A learned yet accessible Jewish reflection on Genesis and Exodus.
In this nonfiction book, a rabbi revisits ancient texts to find spiritual direction for contemporary life.
According to Fuchs, this work is “the result of more than forty-five years of thought, writing and revision.” The volume’s origins can be traced to 1974 when the Baltimore Board of Rabbis, Conservative and Reform invited the author to teach an introductory course on Judaism to potential converts. With a subsequent half century behind the pulpit, in addition to a prolific career as an influential Jewish lecturer, author, TV commentator, and president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, Fuchs offers readers a sage approach to reading the Bible that rejects religious fundamentalism that holds “that every word reflects unerring historical truth” as well as skeptics who view Jewish Scripture “as little more than fairy tales.” Instead, the author explores a third way, one that reads the Bible not as a historical or literal text, but as moral and ethical instructions. Moving chronologically across the books of Genesis and Exodus, Fuchs begins with the Creation story, wherein he is not concerned with what the narrative tells readers about evolutionary science and “how the world was created.” Instead, he stresses, “it offers invaluable insight as to why.” Emphasizing “sacred time,” the book delivers short chapters that are often no longer than three or four pages, and are designed not to be read cover to cover but to be contemplated. At just 124 pages, this volume gives lay readers a clear account that expertly balances erudite analysis of Scripture with a jargon-free prose that teaches the fundamentals of Judaism without dumbing down its content or belittling the audience. Whether readers are intimately familiar with or brand new to the Tower of Babel, Abraham, Moses, Jethro, and the wandering of the Israelites through the desert, Fuchs delivers wisdom born of a lifetime of study. But curiously for a book that emphasizes the timelessness of biblical morality, it fails to meaningfully apply the stories to today’s pressing social issues, from gay rights to abortion.
A learned yet accessible Jewish reflection on Genesis and Exodus.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-956381-02-3
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Mazo Publishers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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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