david goggins new book review

10 Lessons in Grit and Achievement From Former Navy SEAL David Goggins

As he details in his new book Can't Hurt Me , grit is earned—and you're probably much stronger than you ever imagined.

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“Motivation is crap.”

Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

But Goggins can’t help being motivating. He peppers his 11 chapters with lines straight out a rousing halftime speech, encouraging you to “smile at pain” and insisting that “victory often comes down to bringing your very best when you feel your worst.” His main message, though, is about cultivating mental discipline—what the author calls a “calloused mind”—so that you can push through your perceived limits.

Whether you’re just starting out in life or are a seasoned professional, and whether your dream is to be a Navy SEAL, to reach the top of your profession, or just to live a healthier life, Goggins’ story has powerful lessons for setting and reaching goals. Here are 10 lessons on achieving from the world’s toughest man.

1. Get real with yourself: Name the enemy.

Many stories of redemption and drastic change start with a feeling of “hitting rock bottom.” For Goggins, that bottom happened in front of the bathroom mirror, facing himself down as a barely literate, overweight high schooler. It was there, Goggins writes, that he spoke to himself and laid out all his weaknesses and fears.

“I didn’t dance around and say, ‘Geez, David, you are not taking your education very seriously.’ No, I had to own it in the raw,” he writes. “If you don’t know shit and have never taken school seriously, then say, ‘I’m dumb!’ Tell yourself that you need to get your ass to work because you’re falling behind in life.”

You don’t need to hit rock bottom to do this. Stand in front of the mirror and be honest with yourself about your weaknesses, whether they’re physical, in your career, or part of your relationships. Be truly honest and name the enemy. Then you’ll know what you need to improve and have a great basis for setting your goals.

2. Check in with the mirror daily.

Goggins has a hack called the “Accountability Mirror.” He pasted sticky notes around the outside outlining not only his goals, but small steps he’d need to take to accomplish those goals. Each day, he would review those notes to keep himself accountable.

Often we make a goal—even writing it down—and put it in a drawer, forgetting it. Keeping your goals in plain sight can keep replenishing your motivation to reach them. No less a goal-setter than Arnold Schwarzenegger has suggested posting imagery of how you want to look in a place where you’ll see it each day—like your bathroom mirror, bedroom, or as your phone’s lock screen.

Breaking goals down as Goggins suggests sounds like basic stuff, but it really does help with long-term achievement: Scientists from the University of Chicago found that when people who were chasing long-term goals had immediate, small successes, they were more successful overall than those who focused on the long-term benefits. Using sticky notes with really small tasks that push you towards your goal can help: You can check them off, put a win on the board, and feel the gratification of immediate success as you push towards the long-term want.

3. Visualize success.

Before he ever became a SEAL, Goggins says, he visualized it. Not dreamed it, but really experienced succeeding in his mind: “I’d imagine myself going through BUD/S [training], diving into cold water, and crushing Hell Week.”

This isn’t a groundbreaking strategy. But he didn’t stop there: When he became an ultra runner, Goggins would drive his course, not only creating a race plan, but visualizing what he would feel like at each point in the race, “visualizing success but also potential challenges,” he says. “You can’t prepare for everything, but if you engage in strategic visualization ahead of time, you’ll be as prepared as you can possibly be.”

Olympic luge athletes do this, too. Before a race, you can see them performing closed-eyes, mental run-throughs of the entire course, anticipating how they will feel both physically and mentally. Visualization can also have non-mental results In one study , weight lifters who visualized sets of exercises in their minds in addition to their actual workouts gained more strength than those who did just the real-world workout.

Take your own plan and list of tasks on the road to your goal, and visualize each: What challenges will you face? How will you face them? And how will you feel when you’ve succeeded?

4. Don’t skip out on the last rep when you’re training!

To qualify for Navy SEAL training, Goggins had to lose more than 100 pounds in 3 months, and put himself through marathon daily workouts to accomplish his goal. One day, when he’d done more than 100 pull-ups, he did just 11 in his last set when he’d planned on 12 reps.

The lost rep haunted him: Goggins knew that if he cut corners, he wouldn’t achieve his dream. So he went back and re-did the entire pull-up workout later that night, finishing them all after doubling up for the day.

You probably aren’t as intense as Goggins in the gym, but cutting out with one rep to go is no good for regular guys, either: You’ve probably seen studies that indicate that lifting light weights can give the same strength and size gains as heavier weights. But in each of those studies, those gaining with light weights were training to failure, meaning they couldn’t eke out even one more rep. If you’re leaving one in the tank at the end of your workout, you’re not training to failure—and not getting those gains.

