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NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Being a teenager has never been easy, but in recent years, with the rise of the Internet and social media, it has become exponentially more challenging. Bullying, once thought of as the province of queen bees and goons, has taken on new, complex, and insidious forms, as parents and educators know all too well.
 
No writer is better poised to explore this territory than Emily Bazelon, who has established herself as a leading voice on the social and legal aspects of teenage drama. In Sticks and Stones, she brings readers on a deeply researched, clear-eyed journey into the ever-shifting landscape of teenage meanness and its sometimes devastating consequences. The result is an indispensable book that takes us from school cafeterias to courtrooms to the offices of Facebook, the website where so much teenage life, good and bad, now unfolds.
 
Along the way, Bazelon defines what bullying is and, just as important, what it is not. She explores when intervention is essential and when kids should be given the freedom to fend for themselves. She also dispels persistent myths: that girls bully more than boys, that online and in-person bullying are entirely distinct, that bullying is a common cause of suicide, and that harsh criminal penalties are an effective deterrent. Above all, she believes that to deal with the problem, we must first understand it.
 
Blending keen journalistic and narrative skills, Bazelon explores different facets of bullying through the stories of three young people who found themselves caught in the thick of it. Thirteen-year-old Monique endured months of harassment and exclusion before her mother finally pulled her out of school. Jacob was threatened and physically attacked over his sexuality in eighth grade—and then sued to protect himself and change the culture of his school. Flannery was one of six teens who faced criminal charges after a fellow student’s suicide was blamed on bullying and made international headlines. With grace and authority, Bazelon chronicles how these kids’ predicaments escalated, to no one’s benefit, into community-wide wars. Cutting through the noise, misinformation, and sensationalism, she takes us into schools that have succeeded in reducing bullying and examines their successful strategies. The result is a groundbreaking book that will help parents, educators, and teens themselves better understand what kids are going through today and what can be done to help them through it.

Contains a new discussion guide for classroom use and book groups

Praise for Sticks and Stones
 
“Intelligent, rigorous . . . [Emily Bazelon] is a compassionate champion for justice in the domain of childhood’s essential unfairness.”—Andrew Solomon, The New York Times Book Review
 
“[Bazelon] does not stint on the psychological literature, but the result never feels dense with studies; it’s immersive storytelling with a sturdy base of science underneath, and draws its authority and power from both.”—New York
 
“A humane and closely reported exploration of the way that hurtful power relationships play out in the contemporary public-school setting . . . As a parent herself, [Bazelon] brings clear, kind analysis to complex and upsetting circumstances.”—The Wall Street Journal
 
“Bullying isn’t new. But our attempts to respond to it are, as Bazelon explains in her richly detailed, thought-provoking book. . . . Comprehensive in her reporting and balanced in her conclusions, Bazelon extracts from these stories useful lessons for young people, parents and principals alike.”—The Washington Post

• Sales Rank: #97450 in Books
• Published on: 2014-02-11
• Released on: 2014-02-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.02" h x .87" w x 5.18" l, .70 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

From Booklist
Bullying has become a buzzword recently with high-profile examples of its tragic ramifications appearing frequently on the national media. Bazelon first became involved in reporting on bullying for a series in Slate magazine, which ultimately led to this book-length analysis of the phenomenon. The book is framed by the author’s examination of three different bullying situations. These cases lead to a deeper discussion of the factors that foment bullying and how bullying affects its victims. Bazelon also examines the motivation for bullying and how adults, parents, teachers, guidance counselors, and school administrators can address the problem, whether it’s traditional face-to-face bullying or cyberbullying. She also deconstructs the language of bullying, which teens often refer to as “drama,” and looks at how a teen’s social capital can affect his or her likeliness to be bullied. This very perceptive and accessible work on a topic of increasing relevance is a must-read for any teacher, administrator, or after-school provider for teens and tweens. --Eve Gaus

Review
“Intelligent, rigorous . . . [Emily Bazelon] is a compassionate champion for justice in the domain of childhood’s essential unfairness.”—Andrew Solomon, The New York Times Book Review
 
“[Bazelon] does not stint on the psychological literature, but the result never feels dense with studies; it’s immersive storytelling with a sturdy base of science underneath, and draws its authority and power from both.”—New York
 
“A humane and closely reported exploration of the way that hurtful power relationships play out in the contemporary public-school setting . . . As a parent herself, [Bazelon] brings clear, kind analysis to complex and upsetting circumstances.”—The Wall Street Journal
 
“Bullying isn’t new. But our attempts to respond to it are, as Bazelon explains in her richly detailed, thought-provoking book. . . . Comprehensive in her reporting and balanced in her conclusions, Bazelon extracts from these stories useful lessons for young people, parents and principals alike.”—The Washington Post
 
“A serious, important book that reads like a page-turner . . . Emily Bazelon is a gifted writer, and this powerful work is sure to place childhood bullying at the heart of the national conversation—right where it belongs.”—Susan Cain, author of Quiet
 
“Bullying is misunderstood. Not all conflict between kids is bullying. It isn’t always clear who is the bully and who is the victim. Not all—or even most—kids are involved in bullying. And bullying isn’t the only factor in a child’s suicide, ever. Emily Bazelon, who wrote about the subject for Slate in 2010, here expands her reporting in an important, provocative book about what we can—and can’t—do about the problem.”—The Boston Globe
 
“In Sticks and Stones . . . journalist and editor Emily Bazelon brings a sure hand and investigative heft to her exploration of bullying, which, in the era of social media, includes both digital and old-fashioned physical cruelty.”—Los Angeles Times


From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author
Emily Bazelon is a senior editor at Slate, a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, and the Truman Capote Fellow at Yale Law School. Before joining Slate, she worked as a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. She is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, and lives in New Haven with her husband and two sons. This is her first book.

Most helpful customer reviews

154 of 175 people found the following review helpful.
Struggling With This One
By Jacqueline R.
As a former teacher, I find myself struggling tremendously with Sticks And Stones, which has received quite good reviews.

One thing that is quite confusing is the "great equalizing" of bully and bullied. Yes, I imagine many bullies are depressed themselves, and I'm sure many are also suffering from other issues. But the notion that a bully and a bullied child suffer equally is simply wrong. A bullied child learns fear, dreads school, comes to believe that no one can help, and often becomes socially withdrawn. The fact that a bullied child may recover from this (which Bazelton seems to suggest) is nice, but why (in a society where every kid has to win a trophy and every child has to have an equal part in a school play) is protecting children from bullies that one thing that seems to make so many people talk about "equalization?"

Moreover, I found Bazelton's notion that most buillies "grow out of it naturally" is completely wrong. Not sure how many workplaces she's been in, but there are always plenty of grown-up bullies on display. Did they just suddenly decide to become bullies for their 30th or 40th birthday? Probably not -- they probably learned many lessons of intimidation on the playground.

While I was teaching, I found myself in meetings with parents of bullies, and 80% of time those parents said one of two things: "My child is not a bully" (no matter how many notes or proof a teacher offered) or, much sadder, "I know he is a bully but I have no control over him." The idea that parents are not involved in how their children grow is bizarre, and unless a parent of a bully steps in to assist in guiding his or her child, school alone simply cannot help.

But the hypothesis that is truly unsettling to me is the idea that children should somenow not be protected by bullies so they can develop "problem solving skills." Throughout history, there have always been people who have suggested that the only way to deal with a bully is to actually punch them out in public, but other than beating up your bully, exactly how is a child supposed to "problem solve" a bully away? If parents or schools can't stop the bully, and the bully will not stop himself or herself, how exactly is the bullied child supposed to do it?

One thing I do agree with: the idea of "mediation" -- putting the bullied and the bully together to try to talk it out -- is absurb. Again, why is the bullied child forced to carry so much of this burden? Why can't more be done to stop bullying and phase it out of school life?

Bazelton's book is readable and has some interesting insights, but I'm just terribly uncomfortable with some of her research.

