A very readable and supportive introduction to the job of caregiver.
A manual explores the challenges and rewards of adult caregiving.
Marabella aims this compact guide at the increasing numbers of adults in the 21st century who have been involved in some kind of caregiving, usually for older parents or relatives. The author breaks down his material into a series of brief chapters. Each chapter is subdivided into sections like “The Lesson,” stating the main points covered; “Homework,” giving exercises to help hammer home some of that advice; and “A Mantra,” offering readers a quick phrase they can repeat to themselves when the going gets tough. Each chapter also includes a scannable bar code that will lead readers to video presentations designed to accompany the lesson. Marabella’s book doesn’t have many pages, but it nevertheless covers a great deal of ground. Several of the practical aspects of caregiving are covered, but the guide’s main strength (aside from its very eye-catching design) is its compassionate focus on the intangibles that are such an important part of empathetic caregiving. One chapter, for instance, reminds readers that respect “requires a mastery of two equally important tasks: knowing what their wishes are, and keeping them distinct from my wishes.” Although Marabella is unfailingly sympathetic to his caregiving readers, he stresses throughout the book that the most important elements of this situation are the loved ones. This is even reflected in the author’s regular reminders for his readers to look after their own needs as well, something many nonprofessional caregivers may at first find counterintuitive. The homework for the chapter on how draining caregiving can be, for instance, starts with “Select one self-caring thing that you don’t do, but know you should do.” Readers who have embraced caregiving roles will likely find Marabella’s fast-paced and optimistic description of their new world both informative and encouraging.
A very readable and supportive introduction to the job of caregiver.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-45497-9
Page Count: 60
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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