Well-meant advice for making positive life choices.
A path to success through restraint.
In the second of four proposed books on the Stoic virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom, Holiday focuses on self-discipline as crucial to achieving temperance. The author argues that controlling emotions, thoughts, and actions can benefit everyone, even those who face obstacles and hardships. Pithy chapters extol the “restraint and dedication” evidenced by a host of individuals whom Holiday admires, including Lou Gehrig (among many other high-achieving sportsmen); political figures such as Angela Merkel, George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, and—one of Holiday’s favorites—Queen Elizabeth; writer Toni Morrison; inventor Thomas Edison; Beethoven; and leaders, military figures, and philosophers from ancient Greece. As an example of successful time management and dedication, he praises Morrison’s practice of focusing on her writing in the early-morning hours. As an example of physical self-discipline, he points to Theodore Roosevelt’s efforts to remake his weak and asthmatic body and Franklin Roosevelt’s determination to overcome the limitations of paralysis from polio. “If greatness is our aim, if we want to be productive, courageous members of society,” Holiday asserts, “we need to take care of our bodies.” Challenging one’s body might involve “seeking out discomfort,” which Holiday believes will “toughen ourselves up.” Hoping to motivate readers to make changes in their lives, he advises being neat and organized, devoting oneself to practice, managing time well, pacing oneself judiciously, and avoiding addictions—including an addiction to power. “Of all the addictions in the world,” he points out, “the most intoxicating, and the hardest to control, is ambition. Because unlike drinking, society rewards it. We look up to the successful.” Self-discipline involves “pushing through frustrations. Pushing through criticisms and loneliness. Pushing through pain.” But it also involves self-affirmation. “It is an act of self-discipline to be kind to the self,” Holiday assures readers. “To be a good friend.”
Well-meant advice for making positive life choices.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-19169-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Portfolio
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.
In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593728727
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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
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