48 of 56 people found the following review helpful.
She doesn't get it
By Dienne
Emily Bazelon is apparently interested in bullying because (a) her friends "fired" her in the eighth grade and (b) her new best friend after that, Allie, was bullied by her former friends and their allies, although Bazelon admits she has no memory of Allie's worst experience of bullying, even though she must have been there at the time. To her credit, Bazelon does admit that her experience did not qualify as bullying, but her prologue just serves to give us a hint that perhaps Bazelon isn't really tuned in to what bullying is all about. And she spends the rest of the book proving it.

The next six chapters are alternating stories of three teens who experienced bullying. The first is about seventh-grader Monique who inadvertently got the same hairstyle as a cousin of one of eighth grade mean girls on her bus and was harassed and humiliated mercilessly for it for months afterwards. Her mother and her grandmother took their concerns over Monique's treatment to the school, but didn't receive satisfying responses or resolution, so they took their grievances up the food chain to the police, the superintendent, the school board and the local government, all without receiving satisfaction. Bazelon's conclusion seems to be that the mother and grandmother were largely responsible for Monique's problems because they made such a stink over it (although she certainly doesn't fault their protective reasons for doing so). Bazelon further concludes that Monique's later problems weren't so much bullying as just "drama" because the second group of girls to harass her were her same age, and that Monique was also partly responsible because she escalated the situation by retaliating. Monique's problems were finally solved, according to Bazelon, in large part by joining a boxing program where she learned to stand up for herself.

The second story is that of Jacob who was bullied for being gay. Again, his school was almost completely unresponsive to his father's complaints. While Bazelon seems more sympathetic to Jacob (although there are hints that he too brought it on himself by being "flamboyant"), she still seems to think that bullying is not such a big deal because most kids - like Jacob - eventually get over it and lead satisfying lives without sinking inexorably into depression or suicidality (although that does happen, and even those who survive carry lasting scars, as Bazelon admits). Nevermind that Jacob was basically forced from his school, it all came out okay in the end and that's all that matters.

The final story is entitled "Flannery", which you might think odd as you realize that it's the story of the "bullycide" of Phoebe Prince in South Hadley, Connecticut and that Flannery was one of those accused of bullying Phoebe. So how does the story of an accused bully get mixed in with stories of kids who were bullied? The discrepancy becomes clear as we read on and learn that Bazelon doesn't believe in "bullycide", especially not in the case of Phoebe Prince. Phoebe wasn't bullied to death; she was a troubled girl with a history of problems who hit on other girls' boyfriends and who, at most, suffered a few days of admittedly unpleasant retaliation. Killing herself had little to do with the treatment she received at school and online, but was rather due to her own psychological problems. At least, that's Bazelon's story and she's sticking to it.

Bazelon knows all this because (a) that's what all the kids at school told her, especially Flannery and the other unfairly accused kids whose lives were utterly ruined by a bunch of normal teenage drama and (b) because of a raft of confidential, personal documents regarding Phoebe and the criminal case that just happened to end up in her possession. Needless to say, Bazelon dismisses the very notion that Phoebe was harassed and attacked for three straight months - it pretty much boils down to a few incidents of rude name calling and one girl throwing an empty soda can at her. And whatever harassment there was couldn't account for Phoebe's problems since such problems predated her arrival in South Hadley (the idea that Phoebe's prior problems might have made her a more vulnerable - and hence appealing - target for the bullies (thereby making their predation even more malicious) never seems to occur to Bazelon). Furthermore, no mention is made of the gang rapes that allegedly happened at the party at Phoebe's house - allegedly instigated by the poor, maligned Sean. The fact of the party itself is just further evidence of Phoebe's instability and attention getting.

Bazelon then flits through some chapters on bullying "solutions" and interventions - especially the Olweus method which she spills a lot of ink promoting but very little actually describing. She throws in a few more examples from her personal research on bullying incidents to show how such methods "work". Most of the interventions sound very behavioral and frankly rather cheesy for high school students, focusing on rewarding kids for good behavior rather than looking at the underlying dynamics and motivation of bullies themselves.

And then we take a trip out to Facebook headquarters (where the representative believes that Facebook has given her a great deal because she gets to leave every day at 5:30 to be with her baby, as long as she works from home from 8:00 to midnight - talk about bullied) to discuss the issue of online bullying. Bazelon is adamant that schools simply can't be expected to deal with bullying and monitoring students' every interaction, but apparently online social network providers can be.

Overall, the book is a disorganized jumble of utterly unhelpful musings and polemics from someone who has clearly never experienced the ongoing hostility, degradation and intentional cruelty of bullying or the powerlessness to respond, nor does she have a great deal of sympathy for those who have. She admits that bullying involves an imbalance of power, but she seems unable (or unwilling) to grasp the significance of that. Expecting bully victims to stand up to their bullies and work out the situation for themselves is rather like expecting rape victims to stand up to their rapists and work it out. I do agree with Bazelon that punishments such as suspensions and expulsions should be the method of very last resort, but still, the focus must be on the perpetrator and it must be made clear that the behavior will not be tolerated; the school will maintain a safe environment for all students and any who cannot or will not respect that are not welcome.

One of the biggest problems with bullying is the lack of adult response, or even adult response which favors the bully. A girl at my school (nearly 30 years ago now) who was harassed (sexually and otherwise) by several boys was told by our vice principal to "kick them where it counts". She actually took the advice, only to find that she was the one suspended for it (by the same vice principal, no less) while nothing ever happened to the boys. Things have gotten better for bullied youth precisely because more adults recognize the problem and do their best to intervene. But to Bazelon, adults getting involved seems to be part of the problem. I'm afraid that Bazelon's book gives - albeit not quite intentionally - fuel to the fire of those who believe that bully victims need to learn to "man up" and fight back, while offering very little - or even scaring away - those who want to support bully victims but who don't know how or feel that their hands are tied.

60 of 72 people found the following review helpful.
Children who are bullied need champions, not wimps
By Avid Reader
If only there was a way to give this book ZERO stars. In spite of her research, the author seems to have no idea what bullying is about. She begins with a personal anecdote, wherein two friends dump her over the summer. Her feelings were deeply hurt but eventually she found a new friend. Although this is NOT bullying, the incident seems to inform the rest of her report. So reviewers need to tell her: Bullying is about the abuse of power, and about relentlessly degrading/harming another person. When is that ever OK?? Why would that ever be acceptable behavior?? And yet she reaches the weirdly cautious conclusion that "maybe we should not hover, and let children work out their own problems; or maybe bullying teaches children resiliency." This summary is consistent with parenting practices seen throughout society: parents are afraid to be grown ups and take on the hard work of shaping their child's character. Apparently parents no longer say, "Our family values kindness and tolerance, and what you are doing is wrong. You will stop immediately; you will apologize and make amends." Heaven forbid! Acknowledge my child is in error? Not my precious snowflake. The author's conclusion says more about current parenting wimpy-ness than she realizes. THIS is the book's take-home message: children who are being bullied, you are on your own, because the bullies' parents are once again encouraged to avoid their responsibilities not only to their child, but to society.

See all 156 customer reviews...

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Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of quotidian minutiae is a letter addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl from a woman he hasn’t seen or heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye.
 
Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then, as happens in the very best works of fiction, Harold has a chance encounter, one that convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. And thus begins the unlikely pilgrimage at the heart of Rachel Joyce’s remarkable debut. Harold Fry is determined to walk six hundred miles from Kingsbridge to the hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed because, he believes, as long as he walks, Queenie Hennessey will live.
 
Still in his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold embarks on his urgent quest across the countryside. Along the way he meets one fascinating character after another, each of whom unlocks his long-dormant spirit and sense of promise. Memories of his first dance with Maureen, his wedding day, his joy in fatherhood, come rushing back to him—allowing him to also reconcile the losses and the regrets. As for Maureen, she finds herself missing Harold for the first time in years.
 
