A Short Guide to a Happy Life
by Anna Quindlen
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anna QuindlenEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-10-31
ISBN: 0375504613
Number of pages: 64
Publisher: Random House
Book Reviews of A Short Guide to a Happy Life
Book Review: A Memorable Tiny Book
Summary: 5 Stars
"A Short Guide to a Happy Life" is a tiny book with a big dose of wisdom. The black-and-white photographs are original and interesting and the text only takes less than 10 minutes to read. This is the perfect book if you just want a few minutes of inspiration. Anna Quindlen quotes quite a bit so there is even less of her writing than you might expect. Still, I loved the ending and I think it was profound in its own way. This is a short reminder to "get a life" instead of being consumed with work. I'm giving this five stars because it has a very memorable ending which made me think about my life in a new way. I think a trip to a beach is now in order.
~The Rebecca Review
Summary of A Short Guide to a Happy Life
"Life is made of moments, small pieces of silver amidst long stretches of tedium. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won't happen. We have to teach ourselves now to live, really live...to love the journey, not the destination."In this treasure of a book, Anna Quindlen, the bestselling novelist and columnist, reflects on what it takes to "get a life"--to live deeply every day and from your own unique self, rather than merely to exist through your days. "Knowledge of our own mortality is the greatest gift God ever gives us," Quindlen writes, "because unless you know the clock is ticking, it is so easy to waste our days, our lives." Her mother died when Quindlen was nineteen: "It was the dividing line between seeing the world in black and white, and in Technicolor. The lights came on for the darkest possible reason....I learned something enduring, in a very short period of time, about life. And that was that it was glorious, and that you had no business taking it for granted." But how to live from that perspective, to fully engage in our days? In A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen guides us with an understanding that comes from knowing how to see the view, the richness in living.
"I'm not particularly qualified by profession or education to give advice and counsel," confesses author Anna Quindlen, as she begins this tender little instruction book. "It's widely known in a small circle that I make a mean tomato sauce, and I know many inventive ways to hold a baby while nursing, although I haven't had the opportunity to use any of them in years."
It is precisely this commonplace form of wisdom that make readers trust and respect Quindlen. She uses her candid, heart-to-heart narrative voice along with her novel-writer descriptive skills to show readers how good we have it: "Life is made up of moments, small pieces of mica in a long stretch of glittering gray cement." Later she urges readers to "Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face." The format smacks of "gift book," with an abundance of pleasing, artsy photographs. Don't be ashamed to fall for the packaging, though. This is one of those books that could remain in the living room for years or in the family for generations. --Gail Hudson
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