A Short Guide to a Happy Life [Kindle Edition] Author: Anna Quindlen | Language: English | ISBN:
B000QCS9KK | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Download books file now Download A Short Guide to a Happy Life [Kindle Edition] for everyone book 4shared, mediafire, hotfile, and mirror link From the author of Blessings and Still Life with Bread Crumbs, Anna Quindlen’s classic reflection on a meaningful life is the perfect gift for graduation, or any occasion.
“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.
From the Hardcover edition. Books with free ebook downloads available Download A Short Guide to a Happy Life [Kindle Edition]
- File Size: 2385 KB
- Print Length: 64 pages
- Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (April 1, 2001)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000QCS9KK
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,917 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #14
in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > 90 minutes (44-64 pages) > Self-Help - #40
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Self-Help > Happiness
- #14
in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > 90 minutes (44-64 pages) > Self-Help - #40
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Self-Help > Happiness
Tuesday I was at the bookstore when it opened to buy this book. I bought a copy for myself and one for my daughter, then went to sit on a bench overlooking the ocean to read it.
This tiny gem of a book contains many thoughts that are just common sense until you see them written down. Then they become points to ponder, to think about and mull over in your mind and heart. Which is exactly what I did after finishing...I sat and looked out at the sea, thinking about what I had just read.
Much of the text of this book was part of a commencement address that Quindlen was to give at Villanova. She released the speech after she cancelled and I have been told that it was so well-received that she was asked to put it into book form.
This is a book to savor and to read over and over again and to give as a gift to a loved one. I plan to return to the bookstore to buy several more copies.
Some of the thoughts in the book:
On life: "there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul."
On being a mother, a wife, and a friend: "I show up. I listen. I try to laugh."
On being charitable and good to others: "if you do not do good... then doing well will never be enough."
And on living for today: "I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.
Most books take the vantage point of the author being an expert in the
subject or a celebrity. A Short Guide to a Happy Life claims to come
from neither foundation, even though the Ms. Anna Quindlen will be
well-known to many for her best-selling books and Newsweek
columns.
Instead her perspective in this book is a humble and common
one, that of someone who experienced what we will all experience in
due course, but at an earlier age -- the loss of her mother to ovarian
cancer when her mother was 40 and the author was 19. That early loss
changed Ms. Quindlen's perspective on life, and she thinks it will
eventually and should now change yours, too. "Do you think you'd
care so very much about [your career] if you developed an aneurysm one
afternoon, or found a lump in your breast while in the shower?"
She describes her qualifications for describing the happy life,
"I am a good mother to three children. I have tried to never let
my profession stand in the way of being a good parent."
"I am a good friend to my husband."
"I am a good
friend to my friends, and they to me." ....
Now that you have
the perspective, what is Ms. Quindlen's prescription for you:
"Get a life in which you are not alone." "All of us
want to do well. But if we do not do good too, then doing well will
never be enough."
The simplicity and ordinariness of that
perspective gives it a power and eloquence that the expert and the
famous person cannot command.
But what was remarkable for me was
the insight that she shares with us, that I would never have developed
on my own....
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