And then there is the unfinished business with Queenie Hennessy.
 
A novel of unsentimental charm, humor, and profound insight into the thoughts and feelings we all bury deep within our hearts, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry introduces Rachel Joyce as a wise—and utterly irresistible—storyteller.

• Sales Rank: #463981 in Books
• Brand: Random House
• Published on: 2012-07-24
• Released on: 2012-07-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.55" h x 1.10" w x 5.74" l, 1.05 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Features

• Great product!

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best Books of the Month, July 2012: Harold Fry--retired sales rep, beleaguered husband, passive observer of his own life--decides one morning to walk 600 miles across England to save an old friend. It might not work, mind you, but that's hardly the point. In playwright Rachel Joyce's pitch-perfect first novel, Harold wins us over with his classic antiheroism. Setting off on the long journey, he wears the wrong jacket, doesn't have a toothbrush, and leaves his phone at home--in short, he is wholly, endearingly unprepared. But as he travels, Harold finally has time to reflect on his failings as a husband, father, and friend, and this helps him become someone we (and, more important, his wife Maureen) can respect. After walking for a while in Harold Fry's very human shoes, you might find that your own fit a bit better. --Mia Lipman

Review
Advance praise for The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
 
“When it seems almost too late, Harold Fry opens his battered heart and lets the world rush in. This funny, poignant story about an ordinary man on an extraordinary journey moved and inspired me.”—Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank
 
“There’s tremendous heart in this debut novel by Rachel Joyce, as she probes questions that are as simple as they are profound: Can we begin to live again, and live truly, as ourselves, even in middle age, when all seems ruined? Can we believe in hope when hope seems to have abandoned us? I found myself laughing through tears, rooting for Harold at every step of his journey. I’m still rooting for him.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife
 
“Marvelous! I held my breath at his every blister and cramp, and felt as if by turning the pages, I might help his impossible quest succeed.”—Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
 
“Harold’s journey is ordinary and extraordinary; it is a journey through the self, through modern society, through time and landscape. It is a funny book, a wise book, a charming book—but never cloying. It’s a book with a  savage twist—and yet never seems manipulative. Perhaps because Harold himself is just wonderful.... I’m telling you now: I love this book.”—Erica Wagner, The Times (UK)
 
“The odyssey of a simple man...original, subtle and touching.”—Claire Tomalin, author of Charles Dickens: A Life
 
“The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry takes the most ordinary and unassuming of men and turns him into a hero for us all. To go on this journey with Harold will not only break your heart, it might just also heal it.”—Tiffany Baker, author of The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

"Spontaneity has never been Harold Fry’s strong suit, especially once he retired. Just ask his long-suffering wife, Maureen. So imagine her surprise when Harold abruptly decides to walk 500 miles to the north of England in a naive attempt to save a dying woman, a colleague he once knew briefly but to whom he hadn’t spoken in 20 years. It’s the proverbial case of a man going out to mail a letter and never coming home. Clad only in his everyday garb, lacking a cell phone, backpack, or reliable sense of direction, Fry puts one poorly shod foot in front of the other and trudges through villages and hamlets, often relying on the kindness of strangers to keep his momentum going. To the object of his inspiration, the fading Queenie Hennessy, he writes pithy postcards, bravely exhorting her not to die. Solitary walks are perfect for imagining how one might set the world to rights, and Harold does just that, although not always with uplifting results, as he ruminates on missed opportunities and failed relationships. Accomplished BBC playwright Joyce’s debut novel is a gentle and genteel charmer, brimming with British quirkiness yet quietly haunting in its poignant and wise examination of love and devotion. Sure to become a book-club favorite."—Carol Haggas, Booklist

About the Author
Rachel Joyce is an award-winning writer of more than 20 plays for BBC Radio 4. She started writing after a 20-year acting career in which she performed leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and won multiple awards. Rachel Joyce lives in Gloucestershire on a farm with her family and is at work on her second novel.

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430 of 457 people found the following review helpful.
A LOVELY AND UNASSUMING NOVEL ABOUT PEOPLE YOU WILL LIKE
By David Keymer
Harold Fry, six months retired from his job as sales representative for a local brewery, gets a letter from Queenie, a woman he'd worked with twenty years before but hasn't seen since. She tells him that she's dying of cancer. The news upsets him for years earlier, Queenie had done him a great favor and he'd never had the chance to thank her. He sits down to write a letter to her but finds it hard to say anything without seeming . . . "limp,' is the word that comes to his mind. When he has finished the letter, he leaves the house to mail it but when he gets to the mailbox, he walks on to the next one, and then the next, and the next, and soon he's at the opposite edge of town. He stops at a convenience store to get something to eat. He tells the girl at the counter that he has a friend who has cancer and he's got a letter he's going to post to her. The girl talks about her aunt who had cancer. She says science doesn't know everything, you have to believe a person can get better. "You see, if you have faith, you can do anything."

In that moment, Harold, who's spent most of his life doing only the ordinary and comfortable at all, realizes what he must do. He's going to walking to his friend's sickbed. He knows it's not reasonable but he's convinced that as long as he keeps walking toward her, his friend will stay alive. He telephones the hospice, tells Queenie's nurse to take her a message: "Tell her Harold Fry is on his way. All she has to do is wait. . . . I am going to save her, you see. I will keep walking and she must keep living. Will you say that? . . . Tell her this time I won't let her down."

And that's how Harold sets out on a six hundred mile journey, from Kingsbridge to Berwick upon Tweed, utterly unprepared for the trip and dressed in everyday clothes, not hiking gear. On his way, he meets all sorts of people and has all sorts of adventures, more small than large. ("Life was very different when you walked through it," Harold observes.) As he walks, the memories pile in: memories of a mother who abandoned him and a harsh, unforgiving father; the happy early years with his wife, Maureen; their hopes for their son David. But David intimidates Harold and Maude with his intelligence and his intransigence. He puts down his father for reading the wrong newspaper, as though that single fact renders him unfit to comment on anything. His mother makes excuses for him, "He's clever, you see," and the author observes, "implicit in the remark was the conviction that cleverness was both an excuse for everything, and out of their reach." (How sad!) Something happens and Maureen and he fall out. They no longer connect, no longer talk or share experiences. They still live together --in a modest cottage, shuttered with white net curtains that hide the world outside- but their lives are loveless and claustrophobic, where once they had been happy. What happened?

It would be wrong to reveal more of what happens in this lovely novel. In the end, both Harold and Maude learn something about themselves but as to what they learn, read it for yourself.

This is a quite good read. I'm uncomfortable with books that are overly sentimental - but though at times, this book comes close to being mawkish, it never is. The author avoids excess even in a book as filled with feeling as this one is; she doesn't clobber the reader over the head with a message. At one point in the book, Harold picks up followers, who want to join him on his pilgrimage across England. This part of the book seems contrived -too deliberately comic in its overtones- but still, even this portion is eminently readable. As to Harold and Maude, they are wonderful creations.

I particularly like the way the author describes things. She catches the way a not terribly well educated, not at all original late-middle aged man like Harold would see things, expressing his view of them in ordinary (concrete) language that yet has its own poetry. Thus Harold observes a woman he meets on the way: "Her eyes were round, as if she had contact lenses that maybe hurt." His next door neighbor, Rex, "was a short man with tidy feet at the bottom, a small head at the top, and a very round body in the middle, causing Harold to fear sometimes that if he fell there would be no stopping him. He would roll down the hill like a barrel."

Ultimately this novel is about redemption. It's not grand and certainly not flashy. But it is very human.

173 of 183 people found the following review helpful.
A Subversive Novel
By L. M. Keefer
This book may inspire you to go for a long walk--for 500 miles or so--like its protagonist Harold Fry did across England. You see how walking through your world five to ten miles a day for 500 miles might transform you. "Life was very different when you walked through it," realizes Harold.

