A jokey yet earnest and useful guide to enlightenment for badass readers.
A motivational work blazes a spiritual path for those who consider themselves too cool for such things.
Dixon has always been interested in spirituality. But the term’s normal associations—rules, feelings, meditation, submission before a higher power—aren’t really part of his personal brand: “I love making lots of money. I love cool cars. I love taking vacations in tropical places. I love hanging out with friends and being potty mouthed. I love watching Netflix. I love sitting around on the weekends and doing absolutely nothing. There are a lot of things this badass loves.” A litany of badass things aside (and badass here essentially refers to a vision of American masculinity that fears being perceived as vulnerable), the author admits that his spiritual quest has helped him manage some of the less badass aspects of his personality, including depression, anxiety, timidity, and nihilism. He mixes stories from his own slacker’s quest for enlightenment with lessons from modern psychology, thought-provoking parables, and awareness exercises, all delivered as part of his jocular, profane, and fourth wall–breaking monologue. Chapters end with what Dixon calls “Spiritual Badass Lessons,” which remind readers how to react in various situations, generally by falling back on mindfulness or awareness practices. Along the way, the author encourages readers to visit his website, which features video content to supplement the material in the book. Dixon’s prose is direct and conversational by design: “So, before we continue down this road, fall head over heels in love, and end up drunk in a Vegas chapel…whaddya say we pause for a minute and I’ll explain how this book works? I’m a pretty sensitive schmuck and was already feeling your anxiety hit the roof.” Dixon’s meta he-man shtick will likely turn off some readers—possibly even most of them. But the manual’s intended readers seem to be a specific type: those who maybe don’t peruse that many books and who need this sort of playful hand-holding in order to access the spirituality they crave but are scared to explore. For that audience, Dixon has much to offer, repackaging mysticism, intentionality, and self-care into something proudly lowbrow and accessible.
A jokey yet earnest and useful guide to enlightenment for badass readers.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9858579-0-5
Page Count: 329
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
© 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.
