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
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
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