5. Apply progressive overload not just in your workouts, but in your life.

Progressive overload is one of the most basic strength training principles . It’s the idea that in each workout or phase of your plan, you should be doing more work (in load or volume) than you did the last time around. That way, you keep progressing.

Goggins suggests applying this principle not just in the gym, but in the rest of your life: If your focus is to read more, measure your past performance and use it as a new bench mark. “Read a record number of books in a given month,” he says. “If you’re focused on intellectual growth, train yourself to study harder and longer than ever before.”

It may not always be easy to measure, but finding a way to show you’re improving may help you progress outside the gym as well as within the iron temple.

6. Celebrate your success with work.

Wait, what? When you’re successful, you probably feel like you’ve earned a pizza, a party, or a pizza party. Goggins is no stranger to celebrating with a pie—he fondly remembers eating a whole one after finishing SEAL “Hell Week.”

But he also values keeping the momentum of achievement going. After passing his aptitude test to gain admittance to the Navy on his third try, Goggins says he celebrated with an epic session of training: “The following morning and for the next three weeks, I spent time in the pool, strapped with a 16-pound weight belt,” he writes. “I swam underwater for 50 meters at a time and walked the length of the pool underwater, with a brick in each hand, all on a single breath.”

When you’ve achieved a goal, celebrate, but also stack: Let the momentum and attitude it took to achieve that milestone carry you into starting on your next victory.

7. Know why you’re in the fight to stay in the fight.

Due to medical complications and injury, Goggins had to endure Navy SEAL training’s “Hell Week” three times. It’s multiple days of sleepless physical tests and mental pounding meant to whittle down the ranks to the world’s toughest. And the only thing that kept Goggins going was knowing the answer to a simple question: Why am I here?

When you’re faced with a bit of discomfort or a tough situation that could derail you on track to your goals, Goggins says, “If you … have the answer ready, you will be equipped to make the split-second decision to ignore your weakened mind and keep moving. Know why you’re in the fight to stay in the fight!”

8. Use your past successes to create your own second winds.

Goggins didn’t train properly for his first ultramarathon, and as you might expect, found himself in agony. Determined to finish, he dipped into what he calls his mental “cookie jar,” a repository of remembrances of things he’d overcome in the past.

“Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in,” he says. “Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.”

When you’re feeling yourself lagging or falling behind, load up your own “cookie jar” list: Use the memory of how you overcame those obstacles, and how it felt, to get to your next win.

Goggins also went on to set the World Record for most pullups in 24 hours, 4030 in 2013; and he climbed Mt. Everest on a VersaClimber, 29,029 feet in three hours and 33 minutes in 2017.

9. “You will feel alone. You will feel insecure. Get over it!”

Goggins calls these his “laws of nature.” When you’re striving to achieve, you’re going to feel lonely, doubted, insecure, and ridiculed.

Just as with the “Accountability Mirror,” Goggins suggests being honest with yourself: “You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.”

Easier said than done: But like with the modeling suggested for the mirror above, it works here, too. Look up the people who inspire you with their success, and read about how they struggled (or continue to struggle): Whether it was overcoming financial troubles, like Dwayne Johnson, overcoming a physical impediment like a young Theodore Roosevelt, or being told “no” by nearly every publisher like Tim Ferriss, there’s someone you can model—so you can get over it.

10. The harder you try, the harder your life becomes.

Goggins actually said this at a time of despair: When he was nursing an injury that had knocked him out of SEAL training for a second time, he logged this complaint to his mother.

But it’s not just a complaint: It’s a reality for anyone who strives to achieve big things, and it’s the crux of this inspiring book. Coasting through life doing the bare minimum is relatively easy. Achieving is hard. The harder you try, the harder life becomes—to your benefit.

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Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

New York Times Bestseller

CAN'T HURT ME

Master your mind and defy the odds.

by David Goggins ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 4, 2018

Guaranteed to galvanize more than a few couch potatoes into action.

A former Navy SEAL explains his take-no-prisoners approach to life in this candid memoir/self-help book. 

