A Short Guide to a Happy Life

Anna Quindlen

(c) 2002
Random House

Just as the title implies, this is a short guide to a happy life, full of the standard encouragement for all of us to reach our dreams. What really touched me is her humility, she admits that she is no self-help guru, nor can offer any practical advice, just what she has experienced and what she can pass along, and a few of those things include being a good wife, following Biblical principals, and simply realizing that life is short, so make it happy.

This is a short text, more of an essay than a book, with several tender b/w photographs to help you along your way, basically making this a book that you buy for others as a gift but never truly read it yourself. Personally, I think the $12.95 (USD) pricetag is a bit much for a book of this size, but if I may quote the most important passage, (which comes near the end):

"I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island many years ago. It was December, and I was doing a story about how the homeless suffer in the winter months. He and I sat on the edge of the wooden supports, danlging our feet over the side, and he told me about his schedule, pandhandling the boulevard whent he summer crowds were gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature went below freezing, hiding from the police amid the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Cyclone . . .

"But he told me that most of the time he stayed on the boardwalk, facing the water, just the way we were sitting now, even when it got cold and he had to wear his newspapers after he read them. And I asked him why. Why didn't he go to one of the shelters? . . .

"And he looked out at the ocean and said, 'Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view.'"


Best advice in the book, that was. Look at the view.

VG

The Museum at Purgatory

Nick Bantock

Byzantium Books/HarperCollins
(c) 1999


Nick Bantock is a style all unto himself, one of those creators of books that go beyond books. If Joseph Cornell had been a writer, he possibly would have been Nick Bantock. And if you don't know either of these two names, then now you have two creators to investigate and thus enrich your lives.

The Museum at Purgatory is just that, with the chapters broken up into the specific "rooms" dedicated to the collections of souls that have been in Purgatory for varying lengths of time. The curator, a non-omniscient narrator, guides the reader through the rooms, and with the text and photographs of the collections brings to us stories of the lives of the souls. Some of them are archetypes, some are amalgamations, some bring new twists on old knowledge, breath new life into familiar stories.

It's a fascinating read, and I strongly recommend that if you have never read Nick Bantock then you might start with this one before you read his wonderful Griffin and Sabine series. It's sad, I know,because one truly should read each work on its own merit (that's what I keep espousing, but can't truly put into practise) but since Bantock is so distinctive, one can't help but compare his works together. That said, Griffin and Sabine truly is the apex of his creative ability, such a beautifully told and presented love story that spans the entire world through letters and clues, that everything else he does pales in comparison. But, that said, even a Bantock that can't stand up to Griffin and Sabine is still a wonderful read in its own "write."