An involving and encouraging Christian workbook for overcoming eating problems.
A writer offers a companion volume to her spiritual work about food.
Epstein’s guide serves as an adjunct to Satisfied (2018), which seeks to help readers modify their relationships to food. These two books deal with the frustrations readers face regarding such issues as food addiction, eating disorders, and body dysmorphia, when “the diets just aren't working, your therapy isn’t enough, medication hasn’t fixed you, the fancy brand-name programs aren’t doing it, and even prayer and Bible study don’t seem to be cutting it.” To help those who find themselves in such a spot, the author has fashioned an approach patterned after the 12-step recovery process pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous and designed to help readers end addictive eating once and for all. Mirroring the AA model, the manual tells readers suffering from such problems that the very first thing they must do is admit that they’re powerless over food. Readers looking for a credo based on responsibility and self-control have come to the wrong book; Epstein’s work is entirely based on pathology. In each of her volume’s sections, she deftly provides readers with copious discussion and contemplation prompts in the form of checklists, “recovery questions,” and many inspirational quotes drawn from Christian Scripture. This last element runs throughout the absorbing guide, with the author often suggesting prayers for her readers to emulate: “Lord, thank You for this day and for the freedom I have in you. Please keep me free today from compulsive overeating and obsessive thinking about food and my body size.” Epstein includes enough prose supporting these prompts to give this book the ability to stand on its own. Although the author’s discussion questions and checklists are nothing readers couldn’t generate on their own, many readers will doubtless find the structure in these pages very helpful in focusing their recovery efforts.
An involving and encouraging Christian workbook for overcoming eating problems.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-947297-19-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Dexterity
Review Posted Online: April 15, 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
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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