A heartfelt, cleareyed guide to fostering a sense of well-being.
A filmmaker and author provides advice for improving happiness and life satisfaction.
In this debut self-help book, Carpenter takes readers through 48 “laws” he says apply to happy people. Each chapter includes Carpenter’s interpretation of the rule in question (such as “True Happiness Comes From Learning To Live for an Audience of One”) along with recommendations for implementing it in everyday life; a first-person anecdote, submitted to Carpenter by a reader (“Jonique from Jamaica wrote to me about her experience with a worst-case scenario mindset”), that illustrates the concept in action; and a review of the topic that concludes with a link to the relevant page on Carpenter’s website. The chapters cover aspects of happiness related to emotional regulation, relationships, career, and physical health, among other themes. Appendices address happiness-related hormones and suggestions for improving happiness through clothing, decor, and music. Carpenter is a strong writer, and his enthusiasm for sharing positive behaviors with others and encouraging readers to pursue their own sources of joy is evident throughout the book. The anecdotes come from people around the world, providing a global context for creating contentment as well as reflecting the universality of problems with self-esteem, misjudgment, and personal growth. Frequent endnotes point readers to citations for further reading, but the associated text is often so general (“Statistically we will spend a lot more time with [co-workers] than our friends and family”) that the citations seem somewhat superfluous while other more debatable statements (“Read for 6 minutes. It can reduce your stress levels by almost 70%”) go uncited. The advice here—develop a strong sense of self; maintain a positive attitude; form connections with others—will not be new to readers of the self-help genre, but Carpenter’s encouraging narrative voice and profound sense of empathy will make this collection of truisms an enjoyable book for many readers.
A heartfelt, cleareyed guide to fostering a sense of well-being.Pub Date: April 27, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73661-552-2
Page Count: 434
Publisher: Rmc Lit
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
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