Rating: 
Summary: BAM - that's how I feel!
Review: A must for those in the depths of life's hell. I began what I believe to be my mid-life crisis a few months ago. A dear friend gave me his copy of this book and it now travels with me everywhere. I have referred back to my highlights on several occasions. And, the best thing is becoming aware that our experiences are a part of a much larger journey. There are pieces within the text that I had to reread several times, but the overall message was clear and I never felt overwhelmed by the effort to find the meaning or relation of a certain passage. Hollis is on my A list of respected authors - I even had him recommend my current therapist.
Rating:
Summary: BAM - that's how I feel!
Review: A must for those in the depths of life's hell. I began what I believe to be my mid-life crisis a few months ago. A dear friend gave me his copy of this book and it now travels with me everywhere. I have referred back to my highlights on several occasions. And, the best thing is becoming aware that our experiences are a part of a much larger journey. There are pieces within the text that I had to reread several times, but the overall message was clear and I never felt overwhelmed by the effort to find the meaning or relation of a certain passage. Hollis is on my A list of respected authors - I even had him recommend my current therapist.
Rating:
Summary: Taking the Mystery Out of Mid-Life Misery
Review: After a lifetime of steadfastly holding onto increasingly ineffective ways of dealing with life and its disappointments (large and small), I finally cracked and landed smack in the middle of a mid-life crisis. Divorce, depression, anxiety, and a total loss of comprehension about life's purpose were the wreckage of a lifetime of disowning my authentic self in order to meet the high expectations of others and of our culture in general. As I began to read "The Middle Passage," it was as though a curtain had been opened to reveal a new possibility and the normalcy of the process of mid-life introspection, pain, discovery, and rejuvenation. It's a "let's grow up" book, and through its compassionate prose and honest voice it invites one to risk a journey that, otherwise, one might never choose to take.
Rating:
Summary: Taking the Mystery Out of Mid-Life Misery
Review: After a lifetime of steadfastly holding onto increasingly ineffective ways of dealing with life and its disappointments (large and small), I finally cracked and landed smack in the middle of a mid-life crisis. Divorce, depression, anxiety, and a total loss of comprehension about life's purpose were the wreckage of a lifetime of disowning my authentic self in order to meet the high expectations of others and of our culture in general. As I began to read "The Middle Passage," it was as though a curtain had been opened to reveal a new possibility and the normalcy of the process of mid-life introspection, pain, discovery, and rejuvenation. It's a "let's grow up" book, and through its compassionate prose and honest voice it invites one to risk a journey that, otherwise, one might never choose to take.
Rating:
Summary: Superb book on "midlife crisis"
Review: Don't buy this book when you are in your 20's or early 30's. But at some point--it varies with the individual--we're ready to look more closely, to see what's behind the curtain. (That's a reference to the Wizard of Oz. If you haven't seen that, you're way too young to read this book.)In our early life, we try do do what's right. We follow the rules. Our parents rules, society's rules, our friends' expectations--we're not too sure whose rules sometimes. The result is that we are living someone else's idea of a life. We can do this for a long time. But at some point, we realize that our life doesn't fit us. Why should it? It's not our life! Panic seems like a reasonable thing to do at that point. So does depression. James Hollis points out the processes behind our midlife. Opens up the big questions. Points out how midlife is our best opportunity to reorient--to start living our own life. There are very few people on the planet I would call wise. James Hollis is one of them. This book is amazing. Buy it... when it's time.
Rating:
Summary: From theory into Practice
Review: I cherished this book five years ago for its information and insight. Today, after having experienced personally what its content alludes to, I cherish it even more (felt experience is not the best Teacher; it is the only Teacher). To wax metaphorical for a moment, I not only read this book; I ate it and digested it and have become healthier for so doing :)
Rating:
Summary: A must read for anyone feeling "lost"in midlife
Review: I could not recommend this book more highly! It is an absolute "must read" for anyone searching for meaning during the mid-life years. Although the book is small in size, it manages to capture the essence of our struggle for purpose and a sense of congruity. I recommend it to everyone I meet that wants to enrich their life. I am personally grateful to Mr. Hollis for making this wonderful resource available to all of us!
Rating:
Summary: A must read for anyone feeling "lost"in midlife
Review: I could not recommend this book more highly! It is an absolute "must read" for anyone searching for meaning during the mid-life years. Although the book is small in size, it manages to capture the essence of our struggle for purpose and a sense of congruity. I recommend it to everyone I meet that wants to enrich their life. I am personally grateful to Mr. Hollis for making this wonderful resource available to all of us!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I had read several books on the midlife crisis/middle passage before I got this one, and after reading it, I realized that this book was the only one I ever needed to read. This book says much more about the middle passage than all the other ones I've read, and it does it more eloquently and in far fewer words. If I had read this book a few years ago, the last few years of my life would've made a lot more sense and probably been much easier to go through. Every person, especially every man, should read this book as soon as they turn 30.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but a bit theroretical
Review: I have dozens of books that I recommend to clients, and a few that I suggest to friends. There's only one I have given as a gift a half-dozen to a dozen times. This is it. Hollis is an insightful therapist with a hopeful AND realistic perspective on mid-life and the difficulties that can beset us as we realize that "this is it", that we're not preparing for adulthood anymore, that we are there and better make something of it. He is also a gifted writer who can take Jungian theory and bring it down to earth, explaining it clearly without oversimplifying. (I'm more of a hard-nosed research-based cognitive-behavioural type myself, and I still think the book is brilliant.) Best of all, he is a judicious self-editor. Too many self-help books have one idea that gets padded out to 300 pages. (In the process of writing one of my own, I came across dozens of bad examples.) Hollis is concise and clear. The text of the book is 117 pages, worth twice as much for being half as thick as he could have made it. My suggestion: Buy it, read it, apply it, and then go buy copies for your mid-life friends' birthdays. On a selfish note, it's great not to be stuck for 40th birthday present ideas any more.
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