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FOR HUMANITY … FOR YOU

DIFFERENT WINDOWS TO THE WORLD

A positive guide to common steps and strategies for cultivating a positive mindset.

A debut manual combines tips, quotes, and ideas to create a self-improvement experience for readers.

Brett is a seasoned expert on the topic of positive mindsets and persevering through hardships. A multiple sclerosis survivor and avid writer, he offers his own life experiences and lessons to readers searching for new mindsets to break through negative thinking. Throughout this short book, the author delivers inspiring quotes, experiences, and ideas for cultivating a positive outlook—something that may not always be a default for many people. For example, Brett suggests seeing anger as a trap, advising readers: “Don’t take the bait!” He also advocates isolating certain optimistic thoughts or reasons for continuing forward on a path to happiness, keeping these concepts in mind for times when adversity requires a tough, positive perspective. Simple recommendations like looking at trials as adventures, avoiding complaining, and embracing change are just some of the many tips the author supplies throughout the volume. In 39 pages, a foundation for healthy thinking is provided. This manual would be ideal on a nightstand or coffee table for those who desire a title to pick up and flip through for a quick mental reset or upbeat focus during the day. But the book is not all superficial positivity. The author addresses the fact that life imposes inevitable barriers and that it is within the struggle that a person grows and finds meaning. Readers may find certain sections too broad; Brett resists delving deeper into certain topics like fear—a universal feeling. While each chapter supplies a short, useful “recap” at the end, some readers may be hungry for more in-depth explorations of powerful emotions such as doubt and anger. But for readers simply seeking a quick reference to overcome a negative emotion, this title should satisfy that need.

A positive guide to common steps and strategies for cultivating a positive mindset.

Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-5320-3081-9

Page Count: 54

Publisher: iUniverse

Review Posted Online: April 10, 2018

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BRAVE ENOUGH

These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.

A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.

What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.

These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-101-946909

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015

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THE LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE

The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.

A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.

Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”

The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.

Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5

Page Count: 580

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018

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