“I should have been a statistic,” admits debut author Goggins. A childhood marked by abuse and racial prejudice seemed to leave him destined for a life of struggle and failure. But after nearly flunking out of high school, Goggins got tough on himself, realizing that he’d never fulfill his dream of joining the military if he didn’t shape up fast. And shape up he did, eventually becoming a Navy SEAL, celebrated endurance athlete, and one-time Guinness World Record holder for the most pull-ups performed in a 24-hour period. Yet as a teen, Goggins barely made it into the Air Force after failing the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test twice. Later, he had to drop 100 pounds in three months in order to join the SEALs. His laundry list of accomplishments is impressive, and he tells his remarkable story in a direct, conversational way, though his language is often raw. Much of the book recounts the author’s experiences in military training and competing in ultramarathons and endurance sports, offering a fascinating peek into those subcultures (expect a few graphic photos of what toes look like after running a 100-plus-mile race). He also speaks frankly about his moments of doubt and failure. Each chapter ends with challenges to complete. The goal is to bring readers “nose-to-concrete with your own bullshit limits you didn’t even know were there.” According to Goggins, most people are operating at about 40 percent of their true capability, and he makes a convincing case that tapping into that unused 60 percent is largely a matter of mental discipline. Doing so requires fortitude and sacrifice—Goggins admits he “lived like a monk” to achieve his level of success—but will eventually lead to “self-mastery.” And through all the tough talk, he also offers words of encouragement: “Your small victories are your cookies to savor.” Some might find Goggins’ intensity a bit intimidating, but there’s no doubt his story is inspiring.

Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5445-1228-0

Page Count: 364

Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing

Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

GENERAL NONFICTION

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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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BOOK REVIEW

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

Episodes from the life of lady mendl (elsie de wolfe).

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955

ISBN: 0670717797

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955

More by Ludwig Bemelmans

developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno

by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno

by Ludwig Bemelmans

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Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

• Release Date: 2018 , December 4th
• Genre: Best Nonfiction 2018 , Nonfiction
• Author: David Goggins
• Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing

For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare — poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world’s top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him “The Fittest (Real) Man in America.”

In Can’t Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.

Praise for Can’t Hurt Me:

“David Goggins is a being of pure will and inspiration. Just listening to this guy talk makes you want to run up a mountain. I firmly believe people like him can change the course of the world just by inspiring us to push harder and dig deeper in everything we do. His goal to be ‘uncommon among uncommon people’ is something we can all use to propel ourselves to fulfill our true potential. I’m a better man having met him.” –Joe Rogan, Standup Comedian and Host of the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast

“David Goggins lives out every goal, every dream no matter what. PERIOD. He’s unstoppable. There’s no limit to him because he doesn’t live in a comfort zone. His mental and physical capacity are equal. Goggins proves that your body can handle anything if you let your mind keep up. There’s no way to stop something or someone that doesn’t understand the concept of being beat.” –Marcus Luttrell, Retired Navy SEAL, Author of New York Times Best Seller Lone Survivor

“Modern neuroscience is teaching us that the path to courage and success arrives through embracing pain and fear, not by avoiding them. If ever there was a real-life example of this, it is the story of David Goggins. In his unrelenting pursuit to self-conquer, Goggins taught himself how to tap into that elusive holy grail of human existence: the ability to rewire one’s own brain in order to continually do better and actually become better, regardless of feelings, external conditions, or motivational state. Can’t Hurt Me is the remarkable description of that journey and the capacity to leverage and better the mind. More importantly, it also teaches you how.” –Andrew D. Huberman, PhD, Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine

“David Goggins throws the door open on pain, evil, darkness, the worst and yes, the best of humanity, and the strength of the human soul…and that’s just in chapter one. If you are looking for a book that will heal, stretch, inspire, and dig into the corners of what it takes to persevere and overcome in a messed-up world, this is your book.” –Taya Kyle, Widow of American Sniper Chris Kyle, Author of New York Times Best Seller American Wife

“By the time you finish David Goggins’s new book, you’ll have kicked your victim mentality in the butt. Where you go from there is entirely up to you–as Goggins makes clear in thisentertaining and poignant memoir cum inspirational how-to. As the man with a hole in hisheart tells you, there are no excuses in life, only reasons to try harder.” –Jim DeFelice, Author of American Sniper

“David Goggins’s book is not the first about overcoming severe hardships to achieve success, but it is certainly one of the most compelling. His story of beating the odds, of achieving athletic greatness, of serving his country and his charities, and of mastering his own destiny will inspire all of us to reach a little higher and give a little more. ‘I will never quit’ is a tenet of the Navy SEAL ethos, and one that David Goggins applies to everything he does.” –Admiral Eric Olson, US Navy (Retired); Former Commander, United States Special Operations Command; Chairman, Special Operations Warrior Foundation

“I’m inspired that people like this guy exist. Not everyone will live a life like David Goggins, but he is proof that anyone could if given the right headspace within.” –Kelly Slater, Eleven-Time World Champion Surfer

From nothing to something, from darkness to light and paying forward. Grinding everyday, you can’t hurt him now, and he wants you to not hurt too, to take it on, enter the arena and dare greatly. He dares you to step in the arena, his voice unfiltered and raw, embracing the darkness and rising from it, using the darkness as fuel, the negative as fuel. He uses courage to bare his sole, fears, frailties, and his metamorphosis. He turns every negative upside down, getting back up from defeat and never submit to failure, rising form the hole, the darkness, the brokenness and reinventing the metamorphosis into a new man empowering all that dare to step into terrain untrodden, hearts at battle with themselves daring greatly with the complexities and insecurities.

