A heartfelt and winningly optimistic guide to understanding—and finding more—friendship.
An analysis of the challenges of making friends in the modern world.
Vellos has trained as a facilitator and conducted hundreds of hours of workshops on building communities and forming adult friendships, and in her nonfiction debut, she attempts to break down the nature of friendship in the “always on” 21st century—its roots, its potential obstacles, its most familiar patterns, and some strategies for its improvement. The stakes have never been higher, she says: “the average American hasn’t made one new friend in the last five years.” And the price for this trend is steep: Loneliness and isolation place enormous stresses on the body and the mind. Vellos distills her wide reading and dozens of interviews on the subject into an assessment of what she terms “platonic longing,” the desire felt by increasing numbers of people for the simple joys of close friendship. She addresses her book to readers who’ve found they have nobody with whom to share moments of pain, confusion, or joy—to those, for example, who’ve gone on a dating app and wondered if it might work if they’re looking only for friendship or who have tried friend-matching apps too and found that the great connections they promised haven't materialized. She outlines many approaches to the complexities of friendship, from upping “your dosage” (simply trying to create more friendship time with friends you already have) to practicing greater honesty when meeting potential friends. Throughout she focuses on the basics of friendship that writers from Cicero to Norman Vincent Peale have stressed: openness, flexibility, and, most of all, commitment. “No amount of ‘I really like you too’s’ will convince someone that you want to be friends if you don't take actions to make time and space for them in your life,” she says. The sheer amount of energy and inventiveness on display in these pages, engagingly written and illustrated by the author, will give even the most jaded some hope for more friendships in the future.
A heartfelt and winningly optimistic guide to understanding—and finding more—friendship.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73437-970-9
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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