Of minimal interest considering the many better books on the subject already on the market.
A minimalist guru delivers a tepid discussion of remaking one’s rotten behavior.
“I think this is going to be the last ‘self-help’ book for me,” writes Sasaki, who, some 270 winding pages later, announces that his next book is tentatively titled Quit Alcohol in a Fun Way. Much of the reform he urges in this book about forming better habits involves just that, though it’s rarely much fun. “I didn’t decide to quit drinking because I understood the disadvantages of drinking,” he writes, “it was because I had personally accumulated a lot of experiences of regret.” One of those regrets, it seems, is one that the author, who is unmarried and lives alone in a tiny apartment, does not share—namely, the daily grind of paying for a child’s education or a car bought on installments, which he considers an exercise in poor prioritization. “We then have to sacrifice our precious sleep,” he sighs, “and work to earn money to pay those costs.” Sasaki blends jargon (rational thought is a “cool system,” emotion a hot one) with a few observations from science, as when he notes that remaking habitual behavior is largely unconscious activity: We do what we do in order to receive the psychic reward of dopamine. We also throw up roadblocks to reforming ourselves by pretending something untoward never happened or “thinking that it’s too late to start.” The best parts of the book are glosses on others’ thoughts, notably those of a certain renowned novelist: “As mentioned before, when working on long novels, Haruki Murakami writes ten pages every day and never misses his hour of running or swimming”; he “says that although he runs for an hour each day, he runs for a little bit longer when he receives unwarranted criticism or a rejection from someone.” Pass on this one and turn to Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit or Wendy Wood’s Good Habits, Bad Habits instead.
Of minimal interest considering the many better books on the subject already on the market.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-324-00558-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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