Customer Reviews

A Guide for Grown-ups: Essential Wisdom from the Works of Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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I'm a huge fan of St. Exupery. His writings are fantastic. This book pulls out some of the beautiful prose he wrote and oh it's just wonderful to open the book to some page, read the passage/phrase and then sit and savor it, meditate on it. I love this book. Glad it was compiled. Highly highly recommended.

Let it be understood that this is a coffee table/bathroom type book. The kind of book you pick up and select a few pages and read and meditate on what it is you have just read. Perhaps you share it with a friend and get engrossed in a discussion after reading only a page or two. I suppose you could read it from cover to cover, and although you would be finished quickly I think you would be missing the point of encapsulating the brunt of a prolific writer's works into 96 pages each with only one or two sentences on them. The idea is to revisit the world of Antione de Saint-Exupery and linger a little bit longer than you did the first time you read his works.

If you are familiar with the works of Antoine De Saint-Exupery, you will probably recognize just what part of each story the quotes are taken from. You will also instantly recall the magical way in which Saint-Exupery was able to reveal the his subtle wisdom in regards to happiness, friendhsip, love, grief, etc. in a way that was accessible to children, but still profound to the most discerning adult. If you are only familiar with The Little Prince, than perhaps this little guide will do a lot to bring you up to speed on Saint-Exupery's entire body of everyday philosophy.

I doubt that anyone who has never heard of Saint-Exupery or any of his stories will appreciate this book much. The magic of Saint-Exupery has to be experienced before one learns how to detect the depth of his thoughts in these short quotations. As a gift this book is still an excellent idea, but perhaps it should be given in conjunction with at least one other Saint-Exupery book, if the recipient is completely new to Saint Exupery.

I will serenely conclude here before I start taking my opinion too seriously.

After just being introduced to the "Little Prince", I wanted more. This book is nice to have around to read when things seem out of control and the stress level is getting high. This would be a nice book to give as a gift or have in the guest room for those visitors who may need a little 'essential wisdom'.

Lovely quotations regarding Love, Friendship etc. that make you feel all warm and cozy. Makes you want to pick up and read Wind, Sand, Stars and The Little Prince all over again and also look up at the stars once again with new feeling.