You’ve Got to Read This Book: 55 People Tell the Story of the Book That Changed Their Life – Jack Canfield and Gay Hendricks, with Carol Kline
An intriguing title. It immediately made me wonder how many of the books these people valued I had read. It turns out, not so many. Four, to be exact, along with a bit of dabbling in a few other titles. This isn’t too surprising, as almost half of the books listed were self-help/self-discovery type books. And that was also no surprise, in that almost half of the people telling their stories were self-help/self-discovery writers and speakers.
I suppose that was to be expected, given the authors of the book and, as noted in the introduction, the genesis of the book during a meeting of such people at the author’s (Jack Canfield) home. I must admit that I have developed a bit of distaste for the continual repackaging of the same old self-help stuff. I’ve read plenty and been helped by little. But that’s just me.
I was hoping for stories from more business and hard science people than are represented in the book. There are some, as well as a few sports figures, writers, actors and artists. Most of the people I had never heard of, which somewhat lessened the impact of the stories on me.
There were, however, at least a dozen good stories that moved me. Of the four books I have read, Space Cadet, by Robert Heinlein, was the book used in the story by Nancy Pearl, an apparently well known librarian – and was a story to which I could relate. Not being religiously inclined, the stories devoted to religious book were wasted on me but could be useful to others. In the end, I actually ordered one book mentioned, more because I think it might be useful for my son rather than to me, but I’ll read it before I give it to him.
Of course, in the end, writing books is about making money and I suppose the authors have achieved that goal. Indeed, they appear to be making the most of the opportunity by offering a “book club” of sorts for people who might want to read some of the books mentioned in the stores. More power to them.
As a side note, I do wonder how people can put their names on a book as the authors when all they have done is write a very short introduction. All the individual stories were written by the individuals telling the stories, or at least that’s the impression given. Seems to me that instead of authors, they should be noted as editors, but who am I to say?
If you are a self-help type person you will probably get more out of this book than I did. Having said that, though, I did find it worthwhile to read the whole book and thought several of the stories were excellent.
(Finished 12/29/13)