What Should I Do With My Life? The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question

Rating:
Summary: The Title is Very Misleading
Review: I bought this book thinking it would be something that would be helpful to learn more about myself, but instead it is just loaded with stories about other people. It was not helpful at all and was a waste of money. I think the author should change this title to Interesting Stories of People Who Changed Careers. Nice book if you just want to read about people in general, but not at all all helpful if you really want to work at discovering what you want for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre book for an important topic
Review: What Should I Do With My Life? focuses on the big question of how one should spend their life (specifically their job). The book consists of several stories of real people who have struggled with the question that the author has gone out and interviewed.

While the topic of the book certainly caught my eye, I wasn't extremely impressed by the stories of the people. Some were interesting, but none were really inspirational. The book also seemed to be missing an extremely important part of the whole premise, specifically why is this question so important?

The stories themselves are not terribly exciting. I also didn't understand why there was coarse language sprinkled throughout the book. Perhaps it was to keep the stories ad people "real" but I found that it added nothing to the underlying question and merely annoyed me.

In the end the book really doesn't offer any advice or guidelines to the reader about how to go about choosing their path. The author also inserts his own story in a few chapters but he doesn't offer any indication on the page that he is now talking about himself and not another person. I found this to be quite annoying.

Best bet... borrow it or pick it up if you are really having problems. Otherwise it's just going to be a waste of time for you. 3 out of 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: THE question
Review: Mr. Bronson sheds some light on a question that troubles many of us. Is there anyone who hasn't struggled with it? Is there anyone who can say that they've never doubted the path they took?
The book includes many stories about career choices and changes. The reader's task is to try to relate to the stories and come away with some sense of what might be needed in their own lives.
An interesting and unique book worthy of reading.
James Green, author of "If There's One Thing I've Learned."

Rating:
Summary: Real life Americans finding satisfaction and meaning in work
Review: Not a self-help book, despite the title, this book is a compilation of stories of real life Americans finding satisfaction and meaning in work, with varying degrees of success.

Rating:
Summary: The Mini-Biographies of Everyday People
Review: I think I am probably just as guilty as a lot of other people to have been in the bookshop, seen this book lying on the table, and thinking,"oh I better look at this, it might help me figure somethings out". I started to read it right there in the store and got through the first 5 stories when I realized this book was NOT a self-help book. And honestly I was sorta relieved.

I will repeat this again, THIS IS NOT A SELF-HELP BOOK. I don't think it was intended to be. I think that it was a big book of people, who like us, had serious challenges in their life to face and decided to go through or give up on them. I am more fascinated by the "people" in Po Bronson's book and found myself comparing my life to theirs, apples and oranges really. But then I realized that their problems aren't any different to mine nor were their challenges.

How many times have you met a person who really struggled and made it to the top, and came out fine? How many times have you found out information about someone and thought, "Wow look at what their doing! I wish I had the courage, know-how, resources, strength, etc., to do that!" Well like Po Bronson, (I'm sure we all have met at least one), he just put it in text.

I loved the book. My background is one of struggle and I love reading books about people who have succeeded no matter or not but gave it their best at it anyway.

Some of the reviewers here call this "new-agey" and a "waste of money", but I also think that sometimes people have high expectations of what a book is going to be about directly from its title. But they also don't give a book a chance to be what it is intended to be, a book. I titled this review, "The Mini-Biographies of Everyday People", and I think its fitting because that's exactly what it is - NOT a Self-Help book like some may have expected it to be.

Rating:
Summary: A year after reading it still comes to mind
Review: Reading the reviews of this book was fascinating. ome people seem to like the book but some were obviously angered by it. My guess is it breaks down like this. If you see the world as black and white, you're lucky, but don't read this book. There are no guidelines or formulas. If your vision of the world is more orientated towards grays this book is super. The patterns that emerge from these seemingly unrelated stories are consistent with what I observed since reading the book. Even watching the Wizard Of Oz reminded me of the stories where an unhappy person moved back home (to the country, etc.) and was unhappy there too. Thanks to the author for an insightful study.

Rating:
Summary: Better to look elsewhere
Review: Po Bronson offers really no insight, and the writing drags and exhausts. I recommend readers to Working by Studs Terkel.

Rating:
Summary: Nice title, but not so good content
Review: I began reading the book with a lot of spectation, but after the 4th or 5th chapter I was bored. It's about life of people that decided to change their lifes but it's just too superficial.
I left the book, and just when I don't have anything else to read I open it again and read one more life.
I hope there are better books to help us decide a change of life style.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and enlightening
Review: In general, I found this book a real upper. For us perfectionists who feel that "I should have figured this out by now," it's encouraging to learn that thousands of other people grapple with the same question, many of them with only partial success. But, at the same time, I was awed by the creativity, drive, and passion that many of these people applied to their search. This isn't a "how to" book or a collection of "happily ever after" fairy tales; it's real people trying to make sense of their lives, and, as in real life, success is not guaranteed.

I agree with other readers that the book has flaws: Bronson sometimes falls into the "counselor" role that he supposedly tried to avoid, and his subjects tend to represent the same demographic. But this isn't an objective, scientific study, and he makes no claims that it is. I liked the "thematic" organization of the book; it was interesting to see how people in very different circumstances addressed the same issue. And I felt that the book's lack of a "self-help" focus was one of its strengths: neither the author nor his subjects feel that they know all the answers, so trying to prescribe a method for addressing the question would be fundamentally dishonest.

Rating:
Summary: Views of others on the journey... but no promises of answers
Review: This book is fabulous. It's only the second that I've had the attention span to read continually on plane flights (the other being The Alchemist).

If you're trying to figure out where you're going career-wise, and just in the world in general, this book could be helpful to you. It consists of stories of different people who have made their missteps, found their true callings, are still looking, etc. The author's voice is great through this. He tries not to influence the person's telling of their story, but yet knows that he inevitably does. That actually makes the book stronger.

You may recognize pieces of yourself throughout the book - I know I have. If you're unsatisfied with one-size-fits-all career advice workbook kind of things that have little acknowledgement of your life outside of work, and would like to hear stories but not promises of a quick fix for anyone's situation, get this book.