He is all about the drive, no fluffy motivation, but grinding every day hard and pushing beyond limits and comfortableness into a new self.

This book is about David Goggins, his memoir, failures, defeats, and overcoming things, he never said follow me every step and move but he set in stone an example of a man driven, never giving up even when everyone is against you, even when the dream goes askew, against racism and abuse at hands of those should love and protect, instead now he gives back to the world with love and protection with sheer grit and grind.

This was in my best of 2018 list after listening to the great audiobook that coupled as a podcast with all the behind the scenes of the narrative with David Goggins right there with you, I listened to it again and again and this time put together a review, one long overdue.

• https://davidgoggins.com
• https://www.goodreads.com
• 10 Lessons in Grit and Achievement From the Toughest Man in the World https://www.menshealth.com

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Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within Hardcover – 5 December 2022

Purchase options and add-ons

This is not a self-help book. It’s a wake-up call!

Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins’ smash hit memoir, demonstrated how much untapped ability we all have but was merely an introduction to the power of the mind. In Never Finished, Goggins takes you inside his Mental Lab, where he developed the philosophy, psychology, and strategies that enabled him to learn that what he thought was his limit was only his beginning and that the quest for greatness is unending.

The stories and lessons in this raw, revealing, unflinching memoir offer the reader a blueprint they can use to climb from the bottom of the barrel into a whole new stratosphere that once seemed unattainable. Whether you feel off-course in life, are looking to maximize your potential or drain your soul to break through your so-called glass ceiling, this is the only book you will ever need.

• Print length 312 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Lioncrest Publishing
• Publication date 5 December 2022
• Dimensions 1 x 1 x 1.27 cm
• ISBN-10 1544534086
• ISBN-13 978-1544534084
• See all details

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About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lioncrest Publishing (5 December 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 312 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1544534086
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1544534084
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 1 x 1 x 1.27 cm
• Best Sellers Rank: 9,494 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books )

About the author

David goggins.

David Goggins is a Retired Navy SEAL and the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL training, Army Ranger School, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. Goggins has completed more than seventy ultra-distance races, often placing in the top five, and is a former Guinness World Record holder for completing 4,030 pull-ups in seventeen hours. A sought-after public speaker, he’s traveled the world sharing his philosophy on how to master the mind. When he’s not speaking, he works as an Advanced Emergency Technician in a big city Emergency Room and, during the summer, as a wildland firefighter in British Columbia.

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BookLab by Bjorn

Book Recommendation on Being Human

Quick Review: Never Finished by David Goggins

D avid Goggins, the author of Never Finished , was hit and abused as a child and a victim of racism. However, instead of succumbing to his traumatic experiences, he found a way to channel his demons. He decided to become the toughest person on earth and actively sought out the most demanding physical and mental challenges he could find.

Life Lessons from Goggins

In Never Finished , Goggins shares the best life lessons he learned from pushing himself to the limit and often beyond it. Whether it is from his training as a Navy Seal, his medical career, or his experiences as an endurance athlete, he provides the blueprint and principles he developed so that readers can embrace the suck, push themselves harder, and become more.

Video Review of Never Finished by David Goggins

Highlights and takeaways from Never Finished

David goggins creed.

“I live with a day one, week one mentality. This mentality is routed in self-discipline, personal accountability, and humility. While most people stop when they are tired I stop when I’m done. In a world where mediocrity is often the standard, my life’s mission is to become uncommon amongst the uncommon.”

Goggins refers to the closed circle of people around us as the Foxhole . He emphasizes the importance of evolving with our inner circle, especially when we are on a mission to become a better version of ourselves. If our friends or family members cannot support our growth, it is okay to fight alone until we find the right people to support and fight with us. The people in our foxhole need to allow us to be ourselves.

Self-Leadership and Discipline

Goggins believes that self-leadership and discipline are the great equalizers . Nothing stops us, and everything is available to those who prepare. We can prepare as if we are already there, so when the time comes, and we land that opportunity, we are ready to smash it. No matter how busy our lives are, discipline erases all disadvantages. Nowadays, it does not matter where we come from or who we are. If we are disciplined, nothing can stop us.

