Stressed-out readers looking to make changes in their lives will want to pick up a copy of this book.
Houser discusses burnout and offers remedies for the critically overburdened in this motivational primer.
In this self-help guide, the author, a career strategist and empowerment coach, speaks about her own experience with burnout and details how she found her way to becoming “lit up” instead (“Like many women, especially full-time working parents and care‐givers, I slid down the long slippery slope of being everything to everyone—except myself”). The book is chock-full of helpful, battle-tested advice designed to lift readers from the despair of feeling pushed past their limits. The format of the guide echoes its function: The book’s nine chapters are concise and manageable, and not at all overwhelming (Houser recommends reading one chapter a week). The topics range from the impact of technology on our lives to the effect a physical space has on people’s moods. Each chapter contains “questions, ideas or activities” to help “create a multidimensional, badass life that you don’t need to escape from.” The activities, which allow readers to implement the ideas that Houser introduces in their own lives, include reading poems, reflecting on what burnout looks like to them, and tidying a small section of a room. The author’s writing style also contributes to the guide’s effectiveness—instead of brimming with long, winding, and dry stretches of text, Houser’s book features succinct paragraphs that don’t allow their brevity to curtail her message. Despite the book’s concision, Houser includes a wide range of scientific information gleaned from various studies to support and contextualize her anecdotes and justify her post-chapter activity recommendations. The author’s vulnerability in sharing her own story (“Even looking for the resources to help myself out of this hole seemed impossible. I ended up in such a bad place that I needed to take a leave from work for the sake of my physical and mental health”) adds an additional layer of credibility to her advice.
Stressed-out readers looking to make changes in their lives will want to pick up a copy of this book.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9798988925200
Page Count: 176
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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