An energetic, if sometimes stale, self-improvement guide.
A success manual with a self-help focus designed to bring about outward success through inner awareness.
In quick, concise chapters, Shuja and Khawaja primarily concentrate on personal realization, the kind of mental and emotional experience that, according to them, involves experiencing positive emotions while diminishing negatives like jealousy, hatred, or anger. Throughout, they quote generously from such self-help gurus as Tony Robbins, including his classification of four types of experiences (fulfilling, challenging, escapist, and wasted), and Wayne Dyer, who proffers the odd contention that you should care about other people without caring about what they think of you. Throughout, the authors comment on a broad spectrum of self-improvement topics—from financial advice to overviews of good eating and exercise habits—and always include pragmatic reminders: “Knowing what to eat and how to exercise is essential,” they remind their readers, “but doing it is even more critical.” Like many self-help writers, the authors occasionally lapse into clichés or non sequiturs. “If you don’t love yourself, you can’t love others,” they write at one such point, though readers might vehemently disagree. Another unhelpful note: “If your first goal is to become a better person who has excellent qualities and moral values and the capability of managing more significant enterprises,” they write, “then the money will take care of itself.” Many will be able to testify to the contrary. These bromides weaken the overall optimistic momentum of the narrative, but they don’t destroy it completely. The guide’s main strength comes from its compartmentalization of inner improvement: concentrate first on addressing relationships with other people (and one’s god), move on from there to improve job satisfaction, which will improve productivity, which in turn will improve “financial health.” The clear presentation of these stages will probably be a boon to readers looking for such organization.
An energetic, if sometimes stale, self-improvement guide.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-68-027866-6
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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