguing yoga method for those seeking an alternative route to wellness.
A practitioner’s guide to a yoga alternative focused on the nervous system.
Kaiut, strategic director of the Kaiut Yoga Institute, approaches holistic wellness with the Kaiut yoga method, which works specifically at the “intersection of movement, neuroscience, and longevity” and, most importantly, how the nervous system affects pain and overall health. The author begins, unsurprisingly, with the origins of yoga: The agricultural revolution lowered diversity of movement due to specialized labor. Believing that mobility is the backbone of health, Kaiut explains how “Kaiut Yoga restores the office worker.” Organized into three parts, this guide covers the core principles behind the Kaiut method. Part I discusses the key indicators of physical health: strength, flexibility, and balance. Debunking common notions of these aspects of health, the book preaches diversity in movement, not performance. Most compelling is the author’s view of pain, or “blockages”: Not only is pain systemic, relating to the whole body through the nervous system, but the key to healing pain is training the nervous system to feel safe again across diverse movements. Part II discusses joints, where the center of the body’s adaptability lives. The author claims that students with joint pain or stiffness not only find relief from the Kaiut method, but also experience “improved focus, calmer thinking, deeper sleep, and renewed energy,” which are all signs that the nervous system is well regulated. Part III interrogates traditional yoga practices that reward perfection and performance, whereas in Kaiut yoga, “If you stayed in a pose long enough to feel something new, or found a way to feel the edges of what scares you, this is success.” In addition to the author’s impressive bibliography and helpful poses in the appendices, the text includes “From the Mat” stories, where real Kaiut students candidly share their positive experiences with the method.
An approachable and intriguing yoga method for those seeking an alternative route to wellness.Pub Date: May 1, 2026
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026
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
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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