Harold Fry lives invisibly and conventionally. His wife, Maureen, has become like her taste in toast: "cold and crisp". One day a letter arrives for Harold that changes their lives. The letter causes him to do something irrational and unpredictable. But as a waitress sympathetically told him in my favorite line of the book, "If we don't go mad once in a while, there's no hope." (That sounds so oddly rational that I have been contemplating what "mad" thing to do to increase the hope quotient. This may be a subversive book.)

Howard takes off on foot on a pilgrimage to see the writer of this letter. As a kind of modern CANTERBURY TALES, Howard meets many eccentric and colorful characters who cause him to see life in a new way. The pleasure of this book for me was rejoicing in Harold's transformation and the new life and self he is beginning to create. "He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was also his journey to accept the strangeness of others." Meanwhile his wife, Maureen, is simultaneously changing at home: "She had given herself a challenge: every day without him, she would attempt one new thing." This book chronicles the changes these two characters undergo during Harold's pilgrimage which oddly brings them closer.

The other huge pleasure of this book is the author's original and vibrant writing. Some choice examples:

* "His shirt, tie, and trousers were folded small as an apology on a faded blue velvet chair."

* "They spoke with the same cut-glass loud accent as Maureen's mother had used."

* "In the morning, her frocks were strewn like empty mothers all over the small house."

I couldn't help wonder how the author could write so gorgeously in a first book. Learned she previously had a twenty-year acting career performing leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company speaking the immortal words of the Bard himself--what better training? That background combined with writing plays for BBC Radio must have helped the author to create some of the best prose I have read recently. (This is a tad random, but if the author ever had the desire to write a mystery, her ability to sketch intriguing characters and situations with delicious prose could combine in an original and quirky mystery series like Kate Atkinson and John Banville/Benjamin Black have done.)

If you like a lot of action in a novel, this is more introspective fare. Sometimes the book moves slowly like a meandering and melancholy walk as Howard revisits in his mind his unlived and mournful life. Othertimes, you may just want to buy Harold a thick pair of socks and sturdy walking shoes so you won't have to read about his blisters anymore.

If you enjoy original and thoughtful novels of introspection and character transformation, you may enjoy this novel which moves from melancholy to buoyancy as Harold walks into an encouraging and promising future. If you enjoy stories of positive transformation, this novel may beguile you. And if you don't decide to "go a little mad once in a while", at the least you will probably enjoy walking more with a sense of its possibilities after reading this winsome novel.

112 of 118 people found the following review helpful.
A bit slow at first, but ultimately rewarding
By K. Blaine
I selected "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" to read and review because I loved "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand," a book to which it was compared in the publisher's preview. And while I prefer "Major Pettigrew" for its pacing and multicultural appeal, I wholeheartedly recommend "Harold Fry." It has charms of its own.

Henry David Thoreau observed, "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation," and I could not help but recall this quotation as I began Rachel Joyce's lovely debut novel. As the novel begins, Harold is merely existing. The reader is not given many details, but it is clear that Harold's marriage to Maureen is an empty shell, and that there are problems in his relationship with his adult son, David. Then Harold gets a farewell letter of sorts from a friend, Queenie Hennessy, and his carefully orchestrated charade of a life begins to come apart. Queenie had "done something nice" for Harold twenty years previous, and he always regretted not thanking her. Whatever this is is shrouded in mystery, and many readers will suspect a long-past affair. All these questions are a bit disconcerting, but if the reader is patient, all will be resolved.

Harold writes a "pro forma" response to Queenie's note, but as he goes out to mail it, something prevents him from putting it in the first mailbox he comes to. He passes postbox after postbox, and eventually makes an impulsive decision to walk from his hometown to Queenie's hospice, about 600 miles. Thus begins his transformation from a kind of living death to fullness of life.

Readers who are familiar with Joseph Campbell's "The Hero's Journey" will immediately recognize the motif: the hero leaves the world he knows to embark on a quest. Along the way he meets both helpers and tempters, and he eventually returns to the known world with a fullness of knowledge or with something to enrich his community and himself.

Harold Fry fits this motif to a tee. He meets many people and even animals along the way, and he gains something of value from each of them, even those who would deter him from his quest. Meanwhile, back at home, Maureen is undergoing her own transformation as she worries and responds to Harold's calls, postcards, and gifts. Nothing is as Harold or Maureen expect it to be. And the end of the quest is rewarding, but not in the way Harold imagines.

One final observation: This is a beautifully written novel. Most readers will love the use of language, especially in descriptions of the natural world. I am stunned that this is the author's first novel, though she has written many screenplays for the BBC. I hope to read much more of her work.

Most readers will like and appreciate "Harold Fry" if they persevere through the ambiguity at the beginning. Everything falls together eventually, I promise! Highly recommended.

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Pulitzer Prize-winning author James A. Michener was in his sixties when he began traveling frequently to the Florida Keys. One result of those visits was the novel Matecumbe, named after two of the islands that comprise the town of Islamorada, located approximately half way between Miami and Key West. Never before published, Matecumbe features many of the hallmarks of Michener's best work, including detailed descriptions of place. However, the plot is much more intimate than that found in most of his large-scale, epic historical novels. Focusing on the parallel lives of a woman and her mother, both divorced, Michener spent his creative energy on character development and allegorical storytelling. Random House, his publisher, wasn't pleased, and wanted the mega-best-selling author to concentrate on producing "heavyweight" books like Hawaii and Centennial. Matecumbe seemed too much in the vein of his earlier romance novel, Sayonara. So it sat in a drawer until, eventually, Michener gifted it--including the copyright--to Joe Avenick, his friend and former ghostwriter. Avenick played a key role in the research and writing of Sports in America and Chesapeake, and introduced Michener to Melissa (Missy) DeMaio, who soon became the primary reason for Michener's increasingly frequent visits to the Keys. Biographers and critics have long agreed that Michener's personality and his characters were both affected by his relationship with DeMaio. As perhaps his most encompassing autobiographical novel, and the one written in the midst of these changes, Matecumbe provides what may be tantalizing glimpses into Michener's life.  The publication of Matecumbe, in the centennial year of the author's birth, will be a boon for fans who have longed for more Michener in the ten years since his death.

• Sales Rank: #209160 in Books
• Brand: Brand: University Press of Florida
• Published on: 2007-09-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.02" h x .40" w x 5.98" l,
• Binding: Paperback
• 165 pages

Features

• Used Book in Good Condition

From Publishers Weekly
According to an afterword by former Michener ghostwriter Joe Avenick, this short novel was rejected by Albert Erskine, Michener's Random House editor, because it too closely resembled Sayonara. More likely, it was rejected because it's not very good. The story, such as it is, involves two romances. Mary Ann Mays, an attractive, hopelessly impoverished, abandoned mother of four in Pottsville, Pa., finds a wallet and returns it to Paul Reynolds, a handsome, debonair and available investment banker who falls instantly in love with her. He marries her, moves the family into a fine home and provides love and financial security for life. The alternating story involves divorcée Melissa Tomlinson, an attractive Philadelphia librarian, who visits the Florida Keys and meets Joe Carlton, a ruggedly handsome, available cop who falls instantly in love with her, marries her and provides love and emotional security for life. The unconnected plots shift back and forth without complication, suspense, conflict or development. Dialogue is wooden, speechy and incredible. Both women remain dreamy and adolescentlike; both men are deeply sensitive, caring, responsive and generous. It's like a formula romance with none of the formula's pap pleasures. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Pure Michener from start to finish."--Tampa Bay Magazine

"Reveals an intimate side of the author that few have seen before."--Southern Living

About the Author
James A. Michener (1907-1997) wrote nearly forty books in his lifetime, including such classics as Hawaii (1959), Centennial (1974), Space (1982), Texas (1985), and Alaska (1988), among others. He received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1948 for Tales of the South Pacific and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. His novels have sold in excess of seventy-five million copies worldwide.

