A pat motivational book with a slick gloss.
Qandeel applies street knowledge to business and dating in this debut self-help guide.
To be street smart means to possess a certain blend of worldliness, common sense, and people skills, but the author argues that there’s more to it than that: “It is about being always ready to learn new skills and ideas in order to be the winner rather than accepting defeat,” writes Qandeel in his introduction. “It is also about not taking no for an answer and using your problem-solving skills to make things work.” With this book, Qandeel helps the reader adopt the “street smart mindset” in order to better succeed in business, investing, romance, and more. He breaks down the necessary components to reshape one’s mindset, from finding the proper motivation and expanding one’s tool kit to abandoning the security of a 9-to-5 job, launching side hustles, and navigating interpersonal relationships. The author distinguishes being “book smart” from being street smart, claiming that street smart people are better equipped to take advantage of book smart people. (Nikola Tesla? Book smart. Thomas Edison? Street smart.) In addition to business, Qandeel advises the reader on dating and romance, detailing seven types of men and women and the issues that can doom a relationship. In keeping with his street-smart persona, the author dispenses some cynical advice—he discourages men from being “nice guys,” favors prenups, and encourages readers to embrace manipulation. “Some people want to act morally superior and refuse to admit to using manipulation at any point in their lives,” he writes. “Well, let me tell you that if you ever tried to get a job, you most likely used manipulation.” Qandeel does not offer much evidence of his expertise besides mentioning a few of his business ventures (snow removal, a collision center), and much of his advice is fairly rote. Even so, his direct manner will no doubt appeal to some readers.
A pat motivational book with a slick gloss.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781038324276
Page Count: 126
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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