Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Rating:
Summary: Inspiring Metaphor
Review: This is a great book which I've read many times.

It's a great metaphor for the "live your life the best way you know how to and be true to yourself" philosophy.

PS. I'm not religious and I'm not a fan of Seagulls ;-)

Rating:
Summary: Eh. Not Bad. Not Great, But Not Bad.
Review: A friend loaned me this book once when I was going through a very rough time in my life. Somehow, the book made me feel worse, so you may wish to hold off giving a copy to someone diagnosed with depression. Other than that, the book was very easy to read and straightforward. The philosophy of the book wasn't terribly deep. If you're looking for serious philosophy, look elsewhere. If you want an easy feel-good read, then by all means, read this book

Rating:
Summary: 6 stars if I could...
Review: I left home to join the Navy when I was 21 and this was the only thing I took with me that I still own. I was told I could only keep a bible with me in bootcamp and I told them that it was my bible ...they let me keep it. I designed my bootcamp company flag and it had a seagull on it. The book travelled with me around the world to my first ship in the Indian Ocean and then back to the US. I've had it ever since.

There is magic in these pages. You can read this book at different points in your life and you will focus on different things ...often things that you never noticed before. I've probably read this book 30 or 40 times now ...generally about once a year. It gives me strength ...and compassion ...and reminds me how rewarding it is to attempt the immpossible once in a while.

My life would not have been as rich or as rewarding without the gentle nudge this book gave me to reach out and try to touch perfection in my own way. Thanks so much for this gift Richard.

Final Note: Regarding the great concern regarding "New Age" ideas ...I can't say exactly how Richard intended this story, but I read it as an allegory. I never assumed the author thought gulls could instantaneously travel through time and space, just as I never thought 3 pigs could build houses. To me, the charactors in this book simply provide a mechanism to show an approach to life that can include excellence, beauty, perserverence, acceptance, etc.

Rating:
Summary: Gives you flight..
Review: This little book was the first book i purchased on my own several years ago at a mundane second hand book fair in southern india. i was a struggling college student with no money, an oppressive family situation and struggling with chronic health issues, to top it. this book gave me hope, in a strange way, let me think of myself as different and yet positive and capable of my own flight. i did not meet a lot of people who liked it or even understood it, most people dismissed it as psycho babble or were too dry to appreciate the humor and spirit. i kept the book with me and read it through life's ups and downs - 20 years later am in the usa, comfortable financially with positive relationships and good health to boot. This book gave me flight, and i have given away as many copies as i can to friends and people i love. And in many ways i owe my own life to it.

Rating:
Summary: Jonathon Livingston Seagull
Review: The book Jonathon Livingston Seagull is an excellent book. Hands down. This book gives you wings not only to fly with but to free your own mind from the illusions of everyday life. The book focuses on Jonathon Livingston Seagull (big surprise) and his desire to learn to fly. Of course, this is strictly tabooed by the Flock, or other birds. His desire to fly and to learn to fly are symbolic of the love of learning. Flying isn't just another natural instinct but rather an art. Such an art also is language and this book is a Mona Lisa then.

Rating:
Summary: Richard Bach Pretends He's A New Age Seagull
Review: This book was a worthy attempt. It seems like a good idea to equate our universal human aspirations for greatness and uniqueness, with the whimsical trials and tribulations of a friendly, iconoclastic, renegade coastal pigeon. Through the inspiration of his example, (Jonathan, in case you're not with me just yet) we might too one day soar high above the flock, dare to glide outside societal norms and boundaries, challenge blind authority, stand strong in the face of the disapproval of one's peers, and ultimately like Jonathan, transmogrify ourselves into mega-achieving phenoms, who are not too busy with our daredevilry to spend a great deal of quality time doubling as inspirational coaches and gurus for a whole new generation of freshly-hatched oceanic avians... *whew* hold on, let me catch my breath for a second. I haven't waxed that sententious since reviewing "Harold, The Friendly Buddhist Beaver" late last year. There, that's better. Anyhoo, for me, in the course of reading this book, which incidentally took me approximately 39 minutes, I always felt like it was Richard Bach speaking to me, pretending he was Jonathan. And hey, I felt gypped! If I'm going to read the memoirs of a seagull, then by golly, I want to hear from the bird himself, not some human who wishes he were some sort of wing-ed beak-ed creature. Meanwhile, as I honestly wanted to like this book and come to care for the flying feather bundles therein, I felt there was not sufficient character development to learn to feel anything much for any of them. I did however learn to feel that Richard Bach is several light years away from being a substantial writer, although I'm sure he's a perfectly nice man when he's not comandeering some innocent typewriter, and using it to churn out more of this sort of cotton candy philosophy of his. In closing, I would like to address the subject of the book's photography. I was absolutely baffled by its mundaneness. I'm sure most of us agree that seagulls are very beautiful birds. Their antics are charming and they possess a great sense of grace, bravery, strength and even humor in their countenance. (I live by the ocean, trust me on this.) The photography in this book is decidedly "artsy" with many photos in black and white, and intentionally out-of-focus, blurry, and non-distinct. In my opinion, the text would have been far better served by photography which captured more of the natural beauty of this bird, both in flight and at rest. Signed, Barry Ballpoint, the Internet's zestiest reviewer.

Rating:
Summary: janathan livingston
Review: one of the seagull says : are you sure that i can fly ?
janathan says :i will tell you that you are free .
this story is about a seagull that dont want to follow the life like the other do that , not like the routine days . he can see the life so wide and he doesnt fly due to find a food and keep hisself alive . he flys cause he loves it . he learns a lots of things through the life and learn new things . but the other think that they come to this world just to eat and sleep and fly without any motivation . at the end he goes somewhere that is more perfect than we lives now .

mitra