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Intended as a short story and shoud have been left as that, but still in the style of early Michener like Fires of Spring.
By jan thesen
The epilogue should have been a preface, it would have prepared the reader to enjoy the story more and to realize that JAM originally wrote this as a short story.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
great book!
By James J. Stockdale
I loved this book, transformed me to a place that I have never been. Allowed me to see the power of people and relationships. I feel that I knew the people in the story!

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful.
Matecumbe
By Fydly
For those who are expecting a Michener masterpiece, this is a disappointing piece of fiction. The plot may have some parallels to the events of his personal life as stated in the afterword but this is where the value to the avid Michener reader ends. I received the book in the mail and sat down to it with great expectations. Finished it up the same night just to get over with it. I woud recommend it only to those who are interested in the genre of "Barbara Cartland" romance novels.

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

When we deny our stories, they define us.
When we own our stories, we get to write the ending.
 
Social scientist Brené Brown has ignited a global conversation on courage, vulnerability, shame, and worthiness. Her pioneering work uncovered a profound truth: Vulnerability—the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome—is the only path to more love, belonging, creativity, and joy. But living a brave life is not always easy: We are, inevitably, going to stumble and fall.
 
It is the rise from falling that Brown takes as her subject in Rising Strong. As a grounded theory researcher, Brown has listened as a range of people—from leaders in Fortune 500 companies and the military to artists, couples in long-term relationships, teachers, and parents—shared their stories of being brave, falling, and getting back up. She asked herself, What do these people with strong and loving relationships, leaders nurturing creativity, artists pushing innovation, and clergy walking with people through faith and mystery have in common? The answer was clear: They recognize the power of emotion and they’re not afraid to lean in to discomfort.
 
Walking into our stories of hurt can feel dangerous. But the process of regaining our footing in the midst of struggle is where our courage is tested and our values are forged. Our stories of struggle can be big ones, like the loss of a job or the end of a relationship, or smaller ones, like a conflict with a friend or colleague. Regardless of magnitude or circumstance, the rising strong process is the same: We reckon with our emotions and get curious about what we’re feeling; we rumble with our stories until we get to a place of truth; and we live this process, every day, until it becomes a practice and creates nothing short of a revolution in our lives. Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness. It’s the process, Brown writes, that teaches us the most about who we are.

ONE OF GREATER GOOD’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR

• Sales Rank: #383 in Books
• Published on: 2015-08-25
• Released on: 2015-08-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.60" h x 1.10" w x 5.70" l, .0 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of August 2015: You may be someone who looks at Rising Strong and says, “oh, that’s not really for me….” Translation: I don’t read or need that self-help stuff, give me a good novel and go away. But Brené Brown isn’t a spiritual guru, or someone who’s risen from the ashes to tell us how to live our lives. She’s a researcher. And Rising Strong isn’t some feel-good-get-over-it regimen; it’s more investigative reporting on the common denominators of people who whole-heartedly get back up and go another round after getting their asses handed to them in big and small ways. In her straightforward Texan voice, Brown sets the table for us to get curious about life’s sticky moments and invites us to serve ourselves a plate of what she’s learned in over a decade of research. I don’t know about you, but I’m not trying to be famous or come up with a cure that will change the world, I just want to live happily and keep getting back in the arena whether I’ve been rocked on my heels, knocked to my knees, or gone face down in the dirt. For my money, seeing how I can do that better is worth reading about. – Seira Wilson

About the Author
Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW, is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection, and I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t). She is the founder and CEO of The Daring Way, an organization that brings her work on vulnerability, courage, shame, and worthiness to organizations, schools, communities, and families. Her 2010 TEDx Houston talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” is one of the top five most-viewed TED talks in the world. Brown lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and two children.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One

The Physics of Vulnerability

When it comes to human behavior, emotions, and thinking, the adage “The more I learn, the less I know” is right on. I’ve learned to give up my pursuit of netting certainty and pinning it to the wall. Some days I miss pretending that certitude is within reach. My husband, Steve, always knows I’m mourning the loss of my young-­researcher quest when I am holed up in my study listening to David Gray’s song “My Oh My” on repeat. My favorite lyrics are:

What on earth is going on in my head?

You know I used to be so sure.

You know I used to be so definite.

And it’s not just the lyrics; it’s the way that he sings the word def.in.ite. Sometimes, it sounds to me as if he’s mocking the arrogance of believing that we can ever know everything, and other times it sounds like he’s pissed off that we can’t. Either way, singing along makes me feel better. Music always makes me feel less alone in the mess.

While there are really no hard-­and-­fast absolutes in my field, there are truths about shared experiences that deeply resonate with what we believe and know. For example, the Roosevelt quote that anchors my research on vulnerability and daring gave birth to three truths for me:

I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.

Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.

A lot of cheap seats in the arena are filled with people who never venture onto the floor. They just hurl mean-­spirited criticisms and put-­downs from a safe distance. The problem is, when we stop caring what people think and stop feeling hurt by cruelty, we lose our ability to connect. But when we’re defined by what people think, we lose the courage to be vulnerable. Therefore, we need to be selective about the feedback we let into our lives. For me, if you’re not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.

I don’t think of these as “rules,” but they have certainly become guiding principles for me. I believe there are also some basic tenets about being brave, risking vulnerability, and overcoming adversity that are useful to understand before we get started. I think of these as the basic laws of emotional physics: simple but powerful truths that help us understand why courage is both transformational and rare. These are the rules of engagement for rising strong.

1. If we are brave enough often enough, we will fall; this is the physics of vulnerability. When we commit to showing up and risking falling, we are actually committing to falling. Daring is not saying, “I’m willing to risk failure.” Daring is saying, “I know I will eventually fail and I’m still all in.” Fortune may favor the bold, but so does failure.

2. Once we fall in the service of being brave, we can never go back. We can rise up from our failures, screwups, and falls, but we can never go back to where we stood before we were brave or before we fell. Courage transforms the emotional structure of our being. This change often brings a deep sense of loss. During the process of rising, we sometimes find ourselves homesick for a place that no longer exists. We want to go back to that moment before we walked into the arena, but there’s nowhere to go back to. What makes this more difficult is that now we have a new level of awareness about what it means to be brave. We can’t fake it anymore. We now know when we’re showing up and when we’re hiding out, when we are living our values and when we are not. Our new awareness can also be invigorating—­it can reignite our sense of purpose and remind us of our commitment to wholeheartedness. Straddling the tension that lies between wanting to go back to the moment before we risked and fell and being pulled forward to even greater courage is an inescapable part of rising strong.

3. This journey belongs to no one but you; however, no one successfully goes it alone. Since the beginning of time, people have found a way to rise after falling, yet there is no well-­worn path leading the way. All of us must make our own way, exploring some of the most universally shared experiences while also navigating a solitude that makes us feel as if we are the first to set foot in uncharted regions. And to add to the complexity, in lieu of the sense of safety to be found in a well-­traveled path or a constant companion, we must learn to depend for brief moments on fellow travelers for sanctuary, support, and an occasional willingness to walk side by side. For those of us who fear being alone, coping with the solitude inherent in this process is a daunting challenge. For those of us who prefer to cordon ourselves off from the world and heal alone, the requirement for connection—­of asking for and receiving help—­becomes the challenge.

4. We’re wired for story. In a culture of scarcity and perfectionism, there’s a surprisingly simple reason we want to own, integrate, and share our stories of struggle. We do this because we feel the most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories—­it’s in our biology. The idea of storytelling has become ubiquitous. It’s a platform for everything from creative movements to marketing strategies. But the idea that we’re “wired for story” is more than a catchy phrase. Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has found that hearing a story—­a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end—­causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human abilities to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.