Record and Listen

Goggins takes journaling to the next level by externalizing his innermost thoughts . Instead of writing down his darkest moments, he speaks to them out loud, and records them, during his training. Audio has a more profound effect on the mind according to Goggins. Listening to ourselves complain about our trauma, how tired you are, or how badly you want to quit is tough. But it forces you to face our weaknesses. When we speak the unfiltered truth into the microphone and listen to it repeatedly we can see clearly how we can change the narrative of our lives. Because the stories we tell ourselves are just that — stories.

Reading Never Finished as an audiobook is recommended because between chapters, there are podcast episodes elaborating further on what you just read.. Truth be told, some of the most powerful lessons come from those podcasts. One especially powerful episode is when Goggins interviews his mother about how it was to live with his abusive father.

Book Verdict – Never Finished

The book started out like more of the same, and I feared disappointment, but it gathered steam, and I found myself both captivated and inspired by the book. It may seem crazy, and one could call Goggins masochistic, but it is inspiring to see someone push themselves to their limits. It forces us to ask the question, “What could I achieve if I went all in?” If only half of Goggins’ stories were true, he would still be one of the hardest people around, and there is always a lot we can learn from people who push themselves to the extreme.

Is Never Finished for you?

Never Finished is a book that will inspire and motivate readers to push beyond their limits . Goggins shows readers that anything is possible with self-discipline and the right mindset. This book will force readers to reflect on their lives and ask themselves if they are doing all they can to achieve their goals. If you are looking for a book to challenge you and push you to become your best self, Never Finished by David Goggins is an excellent choice.

Should I read Can’t Hurt Me before reading Never Finished?

If you found value in Can’t Hurt Me , David Goggins first book, then you would want to check this one out. If you haven’t read that one already I think you should start with Can’t Hurt Me and then pick up Never Finished if you feel a need for more Goggins. You can find a full review of Can’t Hurt Me right here .

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ out of 5

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The book is about the best life lessons David Goggins learned by pushing himself to the limit, both physically and mentally. It provides blueprints and principles that readers can use to become more by embracing the suck and pushing themselves harder.

In the book, Never Finished, David Goggins refers to your closed circle as the “Foxhole”. It is the group of people you hang around with and speak to on a daily basis. When you evolve, your inner circle must evolve with you, otherwise, you may subconsciously halt your own growth to avoid outpacing and losing contact with the people who mean a lot to you but may not be able to hang with the upgraded version of you.

David Goggins uses the “record and listen” approach to journaling. Instead of writing down his darkest moments, he spoke to them out loud during his training. According to him, audio has a more profound effect on the mind. Listening to yourself complain about your trauma, how tired you are, and how badly you want to quit is tough, but it forces you to face your weakness. Speaking the unfiltered truth into the microphone and listening to it over and over can be therapeutic. It helps you change the narrative of your life.

es, the book is worth reading if you found value in David Goggins’ first book, “Can’t Hurt Me”. It is inspiring to see someone push themselves to limits and ask yourself what you could achieve if you went all in. The book provides blueprints and principles that readers can use to become more by embracing the suck and pushing themselves harder. The podcast episodes between the chapters are also powerful and provide valuable insights.

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Book review: A revival of culture and traditional arts in Southeast is illustrated in ‘Tsimshian Eagle’

One of David A. Boxley's poles stands on the grounds of the University of Washington Medical Center-Northwest in memory of his longtime friend and sister-in-law Cindy James. Dance groups arrived from Alaska and British Columbia to perform at the pole's installation. This group, Cape Fox Dancers, of Ketchikan, is seen dancing in front of James' pole. (Photo by Steve Quinn, courtesy of Chin Music Press)

Tsimshian Eagle: A Culture Bearer’s Journey

David Boxley with Steve Quinn; Chin Music Press, 2023; 256 pages; $39.95.

“There’s been an amazing rebirth of totem poles for all the Southeast Alaska tribes: Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian,” longtime carver David Boxley writes. “They are a living art form that is of central importance to Native culture on the Northwest coast.”

Boxley has been central to that revival, especially among the Tsimshian people of his home village of Metlakatla. For over 40 years he’s been carving totem poles, helping to lead a cultural revival that has restored a nearly lost tradition. In “Tsimshian Eagle,” his recent book combining memoir with fine art photography, he tells how this happened.

Today, Boxley is internationally known and his totem poles and other exquisite artworks are seen in museums, galleries and personal collections around the world, as well as in public places from Seattle to Juneau and beyond. What many who appreciate his work might not know is that he is largely self-taught. When he carved his first pole, there was no one to teach him.

