A good reminder to drive with a relaxed but alert mind and let the harried others pass by without incident.
A guide to being a safe driver with an emphasis on the dangers and related consequences of everyday driving.
In his first book, Balis outlines the importance of driving with a calm attitude and a centered mind. He notes how the cultural attitude of driving has changed from cautious to casual and makes sound points about the random and unpredictable variables that exist on the road, like bad weather or surprising curves. Add to these careless human errors or lapses in judgment—texting or driving while under the influence, for example—and the sum total is a rather dangerous daily activity that most people do not take too seriously. He forces readers to examine their own behavior on the road and consider changes they can make to be safer. Balis also suggests fine-tuning skills on reading road “clues,” such as being aware of traffic density, light and time of day, as well as subtler observations, e.g., noticing the direction a line of phone poles takes to indicate upcoming curves in the road. Ultimately, his advice is spot-on and important. At times, however, it feels a bit unrealistic. How does one reduce danger and improve safety? “The answer is to recognize and respect the unpredictability of the road every moment of every drive.” While we may hope to maintain this sort of tireless vigilance, it feels impossible. Still, this handbook on driving safely boils down to some basic, no-nonsense wisdom: “Think of driving as more Zen, less zoom. Your car may be one of the few places you can be utterly unto yourself, private, thoughtful, contemplative. Appreciate these moments. Breathe into that blessed privacy and space.” Hard to argue with this.
A good reminder to drive with a relaxed but alert mind and let the harried others pass by without incident.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 67
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2015
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
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