5. Creativity embeds knowledge so that it can become practice. We move what we’re learning from our heads to our hearts through our hands. We are born makers, and creativity is the ultimate act of integration—­it is how we fold our experiences into our being. Over the course of my career, the question I’ve been asked more than any other is, “How do I take what I’m learning about myself and actually change how I’m living?” After teaching graduate social work students for eighteen years; developing, implementing, and evaluating two curricula over the past eight years; leading more than seventy thousand students through online learning courses; and interviewing hundreds of creatives, I’ve come to believe that creativity is the mechanism that allows learning to seep into our being and become practice. The Asaro tribe of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea has a beautiful saying: “Knowledge is only a rumor until it lives in the muscle.” What we understand and learn about rising strong is only rumor until we live it and integrate it through some form of creativity so that it becomes part of us.

6. Rising strong is the same process whether you’re navigating personal or professional struggles. I’ve spent equal time researching our personal and our professional lives, and while most of us would like to believe that we can have home and work versions of rising strong, we can’t. Whether you’re a young man dealing with heartbreak, a retired couple struggling with disappointment, or a manager trying to recover after a failed project, the practice is the same. We have no sterile business remedy for having fallen. We still need to dig into the grit of issues like resentment, grief, and forgiveness. As neuroscientist Antonio Damasio reminds us, humans are not either thinking machines or feeling machines, but rather feeling machines that think. Just because you’re standing in your office or your classroom or your studio doesn’t mean that you can take the emotion out of this process. You cannot. Remember those badasses I referenced in the introduction? One more thing they have in common is that they don’t try to avoid emotions—­they are feeling machines who think and engage with their own emotions and the emotions of the people they love, parent, and lead. The most transformative and resilient leaders that I've worked with over the course of my career had three things in common: First, they recognize the central role that relationships and story play in culture and strategy, and they stay curious about their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Second, they understand and stay curious about how emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are connected in the people they lead, and how those factors affect relationships and perception. And, third, they have the ability and willingness to lean in to discomfort and vulnerability.

7. Comparative suffering is a function of fear and scarcity. Falling down, screwing up, and facing hurt often lead to bouts of second-­guessing our judgment, our self-­trust, and even our worthiness. I am enough can slowly turn into Am I really enough? If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past decade, it’s that fear and scarcity immediately trigger comparison, and even pain and hurt are not immune to being assessed and ranked. My husband died and that grief is worse than your grief over an empty nest. I’m not allowed to feel disappointed about being passed over for promotion when my friend just found out that his wife has cancer. You’re feeling shame for forgetting your son’s school play? Please—­that’s a first-­world problem; there are people dying of starvation every minute. The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of scarcity is simply enough. Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There’s more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world. The refugee in Syria doesn’t benefit more if you conserve your kindness only for her and withhold it from your neighbor who’s going through a divorce. Yes, perspective is critical. But I'm a firm believer that complaining is okay as long as we piss and moan with a little perspective. Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own struggle and the struggles of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us.

8. You can’t engineer an emotional, vulnerable, and courageous process into an easy, one-­size-­fits-­all formula. In fact, I think attempting to sell people an easy fix for pain is the worst kind of snake oil. Rising Strong doesn’t offer a solution or a recipe or step-­by-­step guidance. It presents a theory—­grounded in data—­that explains the basic social process that men and women experience as they are working to rise after falling. It is a map meant to orient you to the most significant patterns and themes that emerged from the research. In my interviews with others and my own experiences, I’ve seen the process take twenty minutes, and I’ve seen it take twenty years. I’ve seen people get stuck, set up camp, and stay in one place for a decade. While the process does seem to follow a few patterns, it presents no formula or strictly linear approach. It’s a back-­and-­forth action—­an iterative and intuitive process that takes different shapes for different people. There is not always a relationship between effort and outcome in this process. You can’t game it or perfect it so it’s fast and easy. You have to feel your way through most of it. The contribution I hope to make is to put language around the process, to bring into our awareness some of the issues that we may need to grapple with if we want to rise strong, and to simply let people know that they’re not alone.

9. Courage is contagious. Rising strong changes not just you, but also the people around you. To bear witness to the human potential for transformation through vulnerability, courage, and tenacity can be either a clarion call for more daring or a painful mirror for those of us stuck in the aftermath of the fall, unwilling or unable to own our stories. Your experience can profoundly affect the people around you whether you’re aware of it or not. Franciscan friar Richard Rohr writes, “You know after any truly initiating experience that you are part of a much bigger whole. Life is not about you henceforward, but you are about life.”

10. Rising strong is a spiritual practice. Getting back on our feet does not require religion, theology, or doctrine. However, without exception, the concept of spirituality emerged from the data as a critical component of resilience and overcoming struggle. I crafted this definition of spirituality based on the data I’ve collected over the past decade: Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to one another by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and belonging. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives. Some of us call that power greater than ourselves God. Some do not. Some people celebrate their spirituality in churches, synagogues, mosques, or other houses of worship, while others find divinity in solitude, through meditation, or in nature. For example, I come from a long line of folks who believe that fishing is church, and one of my closest friends believes that scuba diving is the holiest of experiences. As it turns out, our expressions of spirituality are as diverse as we are. When our intentions and actions are guided by spirituality—­our belief in our interconnectedness and love—­our everyday experiences can be spiritual practices. We can transform teaching, leading, and parenting into spiritual practices. Asking for and receiving help can also be spiritual practices. Storytelling and creating can be spiritual practices, because they cultivate awareness. While these activities can be spiritual practices, it appears that rising strong after falling must be a spiritual practice. Rising demands the foundational beliefs of connection and requires wrestling with perspective, meaning, and purpose. I recently came across this quote on Liz Gilbert's Instagram feed—and I think it sums this up perfectly: “Grace will take you places hustling can’t.”

Two

Civilization Stops at the Waterline

I once made a map of my heart, and smack-­dab in the center of that map I drew Lake Travis. Nestled in the gorgeous Texas Hill Country, right on the western edge of Austin, the lake is a sixty-­five-­mile-­long reservoir of the Colorado River. It is a place of rocky banks, breathtaking cliffs, and mesquite trees, all surrounding cold turquoise water.

I spent every summer of my childhood at Lake Travis. It’s where I learned how to fish for perch and largemouth bass, run a catfish trotline, whittle, build tree houses, and set a proper table. My great-­aunt Lorenia and her husband, Uncle Joe, had a house in Volente. Back then the area around the lake was rural, home to country folk with trucks and fishing poles who didn’t consider themselves residents of Austin—­they just lived “at the lake.” Today the same area is considered a suburb of Austin and studded with mansions and gated neighborhoods.

Aunt Bea lived next door to Aunt Lorenia, and Ma and Pa Baldwin lived in the next house down with their daughter and son-­in-­law, Edna Earl and Walter. Edna Earl and Aunt Lorenia were best friends until they died. I spent hours running barefoot from house to house, screen doors slamming behind me. I’d play cards with Aunt Bea, then run back to Aunt Lorenia’s to bake a pie. I would collect rocks and catch fireflies with Ma and Pa. Edna Earl loved to listen to my knock-­knock jokes.

Aunt Lorenia was the local Avon lady. Helping her pack up the goods and “work her route” was the highlight of my summers. From the time I was in fourth grade, we’d jump in the pickup, her on the driver’s side and me in the passenger seat with my Red Ryder BB gun, the bags of cosmetics, perfumes, and creams piled between us. I was in charge of the lipstick samples—­a shiny vinyl box filled with what seemed like hundreds of tiny white tubes of lipstick in every imaginable color and formulation.

We’d travel down long gravel roads, then park at a customer’s metal gate. Aunt Lorenia would get out first to open the gate and check for wild animals and rattlesnakes. Once she’d made her assessment, she’d yell back, “Bring the lipstick. Leave the gun.” Or “Bring the lipstick. Grab the gun.” I’d slide down out of the truck, lipstick and sometimes Red Ryder in hand, and we’d walk up to the house.

