An engrossing look at why relationships matter, featuring an unprecedented abundance of data to back it up.
A comprehensive examination of what makes a “good life,” based on a study that “has followed the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families for more than eighty years.”
Waldinger and Schulz, the current director and associate director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which began in 1938, use the data from this massive research project to make a convincing argument about what constitutes a good life. Early in the book, they give their conclusion: “Good relationships keep us healthier and happier. Period.” The authors present consistently fascinating insights about the lives of many of the study’s participants, as well as those in related studies, showing what aspects of life are most beneficial, regardless of age, gender, class, wealth, or status. Encompassing the experiences of more than 1,300 descendants from the original 724 participants, the project is “the longest in‑depth longitudinal study of human life ever done”—and it is ongoing. The resulting book, write Waldinger and Schulz, “is deeply informed, appropriately, by the long and fruitful friendship of its authors.” Most readers fully understand the chaos of modern-day life, “a haze of competing social, political, and cultural priorities, some of which have very little to do with improving people’s lives.” The Harvard Study, on the other hand, has always remained devoted to illuminating the “lived experiences” of the participants, showing the value of a wide variety of relationships, whether focused on family, friends, romantic partners, or work colleagues. Throughout, the authors maintain a conversational tone and include many of the questions and exercises used in the study to allow readers to examine their own relationships and to develop them further. The book is perfect for readers of Arthur Brooks, Daniel Pink, Angela Duckworth, and other writers who delve into how to fashion prosperous, fulfilling lives.
An engrossing look at why relationships matter, featuring an unprecedented abundance of data to back it up.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-982166-69-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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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