This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women [Audiobook, CD, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

I've been working too much lately, getting into my car at night with my head still swimming about all the things that are going on at the office. I try not to get like this, but sometimes, especially at this time of year, it's hard not to. Someone sent me a copy of an interesting audiobook though and I wanted to share a bit about it with you. Listening to it in 15 minute snippets on the way to and from work these past few weeks has turned me around.

If you're a public radio junkie, the series it's based on is probably old news to you. It's called "This I Believe" and it's a compilation of essays from individuals writing about what they believe in. Very simple concept. The people who have written essays are young and old, famous and not, successful and not, religious and not. There are some from the 1950s, some from 2006. I'm finding that spending a few minutes on my drive to and from work every day where I stop thinking about what happened today or what needs to happen tomorrow does me good as a person. Some of them made me cry (probably more than I should admit) and some made me laugh. Some I fast-forward through b/c I've no interest in the topic - but with 80 distinct essays to listen to, you can fwd through quite a few and still have lots to listen to.

You might be one of those people who is going to think this is smarmy, a little too saccharin or otherwise not as clever as you'd like -- but you should at least listen to a couple of excerpts. You may be surprised by the range of this collection - there are essays on the belief in science and math and the written word; others about kindness and hope and family; some on pizza delivery drivers and good barbecue and feeding monkeys on your birthday. I'm tempted to point out a couple of my favorites but I won't - because I'm pretty sure the excerpts that speak most vividly to me will be different than the ones that touch you. You should give yourself a few minutes right now to sample one or two from the npr website. And then you should buy the audio or the print book. It's maybe exactly what you need right now.

Clearly, I'm in the minority on this one. But this book just didn't work for me at all. It seems like such a promising concept, too - "based on the NPR series of the same name, 80 essayists - from the famous to the previously unknown - complete the thought that begins the book's title".

But the result is - despite being a bestseller - a dreadful book. If I had checked it out in a bookstore, rather than buying it here on Amazon, I might have figured it out from the back cover. Here are the four 'quotes from inside' that the publishers use as a teaser:

"I believe in the goodness of a free society. And I believe that the society can remain good only as long as we are willing to fight for it." Jackie Robinson.
"I believe in empathy." Azar Nafisi.
"I believe in the pursuit of happiness. Not its attainment, nor its final definition, but its pursuit." Andrew Sullivan.
"Be cool to the pizza delivery dude; it's good luck". Sarah Adams.

Well, yes. Am I supposed to argue with any of these noble sentiments? Hardly (though I might suggest a different justification for being cool to the pizza delivery dude than trying to generate future good karma). But it's precisely the completely unobjectionable, generally safe nature of the assorted beliefs expressed in the book that make it - and I may burn in hell for this - a major YAWN. If you crack open the book and can wade through some of the most mind-numbingly pompous prose imaginable, there are further nuggets to be gleaned:

Benjamin Carson believes that "there is no job more important than parenting".
William F. Buckley believes in God, but, being WFB, finds it necessary to express himself thusly: "This I believe: that it is intellectually easier to credit a divine intelligence than to submit dumbly to felicitous congeries about nature".
Jackie Lantry believes in the power of love to transform and heal.

Again, I'm not questioning the validity of these beliefs (what would give me the right?), but they end up being expressed in most cases with a kind of cliched banality that is available free in any Hallmark store. More charitably, in considering why this book ended up being such a disastrous collection of woolly-minded writing, almost never rising above hackneyed cliches and Reader's Digest level banality, I believe that the problem lies in the formulation of the question. It seems that asking people to come on the radio for three minutes to sum up the core beliefs of their lives is a poor mechanism to generate anything of interest. It's a trap, causing most respondents to founder in banal generalities.

The (very) few interesting contributors were smart enough to avoid the lure of the pompously abstract profundity, and rooted their answers in the specific. Here are the opening sentences of the three most interesting (OK, let's be honest, the only three truly interesting) essays:

'I consider myself a feminist, and I feel like a moron admitting it, but it's true: I believe in Barbie.'
'I believe in always going to the funeral. My father taught me that.'
'There is no such thing as too much barbecue'.

Let me be clear again - this review is in no way a critique of the expressed beliefs and opinions of the contributors. It is concerned only with the interest level and readability of their efforts. On those criteria, this book has to be considered a dreadful, soporific, failure.

When I first received my copy of "This I Believe," I had no idea that it was actually from a popular 1950s radio show of the same name. Originally, "This I Believe" was hosted by Edward R. Murrow. It was aired throughout the United States and became so popular that two volumes of the essays were published and hit the Top-10 Bestseller's list for three years.

It was easy to become hooked as I read the first essay, and though some of the essays are 50 years old, they are still very relevent to what we are going through now as individuals and as a society.

The essays (of which there are 79) are 3-4 pages each and are essentially a brief outline of why the writer has a particular belief. The essays are personal stories which are written in a positive manner without being judgmental, preachy or obnoxious.

Some of the more well known writers include: William F. Buckley, Jr., Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Bill Gates and Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller fame).

In the "Afterward" written by Dan Gediman, he explains the history of the famous radio show and how he was inspired to put together a book of some of the more famous essays from the show, while including some new essays from both famous and unknown writers of our day.

The appendix includes the original introduction of the radio show "This I Believe" by Edward R. Murrow, how to write your own "This I Believe" essay, and suggestions on how to use "This I Believe" in your own community. They also challenge you to write your own "This I Believe" essay and send it in to their website www.thisibelieve.org.

"This I Believe" is thoughtful, inspiring and thought provoking. It would provide invaluable insights and topics for those interested in public speaking or blogging. For teachers it can provide inspiration to help students find out their own belief systems.

Really an essay of the human heart, "This I Believe" challenges you to discover what your own belief system is. Do you know what you believe?

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