After long mornings of delivering Avon, we’d make sandwiches, pack them up, and grab a handful of worms from the worm farm Uncle Joe had made in a converted 1930s Westinghouse Coca-­Cola ice chest in their backyard. With our lunch and bait, we’d head down to the dock to fish and float in inner tubes on the lake. I was never happier anywhere in my life than I was floating around on Lake Travis. I can still close my eyes and remember what it felt like to drift along in my tube, feeling the warm sun on my skin as I watched dragonflies skip along the water and kicked away perch nibbling at my toes.

The Big Door Prize

Lake Travis was magic for me—­the kind of magic you want to share with your own kids. So, when Steve and I were planning our 2012 summer vacation, we decided to rent a house about half an hour from Aunt Lorenia and Uncle Joe’s. We were excited because it was the first time we had blocked out such a long stretch for a vacation—­we’d be gone for two whole weeks. Lawless one-­week vacations are fine, but our family functions better with a few limits in place. So we decided for this vacation that we’d monitor technology with the kids, keep reasonable bedtimes, cook and eat relatively healthy meals, and work out as often as possible. Our siblings and parents were coming to spend time with us over the course of the vacation, so we put everyone on notice about the “healthy vacation” plans. Flurries of emails detailing meal planning and grocery lists ensued.

The rental house was tucked away along a deepwater cove on the lake and had a long stretch of stairs leading down to an old dock with a corrugated tin roof. Steve and I committed to swimming across the cove every day of our vacation. It was about five hundred yards each way. The day before we left, I went out and bought a new Speedo and replaced my goggles. It had been a long time since Steve and I had swum together. Twenty-­five years, to be exact. We met when we both were lifeguarding and coaching swimming. While I still swim every week, it’s more of a “toning” endeavor for me. Steve, on the other hand, was a competitive swimmer in high school, played club water polo in college, and is still a serious swimmer. I gauge the differences in our current abilities this way: He still does flip turns. I touch and go these days.

Early one morning, before any of our tribe was up, Steve and I headed down to the dock. My sisters and their families were visiting, so we felt comfortable leaving the kids up at the house. We dove in and started our trek across the cove. About halfway across, we both stopped to perform the basic open-­water swimming check for boats. As we treaded water and looked for lake traffic, our eyes met. I was overwhelmed by gratitude for the surrounding beauty and the gift of finding myself swimming in my magic lake with the guy I met in the water some twenty-­five years ago. Feeling the intense vulnerability that always accompanies deep joy for me, I let my sentiments roam free, tenderly telling Steve, “I’m so glad we decided to do this together. It’s beautiful out here.” Steve is so much better at putting himself out there that I prepared myself for an equally gushing response. Instead he flashed a noncommittal half smile and replied, “Yeah. Water’s good.” Then he started swimming again.

We were only about fifteen feet apart. Didn’t he hear me? I thought. Maybe he just heard something other than what I said. Maybe my unexpected touchy-feely-ness took him off guard, and he was so overwhelmed with love that he was rendered speechless? Whatever the case, it was weird and I didn’t like it. My emotional reaction was embarrassment, with shame rising.

Most helpful customer reviews

262 of 281 people found the following review helpful.
I'm a Fan, But This Book Missed the Mark
By AmazonCustomer
I have loved Brene Brown's books but this one didn't resonate. Too many personal anecdotes and examples that didn't apply. I got tired of her "cussing" and while I appreciate that she's proud of being from Texas, a list of why she's a Texan didn't apply to this book. I felt it was something that would have worked better on her blog. Brown's other personal examples of people around her "making up" things, her hatred of some poor woman she had to room with at a conference, and her drawn out story about a vulnerable moment with her husband seemed like a stretch she used to try and illustrate a point. They fell short.

The same is true for the "from the research" stories she told. They were long, drawn out, and overly forced to fit into her point. This PAINS ME to say this, because I have loved just about everything else she's done or written. In fact, I'd probably give this two stars if it wasn't her. I appreciate this effort but it really seemed like she didn't have enough material to make this book a helpful, practical reference. If you're looking to really "rise strong" and start again I would recommend Daring Greatly instead.

300 of 320 people found the following review helpful.
A bold call to fall, get up, and try again
By dinglefest
This book definitely works as a standalone piece, but it's meant to build upon her prior works. As Brene shares in the first chapter, the progression of her works is that the first book, http://www.amazon.com/The-Gifts-Imperfection-Supposed-Embrace/dp/159285849X, has the message "Be you," while the next one, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592408419/, is a call to "Be all in." This book? "Fall. Get up. Try again."

This isn't another book telling you it's okay with fail. No, the assumption is that you have failed or will do so in the not too distant future. What will you do when it's time to get back up? In the author's words, "my goal for this book is to slow down the falling and rising processes: to bring into our awareness all the choices that unfurl in front of us during those moments of discomfort and hurt, and to explore the consequences of those choices." In this book, she uses stories and research, but unlike previous books, many of the stories in this one are her own personal ones. That makes it feel a little less like a book and a little more like an encouraging yet tough-love conversation with a trusted friend or mentor.

Truth and Dare: An Introduction
This part of the book got me a little nervous, if I'm honest. It was here I realized that this book was all about drilling down deep into the most difficult and uncomfortable moments in our lives, getting honest, and holding ourselves accountable to move forward in the after. I wasn't sure I wanted in on all of that. It seemed hard and dirty and messy and, well, uncomfortable. For starters, she dives into the idea that failure is painful, poignantly pointing out that our celebration of redemption often skips over the real hurts that needed redemption in the first place. We're guilty of "gold-plating grit," she writes, as we make failure seem fashionable without acknowledging the inherent desperation, shame, and dismay. Then enters my favorite Brenéism from this book: "the [awesome] deficit." What we need - and lack - is "a critical mass of [awesome people] who are willing to dare, fall, feel their way through tough emotion, and rise again" instead of just glossing over the pain or stuffing it down deep or taking it out on other people. (The bracketed word above isn't what she wrote, but Amazon's review guidelines won't publish a review with the real word. It's bad plus a synonym for donkey.)

Chapter 1: The Physics of Vulnerability
Here, vulnerability is presented as courage rather than weakness. Just as I remember the laws of physics from high school, Brené offers a new twist: if we are brave enough often enough, we will fall. That's what the physics of vulnerability is. Being brave and falling changes us for the better, while the individual path can be isolating and the need to ask for help challenging. As she writes about our being wired for story, I couldn't help but think of two powerful books (both from a Christian perspective, FYI, in case that's not your thing): Nish Weiseth's http://www.amazon.com/Speak-Your-Story-Change-World/dp/0310338174/ and Annie Down's http://www.amazon.com/Lets-All-Be-Brave-Everything/dp/031033795X. The most powerful point from this chapter, though, is that comparative suffering is detrimental: hurt is hurt, and love is needed in response without ration.

Chapter 2: Civilization Stops at the Waterline
The title of this chapter comes from a Hunter S. Thompson quotes. But the waterline is also a call to a powerful story Brené uses to open this chapters, about her husband and a morning swim and a vulnerable conversation for both of them. Then she lays out a story-telling paradigm - borrowed from Pixar - to apply to our lives in how we deal with the conflict parts in our real-life stories. This is where the meat of the book emerges. The rising strong process is (1) the reckoning, as we walk into our story, (2) the rumble, as we own our story, and (3) the revolution as we transform how we live as a result of our story. That's how we can rise strong from our failures.

The next several chapters build on that process...

Chapter 3: Owning Our Stories
This is where Brene challenges us as readers to accept or turn down the invitation to own our stories, rather than minimizing, compartmentalizing, hiding, or editing them. Owning our stories also means we're not defined by them or denying them. They are ours. Then to do so, the three steps begin...

Chapter 4: The Reckoning
As we reckon our stories, Brené pushes readers to feel and recognize our emotions and then get curious enough about them to dig a little deeper. Doing so, she writes, keeps us from offloading our hurts in a variety of unproductive ways: lashing out our hurts, bouncing our hurts away as if they don't matter, numbing our hurts through one or more methods, stockpiling our hurts by keeping everything inside, or getting stuck in our hurt. In this chapter, she also offers amazing strategies for reckoning with emotion, and I know I'll botch them if I even attempt to summarize them.