Boxley grew up in Metlakatla, located on Annette Island near the southernmost reach of the Alaska Panhandle. His mother suffered from trauma and alcoholism, so he was raised by his grandparents. In the early pages he gives an account of his childhood in the remote village in the 1960s, a time when many traditional practices of the Tsimshian had long been suppressed by missionaries and the government.

A good student, Boxley’s initial goal was to be a teacher and a basketball coach, and for a while, he succeeded. After attending college in Washington, he returned to Metlakatla and taught and coached for several years.

Boxley had strong relationships with both of his grandparents, something he references repeatedly throughout this book. It was his grandmother’s passing in 1982 that launched what became his career. Wishing to honor her memory, he carved a totem pole and organized Metlakatla’s first potlatch in decades. Little knowledge of either practice remained, and Boxley had to figure them out on his own. He did so, igniting a cultural revival in the process.

Tsimshian carver David Boxley in his regalia. (Photo by Steve Quinn)

To understand Boxley’s story, one needs to understand the origins of Metlakatla, which differ tremendously from other Alaska Native villages — a history Boxley nicely summarizes in an early chapter. The Tsimshian people have long lived along the coast of what is now the northern British Columbia coast. In 1887, intertribal conflicts resulted in a splinter group breaking off and, under the guidance of British missionary William Duncan, relocating to Annette Island in what was then the District of Alaska.

In keeping with policies supported by the church and government, residents of the town abandoned many traditional practices viewed as antithetical to Christian and Western values. This includes the creation of totem poles, which white observers considered pagan idols, although Boxley stresses that they were used for telling stories, and were never worshiped.

Boxley briefly discusses the complicated history of missionaries and Alaska Natives, noting that Duncan wasn’t without his shortcomings. But he was committed to the Tsimshian and lived in the village for the remainder of his life. Metlakatla, a community with its own distinct history and culture, wouldn’t exist without him.

Tsimshian carver and culture bearer David Boxley in his workshop. (Photo by Steve Quinn, courtesy of Chin Music Press)

After Boxley carved his first pole and held that first potlatch, his direction in life was set. He soon left teaching, and in 1986 moved to Seattle to pursue his art in a place where professional opportunities were more abundant than in Southeast Alaska. But his heart remained in Metlakatla, and his work was exclusively focused on recovering and revitalizing traditions that had been forgotten. Those traditions now permeate the Southeast, but they were almost absent when he commenced on his artistic journey. In the 1960s, Haida and Tlingit carvers had again begun constructing totem poles, but at the time Boxley carved his first, Alaska’s Tsimshian residents had yet to follow suit.

Boxley recalls that first potlatch for his grandmother, and several other early ones that followed, including one for his grandfather. Over time he became a master of totem carver, and despite living in Washington state, has remained actively involved in Metlakatla, incorporating his art into community and cultural events including potlatches and other traditional practices that Boxley was pivotal in rescuing from near extinction.

At several points, Boxley pauses to remind readers that there weren’t mentors in Metlakatla when he first brought a cedar pole into his shop, picked up an adze he had made with his grandfather, and began carving. “I had to reach back generations to create what is normal now,” he writes. Today, traditional arts are thriving in the village, and he says the “number of active artists has grown tenfold during my lifetime.”

[ Totem pole raised at Alaska Native Heritage Center symbolizes healing from boarding school trauma ]

The results of his lifetime of work are heavily featured in the second half of this book, in which the text takes a backseat to fine art photography. Pictures of Boxley at work in his shop are interspersed with closeup portraits of his totem poles, paddles, drawings for screen prints, paintings on drums that one of his sons builds, bentwood boxes and more. Dozens of these images are followed by portraits taken at celebrations, and at events where Git Hoan, the dance group Boxley leads, have performed. The beauty and colors spilling from these latter pages put Boxley’s work into context.

“What I really enjoy is carving pieces to be used in performances,” he writes. “That’s because the pieces are being used in a traditional way, not just hanging on walls.”

One of Tsimshian carver David Boxley’s totem poles. (Photo by David Boxley, courtesy of Chin Music Press)

Boxley’s two sons have followed him into traditional arts, he’s taught countless students, and he’s spurred a revival far beyond what he could have envisioned in 1982, when simply carving a pole and holding a potlatch were his immediate goals. He’s been central to the restoration of Tsimshian heritage, and “Tsimshian Eagle” tells that story.

