I'm a Type A - How the Heck Will I Ever Retire?

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I'm a Type A - How the Heck Will I Ever Retire?

Name: I'm a Type A - How the Heck Will I Ever Retire?
Author: Timothy McIntyre
ISBN: 978-0989749206

by Timothy McIntyre ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2013

Useful if not searing insight for retirees and those planning for it, Type A or otherwise.

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Firsthand advice for people who never stop working about how to retire.

Debut author McIntyre is well-positioned to counsel the hard-charging, goal-oriented, perfectionist Type A personalities his book targets. Despite earning a generous salary as a manager at a Fortune 500 company, with a great family, excellent health and an insatiable drive to succeed, he was still anxious and unhappy. Why? What follows is his account of taking a very early retirement, leaping at the age of 46 into the abyss of the post-workaday world and finding ways to fill his time with things that give broader meaning to his life. Along the way, in Type A fashion, he lays out a practical method for structuring the transition. First, cogitate on and list your passions, then decide which of them has the most meaning, choose the top finisher and go out and make it happen. In the author’s case, several practice runs helped him narrow his focus. He always wanted to draw, so he took classes, discovered that he’s surprisingly good but found it too much like work. After a few other stabs, he eventually found a better fit as a volunteer at a community hospital. There, he harnessed his Type A energies to whatever needed doing, right down to swabbing just-vacated mattresses. In McIntyre’s case, meaning is closely linked to his Christian beliefs and his self-professed wish to be God’s servant. This Christian orientation explains his somewhat sheepish disclosure about the Buddhist roots of Vipassana meditation, a method for stilling the senses that he prescribes as particularly helpful for Type A personalities with minds like squirming toads. The Buddhist-Christian nexus takes the book marginally out of the ordinary, but elsewhere, the heavy dose of take-time-to-smell-the-roses style advice is hardly new. In his weaker moments, McIntyre tends to belabor the obvious right up to the point of being inane. Do readers need to be told that it’s okay to watch a little television or go to the movies on a weekday afternoon, or that vacation travel isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be? Also, it should be noted, the problem of money after retirement is no issue for McIntyre because a company buy-out made him rich. Still, his good-natured, helpful nature wins out.

Useful if not searing insight for retirees and those planning for it, Type A or otherwise.

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2013

ISBN: 978-0989749206

Page Count: 232

Publisher: Type A Lifestyle

Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2013

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.