A helpful, uplifting work for readers handling the challenges of growing older.
A series of quick reflections explores the realities of getting older.
“I did more than a few things right and more than a few things wrong,” Raffelock writes in her slim nonfiction debut. “Now I get to stand in the light of my truth and share my lessons with the world around me.” This well-designed book presents these lessons as a series of thoughts and vignettes from the author’s life, moments that stand out and memories that have come to signify key aspects of aging for her. The tone Raffelock takes throughout the work is resolutely optimistic and affirmative despite being cleareyed about the fact that one of the defining characteristics of age is loss: “Friendships end. Children move away. The role of work or career that once defined us is relegated to memory.” The resulting grief can manifest itself as melancholy, angst, or “unexplainable tears.” In quick, upbeat chapters, the author urges her peers to remain engaged and moving. She offers several tips for ways to do this: Mentor the young, make things like art or music, find new friends, investigate the latest technology, and—in a note sounded frequently in the book—remember to exercise regularly. She transforms many of her experiences into quippy slogans like “Life is too short to hate your thighs,” “Your weight is not a gauge of your worth, and neither is your bank balance,” and the essential theme of the whole volume: “Don’t freak out about getting old.” And all of these nuggets of wisdom are leavened with gentle humor (“Sagging has set into places that I didn’t know could sag”) and an all-embracing compassion. Aging invites us to grow into a deeper beauty, she writes, “it’s no longer the smile on our face as much as it is the expression in our heart.” Raffelock’s book will be a much-needed boost to readers of all ages.
A helpful, uplifting work for readers handling the challenges of growing older.Pub Date: April 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63152-840-8
Page Count: 136
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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