Well-researched and skimmable but sometimes light on actionable strategy.
Editors Polly and Britton expand upon the work begun by the late University of Michigan psychology professor Christopher Peterson and former American Psychological Association president Marty Seligman in this guide to the 24 character strengths.
According to Seligman, positive personality traits, or character strengths, form the backbone of positive psychology. Gaining a foundational knowledge of these traits predicates a full life and involves three steps: becoming aware of “signature strengths,” exploring their meanings, and mindfully implementing them. Polly and Britton describe each trait at length and include relevant articles, to-do lists, and inspirational passages meant to be read aloud. The second half includes essays from those who’ve studied and realized their signature strengths. One writer, Scott Asalone, co-founder of A&S Global Management Consulting, lists best practices for using Peterson’s research in corporate workshops. Executive coach Yee-Ming Tan discusses how assessing one’s strengths plays a role in a negative-feedback environment: “The power…is not just in the identification of strengths but in the integration and the shift that comes afterwards.” Character strengths range from appreciation to zest, but the depth of each chapter varies wildly. Virtues like fairness and humility strike the biggest chord, explain Polly and Britton, when they promote increasing self-awareness. An activity for practicing fairness suggests self-monitoring when errors are made to encourage being forthright and admitting mistakes. While the guide offers a quick, easily digestible list of admirable traits, the quality of the advice for cultivation of those traits varies. For example, an activity for curiosity essentially suggests reading more often and broadly. Furthermore, the suggestion to perform three acts of kindness per week doesn’t offer a strategy for sustaining the practice. The guide isn’t designed to be read cover to cover, and it’s handiest when used as reference material.
Well-researched and skimmable but sometimes light on actionable strategy.Pub Date: June 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-46564-6
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Positive Psychology News
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.
A bestselling nonfiction writer offers spirited commentary about memoir, the literary form that has become synonymous with her name.
Personal narrative has exploded in popularity over the last 20 years. Yet, as Karr (Lit: A Memoir, 2009, etc.) points out, memoir still struggles to attain literary respectability. “There is a lingering snobbery in the literary world,” she writes, “that wants to disqualify what is broadly called nonfiction from the category of ‘literature.’ ” In this book, Karr offers both an apology for and a sharp-eyed exploration of this form born from her years as a practitioner as well as a distinguished English professor at Syracuse University. She begins by considering classroom “experiments” she has conducted to show the slipperiness of memory and arguing the need to give latitude to writers tackling memoir. Writing with the intent to record what rings true rather than exact is one thing; writing with the intent to lie is another. Voice is another critical aspect of any memoir that manages to endure through time. By examining works by writers as diverse as Frank McCourt and Vladimir Nabokov, Karr demonstrates that it is in fact the very thing by which a great memoir “lives or dies.” Rather than focus on the narrative truism of “show-don’t-tell,” Karr thoughtfully elaborates on what she calls “carnality”—the ability to transform memory into a multisensory experience—for the reader. When wed to a desire to move beyond the traps of ego and render personal “psychic struggle” honestly and without fear, carnality can lead to writing that not only “wring[s] some truth from the godawful mess of a single life,” but also connects deeply with readers. Karr’s sassy Texas wit and her down-to-earth observations about both the memoir form and how to approach it combine to make for lively and inspiring reading.
A generous and singularly insightful examination of memoir.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-222306-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
PROFILES
Analyzing his craft, a careful craftsman urges with Thoreauvian conviction that writers should simplify, simplify, simplify.
A New York Times columnist and editorial board member delivers a slim book for aspiring writers, offering saws and sense, wisdom and waggery, biases and biting sarcasm.
Klinkenborg (Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile, 2006), who’s taught for decades, endeavors to keep things simple in his prose, and he urges other writers to do the same. (Note: He despises abuses of the word as, as he continually reminds readers.) In the early sections, the author ignores traditional paragraphing so that the text resembles a long free-verse poem. He urges readers to use short, clear sentences and to make sure each one is healthy before moving on; notes that it’s acceptable to start sentences with and and but; sees benefits in diagramming sentences; stresses that all writing is revision; periodically blasts the formulaic writing that many (most?) students learn in school; argues that knowing where you’re headed before you begin might be good for a vacation, but not for a piece of writing; and believes that writers must trust readers more, and trust themselves. Most of Klinkenborg’s advice is neither radical nor especially profound (“Turn to the poets. / Learn from them”), and the text suffers from a corrosive fallacy: that if his strategies work for him they will work for all. The final fifth of the text includes some passages from writers he admires (McPhee, Oates, Cheever) and some of his students’ awkward sentences, which he treats analytically but sometimes with a surprising sarcasm that veers near meanness. He includes examples of students’ dangling modifiers, malapropisms, errors of pronoun agreement, wordiness and other mistakes.
Analyzing his craft, a careful craftsman urges with Thoreauvian conviction that writers should simplify, simplify, simplify.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-26634-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2012
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