Chapter 5: The Rumble
In this chapter, we reexamine our stories, diving deeper to mine for truths, including errors in our own first retelling of the failure tale.

Chapter 6: Sewer Rats and Scofflaws
This chapter takes the rumble a bit further with discussions of boundaries, integrity, and generosity.

Chapter 7: The Brave and the Brokenhearted
This chapter as a whole is too meaty to succinctly summarize in this review beyond the subtitle: "rumbling with expectations, disappointment, resentment, heartbreak, connection, grief, forgiveness, compassion, and empathy." On a personal note, my heart jumped and then sank and then fluttered when I got to this chapter. For reasons not relevant to this review, I'm finding myself to be the brave and brokenhearted this week, and it's hard. I saw the title and my heart jumped as I thought, This is the one for me, my current faceplant situation. Then I read the subtitle and my heart sank as I thought, But Brené isn't going to make this easy, because it isn't easy and I'm sure there aren't shortcuts, plus she's been telling me to feel and I don't really want to right now. Finally, my heart fluttered, knowing this was part of my rumbling. I needed to drive forward to rise strong.

Chapter 8: Easy Mark
This chapter continues to expand on the concept of the rumble - which makes sense, because Brené states in chapter 2 that the second day/stage/point is the most important in the process. In her reckoning-rumbling-revolution paradigm, then, it makes sense to dissect rumbling the most. This chapter's subtitle also describes much of the content: "rumbling with need, connection, judgment, self-worth, privilege, and asking for help."

Chapter 9: Composting Failure
In this chapter, Brené dives deeper once more into the rumble, this time with the subtitle: "rumbling with fear, shame, perfectionism, accountability, trust, failure, and regret."

Chapter 10: You Got To Dance With Them That Brung You
Yep, another dive deep chapter on rumbling, this time "rumbling with shame, identity, and nostalgia." This one had a lot of gut punch for me, and Brené - at the risk of looking like a brat - shared a vulnerable story that helped me get vulnerable with myself in return in much needed ways.

Chapter 11: The Revolution
The revolution is what comes after the rumbling. It's the act of rising strong, but it can't be done before all the prior work. Revolution is the act of intentionally choosing authenticity and worthiness as an act of resistance in this world. With this the last chapter, Brené closes it out with a poem by Nayyirah Waheed, ending with "we are rising strong."

This book is a bold call to fall, get up, and try again. May we all rise strong.

101 of 111 people found the following review helpful.
Could be clearer
By Kyliegirl
Brown has some interesting ideas about getting back up after a face-plant, but the prose is so jargon-y it's difficult to figure out exactly what she's trying to say. The book attempts to lay out a 3-part "Rising Strong Practice," but there are so many sub-parts and meant-to-become-buzzworthy phrases that I found myself wondering what exactly she's pitching, other than ongoing curiosity about one's emotions.

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## Free Ebook Manatee Insanity: Inside the War over Florida's Most Famous Endangered Species, by Craig Pittman

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Why is the manatee just as imperiled today as it was 40 years ago?

"The best available, most factual account of the decades-long struggle to protect the Florida manatee, skillfully told by a veteran journalist who has followed the story closely. I’ve been involved in this controversy for over 30 years, and I learned countless things about it that I never knew!"--Daryl Domning, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

"The Florida legislature gave the manatee its own license plate, and Jimmy Buffet sang poetic lyrics about the iconic creature, but Craig Pittman offers a whole new perspective--the manatee as battleground. With a cast of characters including environmentalists and biologists, developers and boaters, lawyers and lobbyists, politicians and shady citizens, Manatee Insanity is a colorful work of non-fiction."--Keith Rizzardi, South Florida Water Management District

Loveable or loathed? Poster child for conservation efforts or impediment to development? Nuisance or in need of protection? For the past two decades, the quiet manatee has been a flash point of frequent environmental debates.

Included on the very first endangered species list issued in 1967, the docile creatures have stirred curiosity and passions for more than a hundred years. They are Florida's most famous endangered species, as well as its most controversial. Manatees appear on hundreds of license plates, attract hordes of tourists, and expose the uneasy relationships between science and the law and between freedom and responsibility like no other animal.

As passions have flared and resentments have grown, the battle over manatee protection has evolved into a war, and no reporter has followed the story more closely than Craig Pittman. He’s flown with scientists trying to count manatees from overhead. He’s been on the water with the leader of the biggest pro-boater group. He's observed biologists dissecting the animals and politicians discussing their fate.

Manatee Insanity provides the first in-depth history of the attempts to provide legal protection for the manatee. Along the way, Pittman takes a close look at the major and minor players in the dispute, from Jacques-Yves Cousteau to Jeb Bush, from Jimmy Buffett to O. J. Simpson, from a popular children's book author to a federal lawman who dressed in a gorilla suit for the ultimate undercover assignment.

A volume in the Florida History and Culture Series, edited by Raymond Arsenault and Gary R. Mormino

• Sales Rank: #1486248 in Books
• Brand: Brand: University Press of Florida
• Published on: 2010-05-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.30" h x 1.40" w x 6.40" l, 1.80 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Features

• Used Book in Good Condition

About the Author

Craig Pittman, native Floridian, is an award-winning journalist for the state's largest paper, the St. Petersburg Times. He is also the coauthor of Paving Paradise: Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss.

Most helpful customer reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
manatee insanity
By Lynda Green
"manatee insanity" by craig Pittman is a must read for anyone who loves manatees, or is interested in endangered species and the wars over them, or who wants to know the true stories behind one of the most controversial marine mammals on the planet. Pittman is an 'immaculate journalist' whose research is outstanding. He portrays how the gentle manatee has been used as a pawn for years. He writes about the politics and sentiments between the passionate environmentalists and the boating community and the developers. As he says:" as passions have flared and resentments have grown,the battle over manatee protection has evolved into a war." Never has there been a book which documents the full scope of what is happening in Florida to save and protect the manatee and the opposite, which could cause its demise. The book is written like a good juicy novel based on research and fact and one can only feel sorry for this gentle giant who wants to live peacefully in its own habitat instead of having to deal with boat hits and habitat destruction. five stars for this! lynda green

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Grassroots actions can work sometimes
By Deb
Pittman does a superb job describing the now decades-long war between all the special interest groups, scientists, and the government, over this wonderful docile creature who has no natural enemy except man. Manatees can offer no defense except to try and swim away from dangers and mothers cannot even protect their calves except to get between them and danger. They are total vegetarians but boats and development have ruined or destroyed many areas where the water grasses grow. The warm water they rely on from the natural springs is being pulled from the aquifer to water lawns and golf courses.(They cannot tolerate temperatures below 68 degrees and the springs are 72). He's dead-on with his insights on how money and politics have played major roles to trump development over science at the local, state, federal, and international levels. He does try to balance the equation by telling what the other sides have to say, however flawed I think their reasonings are. For me this book was almost a page-turner to see what arguments would be floated up next. Read this book; get your friends to read this book! The manatee is the "canary" in the mine. If we fail to save this animal and its habitat there is not a lot of hope left for anything at any time. Something is only "saved" as long as it has no perceived value (land, water, animals, etc.). Let someone figure out how to make a buck and they will use their money and influence to get the place or animal re-designated to their desires to make that buck. Oddly enough all the businesses mentioned in this book are mostly still in business no matter how loudly they squawked before that the restrictions to save manatees would run them into bankruptcy (if anything, the economy would have been responsible for that, not the manatee). Meanwhile, manatees are still dying by the hand of man.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Fantastic piece of Floridiana
By JTP
Though I haven't been to Florida in a decade, and have almost no interest in manatees, Craig Pittman's excellent and witty "Manatee Insanity" kept my attention the whole way through. An exemplary work of journalistic nonfiction. Highly recommended.

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