A mostly inspirational kick-in-the-pants for people who want to make the most of their time.
Sterling (There Are 72 Hours in a Day, 2017, etc.) offers a practical, motivational manual for increasing one’s productivity.
Through daily lessons, this book aims to help readers increase their efficiency and organization, so that they can free up time for more meaningful pursuits. “Be productive in all your activities,” the author advises. “Be assertive regarding your aspirations. Don’t wander through life like a directionless butterfly, wasting time and effort.” The first task, he says, is tackling mental barriers. Sterling encourages inquisitive self-examination, instructing readers on how to recognize and eliminate time-wasting tasks and how to compose personal mission statements. He then urges readers to notice what habits work well, so that they may establish routines, develop and implement plans, and delegate tasks for maximum efficiency. The book recommends using organizational tools, including to-do lists, voice recordings, and Post-it notes. Being prolific is another one of the goals of the program, which “involves the ability to complete multiple tasks simultaneously or in rapid succession without compromising quality,” the author explains; this requires stamina, which, in turn, requires mental and physical conditioning. For the former, Sterling advocates making productivity a game by incentivizing one’s efforts; for the latter, he recommends a healthy diet and exercise. Improving one’s environment is also essential, he says, and he shows how one may do so by avoiding toxic situations, people, or surroundings. Overall, the tools contained in this book are all achievable, and the author’s many aphorisms, such as “Every option is not an opportunity,” are certainly catchy. A few tips may strike readers as odd, though, such as recommendations to learn CPR, wear seat belts, and install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Others seem unnecessarily complicated, such as the “Implementation Matrix”—an extensive, color-coded document that lists every single step in a plan. Also, some sections, such as those regarding organizational roles, will apply only to those in supervisory positions or those who work in group settings.
A mostly inspirational kick-in-the-pants for people who want to make the most of their time.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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