An energetic guide to bringing greater intentionality to daily life.
DeFoore provides a blueprint for greater mental clarity and effectiveness in this self-help guide.
“Goodfinding” is “the practice of gratitude for the benefits of your past experiences, appreciation of your present blessings and opportunities, and optimism about the positive possibilities that lie ahead for you,” writes the author, emphasizing what he refers to as the “time travel” aspect of the human mind, capable of pondering the past, assessing the present, and planning for the future. His practice involves three key changes in thinking: a shift from negative to positive thinking, a change from outer focus to inner focus (to remind the reader that one is “the driver of your own car, the captain of your own ship, and the creator of your own reality”), and a pivot from “living at effect” to “living at cause.” DeFoore asserts that by following this practice, one is “learning to use your brilliant mind to its maximum benefit, contributing to your own well-being and that of the world around you.” The author frequently references Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence (1995), assuring his readers that they have brilliant minds (“I’m not saying that because I know anything about your intelligence,” DeFoore writes; “I’m saying that because a brilliant mind is standard equipment in the human organism”). This tone of strong encouragement runs throughout the book, which advises readers on everything from improving their finances (“a positive relationship with money is essential to your ongoing health and happiness”) to the practice of “gratitude journaling.” The author has a large number of abstruse topics to cover, and he’s very much aided in doing so by a clear, straightforward, explanatory style when clarifying his terms: “If a thought, belief, or course of action promotes life, health, and happiness and doesn’t harm you or others,” he writes, “then it is authentically positive.” Such plainspoken bits of wisdom will make DeFoore’s book appealing to readers seeking a bit of reinvention.
An energetic guide to bringing greater intentionality to daily life.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2022
ISBN: 9798765235676
Page Count: 374
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.
The acclaimed director displays his talents as a film critic.
Tarantino’s collection of essays about the important movies of his formative years is packed with everything needed for a powerful review: facts about the work, context about the creative decisions, and whether or not it was successful. The Oscar-winning director of classic films like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs offers plenty of attitude with his thoughts on movies ranging from Animal House to Bullitt to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to The Big Chill. Whether you agree with his assessments or not, he provides the original reporting and insights only a veteran director would notice, and his engaging style makes it impossible to leave an essay without learning something. The concepts he smashes together in two sentences about Taxi Driver would take a semester of film theory class to unpack. Taxi Driver isn’t a “paraphrased remake” of The Searchers like Bogdanovich’s What’s Up, Doc? is a paraphrased remake of Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby or De Palma’s Dressed To Kill is a paraphrased remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. But it’s about as close as you can get to a paraphrased remake without actually being one. Robert De Niro’s taxi driving protagonist Travis Bickle is John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. Like any good critic, Tarantino reveals bits of himself as he discusses the films that are important to him, recalling where he was when he first saw them and what the crowd was like. Perhaps not surprisingly, the author was raised by movie-loving parents who took him along to watch whatever they were watching, even if it included violent or sexual imagery. At the age of 8, he had seen the very adult MASH three times. Suddenly the dark humor of Kill Bill makes much more sense. With this collection, Tarantino offers well-researched love letters to his favorite movies of one of Hollywood’s most ambitious eras.
A top-flight nonfiction debut from a unique artist.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-311258-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
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