An upbeat and gently challenging series of observations about growing older.
A personal, faith-oriented self-help book that offers a new way of looking at aging.
Reflecting on her own life as she approaches her 60th year, Blue, a retired nurse and author of Made With Words (2018), wonders what the future will bring: “Will I continue to be healthy?” she asks. “How much help will my children need? Should I start a new career?” As she takes readers through reminiscences about events from the late 1960s to the present, she reflects on changes in her life and how it’s been informed by her Christian faith. She recalls her grandparents, her childhood, and her years as a geriatric clinical nurse specialist, drawing lessons about aging from every stage, always accompanied by practical advice and insights: “If you’ve been sitting and reading awhile, it's time to turn your head, change positions, do some stretches, or stand up and walk a bit,” she writes in one representative passage. “My nursing language would state I need to balance activity vs. rest.” She also frequently talks about how her faith is a part of her daily life: “My daily challenge is to hear Christ’s voice and not my own.” Each chapter ends with a section of direct interaction with the reader, including discussion questions under the heading “Your Turn,” such as “Who are your role models for aging now? Make a list of your top five. Have they changed over the past ten years?” At every stage of her book, Blue effectively combines a funny, happy-go-lucky attitude toward the aging process with an energetic interrogation of what her readers think about getting old. At one point, she intriguingly asks, “What are you hungry for at the age of sixty or seventy?” which can apply both to actual food—her advice on daily matters, such as food indulgences or staying well-hydrated, run throughout the book—and deeper hungers to stay engaged and motivated in later years. Aging Christian readers will likely feel as if they’re reading the advice of an old friend.
An upbeat and gently challenging series of observations about growing older.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63755-055-7
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Mascot Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.
In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593728727
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
