Contentment: A Way to True Happiness

Rating:
Summary: A powerful examination of the core of human experience
Review: Much of this book contains distilled insights from the far superior _Balancing Heaven and Earth_, published last year by the same authors. That is its strength and its weakness: the insights from that book deserve further discussion shorn of biographical references, but extracted from that other book without elaboration, the insights seem anemic. The authors try to add something new by introducing a running exegesis of _King Lear_, but the result is that the book does not cohere. Insights that deserve a more thoroughgoing treatment, like the need to embrace paradox, receive short shrift. This is an odd book, with something important things to say, which have not been said entirely well.

Rating:
Summary: Too much Lear/doth not cohere.
Review: Much of this book contains distilled insights from the far superior _Balancing Heaven and Earth_, published last year by the same authors. That is its strength and its weakness: the insights from that book deserve further discussion shorn of biographical references, but extracted from that other book without elaboration, the insights seem anemic. The authors try to add something new by introducing a running exegesis of _King Lear_, but the result is that the book does not cohere. Insights that deserve a more thoroughgoing treatment, like the need to embrace paradox, receive short shrift. This is an odd book, with something important things to say, which have not been said entirely well.

Rating:
Summary: A powerful examination of the core of human experience
Review: This is a powerful book, full of concise wisdom. Rather than telling you how to interpret an idea--too many books tell you what to think--this thin volume, echoing Shakespeare's King Lear, allows you to integrate the wisdom deeply into your consciousness. What I have always marveled about Johnson's books is their ability to suggest ideas without talking down to you, evoke wisdom without hitting you over the head. Johnson lets you find your own answers to the big questions. This book points me closer to God. What more could you expect from a mere book? (Another bonus: it's inspired me to read Lear again, this time from a new perspective.)