Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   

Author:   Heather Lende

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Memoir, Advice, Happiness

176 pages, published April 28, 2015

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Find the Good is written by Heather Lend, an obituary writer from a small town in Alaska, and conveys her thoughts on how to live a meaningful, well-lived life.  Her theme is to find the good.  Lende remarks that we can choose to see any event–starting a new job or being laid off from an old one, getting married or getting divorced–as an opportunity to find the good.  As she says, “We are all writing our own obituary every day by how we live. The best news is that there’s still time for additions and revisions before it goes to press.”

 

Quotes

“The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way.”

“I have a friend who says we spend the first half of our life building it and the second half preventing it from falling apart. I’d rather be under construction when I die.”

 

“You don’t have to sing in a choir to see that a group of committed people who care about something that makes life a little brighter, and work hard at it, can accomplish more together than alone, but it helps.”

 

“When our mothers die, we are on our own; there is no one to call for help, no one to blame, and no one left who has a copy of your grandmother’s recipe for the traditional Christmas coffee cake, which you can’t find anywhere.”

My Take

I picked up Find the Good from the audio book shelf of my beloved Boulder Library.  It is a quick read written by someone with a unique perspective (an Alaska obituary writer) with some nuggets of wisdom.  I enjoyed listening to it, but after finishing, it faded quickly.  Hence, the ☆☆1/2 rating.