A philosophical grappling with hard questions.
Light in dark times.
Host of the Wild With Sarah Wilson podcast, award-winning Australian journalist Wilson sees the world in a state of collapse, exacerbated by inequality and polarization. Once a stalwart climate activist, she has become disillusioned by practices to reverse global warming, and she admits to feeling hopeless. Assuming that her feelings are shared by others, she offers a “kaleidoscope of ideas” to respond to an overarching question: “When hope is gone, might there be something else—something more useful and nourishing—that a despairing humanity can cleave to?” Drawing on more than 200 interviewees (they appear on her podcast)—“energy futurists, economists, philosophers, climate scientists, effective altruists, demographers, spiritualists, and at least two nuns”—she finds insights that console her. When we let go of hope, she writes, “truth emerges as a far more solid and enlivening thing to peg a life to.” She has no faith in what she calls “efforting,” instead seeing the benefit of human connection: “small intentions and interventions,” such as “moments of intentional collaboration, cooperation, and communication.” Living with uncertainty does not mean living with despair but requires looking away from “chaos-making,” a tactic designed to undermine cohesiveness. “Bear witness to what’s going on, be engaged, and don’t allow for overwhelm,” she writes. “Do less, buy less, grab less, meddle less, strategize less.” Small moves, “powered by fierce love” may generate “unexpected turns and mysterious transformation.” Her tone is conversational and confiding; she includes wide margins and blank spaces for readers to write down their feelings, and her prescriptions focus not on doing but on being: finding a way “to live a meaningful, human life with agency amid what is going on.”
A philosophical grappling with hard questions.Pub Date: June 16, 2026
ISBN: 9780593994993
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin Life
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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