A confidence builder for readers with hearts full of wanderlust.
Heiter and Weinstein present an informative guide for travelers on their own.
The authors, both experienced solo voyagers, have collaborated on a guide aimed at encouraging travelers to be open to adventure, which can be had without breaking the bank. Unlike a standard guidebook, which generally ticks off places to see, this is a testimonial to travel as immersion: “slowing down and branching out beyond the comforts of what you think you know.” The authors stress the importance of doing advance research and preparation while being open to new experiences and unexpected changes in plans. They also emphasize that readers must respect ways of life that are different from their own: “As travelers, it is our social responsibility to reserve judgment and approach other cultures with an open mind (and heart), eager to learn and grow through the experiences gifted, shared, or created by those we encounter along the way.” In addition to highlighting travel’s consciousness-raising effects, the book offers a substantial amount of practical guidance based on the authors’ extensive journeys. Information that’s not usually found in travel guides—about menstruation while traveling, and the different types and availability of hygiene products worldwide—may be especially helpful to women. General advice about visas, vaccines, travelers’ insurance, common scams, packing, tipping, staying in hostels, and using alternative modes of transportation will help younger or novice travelers. Useful websites are listed at the end of the book (with the caveat that contact information may change at any time). Overall, the authors are earnest in their belief that travel is life-altering and should be experienced sooner rather than later. Their personal reflections, sprinkled throughout, will encourage those who want to set out on a solo travel adventure but also desire some wise advice before setting out.
A confidence builder for readers with hearts full of wanderlust.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9798989175109
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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