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WITHOUT A DOUBT

HOW TO GO FROM UNDERRATED TO UNBEATABLE

A wise, practical, and compassionate guide to startup success from a determined woman.

An Indian American entrepreneur describes how her harrowing medical history spurred a lifelong obsession with advancing the field of women’s health.

When Sarna was 13, she went to the emergency room with an agonizingly painful ovarian cyst—a diagnosis she would receive 24 hours after a doctor recommended that she should go home and take some Tylenol. Although her cysts disappeared after puberty, her determination to improve care for uterine-related conditions lasted a lifetime. Sarna has based nearly every decision in her adult life—applying to Berkeley’s biology program; taking an entry-level engineering position at a medical device company; starting her own organization after being laid off—on her desire to make women’s health care better. As she demonstrates in her lively text, she pursued this goal through years of being underestimated, taken for granted, and ignored. Eventually, Sarna formed a research-and-development team whose closeness led them to call themselves “La Familia.” That team developed a diagnostic medical device that Boston Scientific eventually acquired for $275 million. The author is now a partner at the innovative venture capital firm Y Combinator. Throughout this frank, vulnerable, and fast-paced memoir, Sarna returns to the central theme of the consequences of being “underrated and doubted.” She realized that “the single most important decision I made in my career was to push forward even while being doubted by so many. Doubted by the famous inventor who fell asleep while I was speaking to him….Doubted by the guy who came to my booth during a trade show, looked over my shoulder, and asked to speak with the CEO of the company.” Perhaps as a result of the ways in which she was underestimated, Sarna’s approach to entrepreneurship, which she articulates through warm and humorous advice embedded in her life story, is profoundly empathetic, both for her co-workers and community and for herself.

A wise, practical, and compassionate guide to startup success from a determined woman.

Pub Date: March 7, 2023

ISBN: 9781982147907

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022

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GREENLIGHTS

A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.

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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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CALL ME ANNE

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

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