by Robert L. Lawson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 19, 2017
Sage advice delivered in an energetic style.
Lawson (Dreamers and Doers, 2017, etc.) offers a straightforward self-help guide that aims to provide readers with the necessary tools to achieve greatness.
What do you need to fulfill your dreams and reach your potential? In this book, the author provides a host of principles that he says can help: a clear vision for your life, an optimistic attitude, the ability to truly focus and break free of self-imposed limits, and resilience in the face of adversity. He covers these concepts and others in highly focused, concise chapters that weave together advice with stories and inspirational quotes designed to evoke contemplation. There are also 14 original poems throughout the book that often address the chapter topics. For example, one stanza of a poem on leadership reads, “Leadership inspires, / And it manages to show / A path designed with purpose / and a plan for all to grow.” Lawson often offers bold statements, frequently emphasizing the need to act and warning readers to distance themselves from pessimists. He’s also not shy about including Christian themes, although they’re generally handled subtly. He stresses the importance of not only improving your own life, but also of helping others along the way. This book’s finest feature is its enthusiasm, which is never overbearing; the author seems legitimately joyful, as if he’s already reaped the benefits of his own advice. As for the poems, their typical, repetitive meter and rhyme schemes make them a bit mundane, but they still complement Lawson’s messages. The book lacks some popular features of other self-help books, such as concrete action steps and questions for reflection, so some readers may have difficulty putting Lawson’s advice into action. But overall, the content is persuasive and insightful.
Sage advice delivered in an energetic style.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5043-8905-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Cheryl Strayed ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2015
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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by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 13, 2012
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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