A compelling discussion of anger, conflict resolution, and self-improvement.
In this debut self-help book, a certified professional coach illustrates his own realization of the difficulties of dealing with conflict.
Burke’s early life, he says, was riddled with moments of rage and other negative emotions, and he later set out to figure out what caused him to lead such a drama-fueled existence, full of frustration and fighting. He discovered that emotional triggers and traps propelled him into a seemingly endless cycle of defensiveness, anger, and refusal to accept others’ values. Slowly, he learned how to begin to understand others instead of rejecting their differing opinions, wants, and needs. In this thorough, explorative, and highly personal work, Burke gives readers tools and ideas for self-examination, growth, and conflict resolution. He discusses anecdotes from his coaching work, in which he asked people to explore what was truly important to them, in order to get a better sense of what it was that angered them regarding other people. The book flows well, presenting a readable narrative that effectively weaves together memoir and self-help guidance. Burke skillfully uses his life story to illustrate his points and principles, which may help readers to more easily access difficult topics, such as triggers, abandonment, rejection, and letting go of things that keep one from accepting and forgiving. The book’s most powerful moments involve the author’s epiphanies about taking control of his life. Readers will be able to connect to these and understand his difficult but rewarding journey toward self-awareness. Overall, this work successfully tackles a complex subject that’s relatively uncommon in self-help titles. What makes it particularly stand out is Burke’s willingness to show his story in all lights in the service of his project—what his wife, Denise Burke, in a preface, calls “the good, the bad, and the ugly of my husband’s life.”
A compelling discussion of anger, conflict resolution, and self-improvement.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Spark Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