“I want to make sure that what we have doesn’t go away — again,” he writes late in the book. “I’m trying to instill pride in our culture, our knowledge, our language. I struggle with it sometimes, but I accept the challenge with a purpose.”

[ With the Luk’ae Tse’Taas Comics collective, Alaska visual artists help build a broader universe ]

[ Iñupiaq author wins national honors for debut novel celebrating unity and beauty in Indigenous cultures ]

[ Book review: Landscapes of family and place flourish in this Alaska memoir ]

David James

David A. James is a Fairbanks-based freelance writer, and editor of the Alaska literary collection “Writing on the Edge.” He can be reached at [email protected].

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A Critic’s Plea for Maximalism: ‘Crack Us Open Like Eggs’

In her first essay collection, Becca Rothfeld demonstrates that sometimes, more really is more.

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By David Gates

David Gates teaches in the M.F.A. program at St. Joseph’s University.

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ALL THINGS ARE TOO SMALL: Essays in Praise of Excess , by Becca Rothfeld

The essays I love favor abundance over economy, performance over persuasion. Zadie Smith’s exemplary “Speaking in Tongues” juggles Barack Obama, Shakespeare, Shaw’s “Pygmalion,” Pauline Kael on Cary Grant, Thomas Macaulay on the Marquess of Halifax and her own “silly posh” speaking voice. Its modest argument, that “flexibility of voice leads to a flexibility in all things,” disappears into the spectacle of a nimble mind reveling in its omnivorous erudition.

The critic Becca Rothfeld’s first collection, “All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess,” is splendidly immodest in its neo-Romantic agenda — to tear down minimalism and puritanism in its many current varieties — but, like Smith, she makes her strongest case in her essays’ very form, a carnival of high-low allusion and analysis. Macaulay, Cary Grant, Obama and a posh accent? Rothfeld will see you and raise you: How about Simone Weil, Aristotle, “Troll 2,” Lionel Trilling, Hadewijch of Brabant (from whom she takes her title), serial killer procedurals, Proust and the Talmud? Not that she neglects Cary Grant; in an essay on love and equality, she filters a smart reading of “His Girl Friday” through the philosopher Stanley Cavell.

Cynthia Ozick (who ought to know) has favorably — and justly — compared Rothfeld to “the legendary New York intellectuals,” though Rothfeld lives in D.C., where she’s the nonfiction book critic for The Washington Post. She’s also an editor at The Point, a contributing editor at The Boston Review, and has published in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Atlantic, The Baffler and The British Journal of Aesthetics. Of course she also has a Substack, and she declares on her website — which links to many splendid pieces not collected in this book — that she’s “perhaps delusionally convinced” she’ll eventually finish her Harvard Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy.

The costive and the envious might wonder if she’s spreading herself too thin, but Rothfeld’s rigor and eloquence suggest that in her case, as the title of one essay has it, “More Is More.” That piece begins in dispraise of “professional declutterers” such as Marie Kondo, whose aesthetic amounts to “solipsism spatialized,” and from whose dream houses “evidence of habitation — and, in particular, evidence of the body, with its many leaky indecencies — has been eliminated.”

But it soon morphs into dispraise of minimalist prose and the “impoverished non-novels” of fashionable writers including Jenny Offill, Ottessa Moshfegh and Kate Zambreno, whose “anti-narratives are soothingly tractable, made up of sentences so short that they are often left to complete themselves.”

Rothfeld, by contrast, leaves no phrase unturned. Her maximalist prose abounds in alliteration — “I recommend bingeing to bursting,” she writes, exhorting us to “savor the slivers of salvation hidden in all that hideous hunger” — as well as such old-school locutions as “pray tell” and “cannot but be offensive.” If these mannerisms sit uneasily next to her f-worded celebrations of sexuality, the dissonance is deliberate, and the unease is a matter of principle.

In “Wherever You Go, You Could Leave,” a takedown of “mindfulness,” Rothfeld reports that when she “decided to live” after a suicide attempt in her first year of college, she rejected the soothing blankness of meditation and concluded that “perturbation is a small price to pay for the privilege of a point of view.”

Despite her disdain for “professional opinion-havers” — among them the columnist Christine Emba, lately also of The Washington Post — she doesn’t mind laying down the law. In the book’s longest essay, “Only Mercy: Sex After Consent,” Rothfeld taxes Emba, author of the best-selling “Rethinking Sex,” with an “appalling incomprehension of what good sex is like.”

So, pray tell. “We should choke, crawl, spank, spew, and above all, surrender furiously, until the sheer smack of sex becomes its own profuse excuse for being.” Some sexual encounters, she continues, “crack us open like eggs” and “we should not be willing to live without them.”

