A well-written handbook on a range of topics relevant to New Age spirituality.
Macapinlac presents a guidebook to realizing one’s connection to the universe.
Since the 1600s, the Latin term vade mecum (literally, “go with me”) has referred to “a guidebook that you physically carry with you, often in a deep pocket, for reference.” It’s an obscure term that rarely enters into 21st-century conversations. Sixteen years ago, however, the term seemed to haunt the author and her best friend, Anne—the two had long shared their mutual experiences with the paranormal. Macapinlac first discovered the word when Anne described a dream she had in which a man reached out to her with a symbol on his palm while saying “vade mecum.” Months later, Anne came across a homeless man who “was mostly muttering nonsense” and asked her if she knew what vade mecum meant. The term would soon thereafter appear in Macapinlac’s inbox as the “Word of the Day.” The author began to see “patterns connecting my stories,” believing them to be the universe’s directive for her to follow a new, divine path in her life. In recent years, the author has become a reiki master, intuitive guide, and energy and sound healer (indeed, in addition to retelling her and Anne’s experiences with vade mecum, this text doubles as a guidebook for readers looking to break free of the “mundane routines” that shape their daily lives). Blending elements of memoir, self-help, and New Age spirituality, this book offers readers insights on topics that range from interpreting dreams and synchronicity to divination and energy healing. The book’s background on topics like clairvoyance and clairempathy (the ability to experience other’s emotions as your own) come from both the author’s firsthand experiences as well as a decade of research. For believers in Macapinlac’s New Age brand of spirituality, this is an ideal primer that succinctly covers a wide breadth of topics in fewer than 200 pages. For skeptics, the book offers a solid introduction to dozens of intriguing topics without proselytizing.
A well-written handbook on a range of topics relevant to New Age spirituality.Pub Date: March 24, 2021
ISBN: 9781982263706
Page Count: 204
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2023
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
SEEN & HEARD
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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