We-shoulding is an occupational hazard of opinion-having, but we need take these pronouncements no more — and no less — to heart than Rothfeld’s paradoxical admiration for both the “beatifically stylized” films of Éric Rohmer and the “magnificently demented” oeuvre of David Cronenberg. Do we agree or disagree with her that Sally Rooney’s novels are overpraised, and that Norman Rush’s “Mating” is really “one of the most perfect novels of the past half century”?

More to the point, do we agree that “the aesthetic resides in excess and aimlessness,” and that extravagance is “our human due”? I’d say no to the former and yes to the latter, but who cares? What counts in these essays is the exhilarating ride, not the sometimes-dodgy destination. William Blake wrote that the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom; Rothfeld might say that they’re one and the same. No argument there.

ALL THINGS ARE TOO SMALL : Essays in Praise of Excess | By Becca Rothfeld | Metropolitan Books | 287 pp. | $27.99

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‘Me and Mr. Jones’ Is a First-Hand View of David Bowie’s Rise to Superstardom, in All Its Glory and Cruelty: Book Review

By Jem Aswad

Executive Editor, Music

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Considering the vast number of books published every year about David Bowie — or, for that matter, the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Prince — a new one had better have either fresh info or fresh insights. Thankfully, Suzi Ronson’s “Me and Mr. Jones: My Life with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars” delivers on both counts.

She was swept up into that whirlwind quickly, initially joining for British dates, then a long American tour and then, over just the first half of 1973, another American tour, two weeks in Japan, and two more British tours. During this time Bowie soared to superstardom and became the most successful artist in Britain since the Beatles — and then abruptly “retired,” although all he was retiring was the Ziggy character.

Through it all, Suzi Ronson not only spent many hours with Bowie – she handled his and the band’s wardrobes and was waiting with a cigarette and glass of wine when he came offstage every night – she had a front-row seat to the drama of his rise and its impact on him and everyone around him. Most fascinatingly, she experienced the fluctuations in his behavior, common to so many superstars: the way he could shift from cold and distant to intensely attentive from one day to the next — and how, on one night, a haircut appointment turned into an intimate dinner and the one time she slept with him (he and Angie famously had an open marriage).

Yet she also saw the brutal callousness he could display when it came to business (the musicians in the Spiders From Mars were notoriously underpaid) and when he sensed betrayal. When the group rebelled during the first American tour, after learning that guest pianist Mike Garson’s salary was literally ten times more than theirs, he launched a campaign that found him parting ways with all of the Spiders within a year. Drummer Mick “Woody” Woodmansey, who had spoken disparagingly to and about Bowie during the tour, and bassist Trevor Bolder were seemingly singled out for exceptionally cruel treatment: Bowie not only didn’t tell them he was breaking up the band — they didn’t find out until he announced onstage at the end of the tour’s last concer t — Woodmansey was told on his wedding day that he was fired.

Suzi did not begin a romantic relationship with Mick Ronson until the very end of his time with Bowie, but they would remain together from that point until his death from liver cancer in 1993 (the same disease that would take Bowie nearly 25 years later). Mick had a more agreeable parting with Bowie and Defries, the latter of whom was positioning him for solo superstardom. But despite the over-the-top tactics that had worked so well for Bowie – a billboard on Sunset Strip, limos, expensive hotels – Ronson, although an enormously talented and charismatic musician, was not a superstar frontman. The book also covers that era, and whether intentionally or not, the sense of entitlement Mick and Suzi felt during that time comes through.

As has happened countless times, the lofty treatment and talk of superstardom went to their heads, although it wouldn’t be long before they came crashing back down to earth (and realized that those limos and hotel rooms were recoupable from Ronson’s earnings). Ronson was back in his more-comfortable role as guitarist and collaborator before 1974 ended, and the book covers his subsequent work with Mott the Hoople, Ian Hunter and Bob Dylan – although it drops off, rather curiously and abruptly, in the late ‘70s.

Suzi, who would not see Bowie or Angie again after they parted ways late in 1973, is unvarnished and unforgiving in her opinions about the star’s cruelty. “He blamed [disloyalty and] cocaine for his bad behavior. I laugh when I
read this and don’t believe it for a second,” she writes. “It was raw, naked ambition, and a bloody-mindedness that is particular to a few people… It was revenge and control.

The talent, charisma, ego and survival skills it takes to become a superstar also tend to make people manipulative at best and cruel at worst, and this book displays all of the above in Bowie and more. “Me and Mr. Jones” is a first-hand view of the glory and brutality that comes with a rapid rise to stardom.

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