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Gift from the Sea [Paperback]

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (168 customer reviews)

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Book Description

January 30, 1991
In this inimitable, beloved classic—graceful, lucid and lyrical—Anne Morrow Lindbergh shares her meditations on youth and age; love and marriage; peace, solitude and contentment as she set them down during a brief vacation by the sea. Drawing inspiration from the shells on the shore, Lindbergh’s musings on the shape of a woman’s life bring new understanding to both men and women at any stage of life. A mother of five, an acclaimed writer and a pioneering aviator, Lindbergh casts an unsentimental eye on the trappings of modernity that threaten to overwhelm us: the time-saving gadgets that complicate rather than simplify, the multiple commitments that take us from our families. And by recording her thoughts during a brief escape from everyday demands, she helps readers find a space for contemplation and creativity within their own lives.

With great wisdom and insight Lindbergh describes the shifting shapes of relationships and marriage, presenting a vision of life as it is lived in an enduring and evolving partnership. A groundbreaking, best-selling work when it was originally published in 1955, Gift from the Sea continues to be discovered by new generations of readers. With a new introduction by Lindbergh’s daughter Reeve, this fiftieth-anniversary edition will give those who are revisiting the book and those who are coming upon it for the first time fresh insight into the life of this remarkable woman.

The sea and the beach are elements that have been woven throughout Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s life. She spent her childhood summers with her family on a Maine island. After her marriage to Charles Lindbergh in 1929, she accompanied him on his survey flights around the North Atlantic to launch the first transoceanic airlines. The Lindberghs eventually established a permanent home on the Connecticut coast, where they lived quietly, wrote books and raised their family.

After the children left home for lives of their own, the Lindberghs traveled extensively to Africa and the Pacific for environmental research. For several years they lived on the island of Maui in Hawaii, where Charles Lindbergh died in 1974.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh spent her final years in her Connecticut home, continuing her writing projects and enjoying visits from her children and grand-children. She died on February 7, 2001, at the age of ninety-four.

Reeve Lindbergh is the author of many books for both adults and children, including the memoirs Under a Wing and No More Words.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

I found a 1955 printing of this book in an old waterfront cabin and was struck by the care with which the previous owner had read it. Eve (the name inscribed inside the front cover and then again above the heading for chapter 3) made pencil marks on nearly every paragraph of the book, underlining a phrase, highlighting many passages with strong vertical marks, scratching out some words that she seems to have found superfluous and even x-ing out whole sections that apparently missed their mark with her altogether. Two rusting paper clips isolate several pages, absent any marking at all. Anne Morrow Lindbergh's lyrical words are still relevant and presage so many of the themes of today's most popular books: simplicity, peaceful solitude, caring for the soul, a woman finding her place in society and life. I heard that the woman who had lived in the cabin had actually passed away some time before. Thank you, Eve, for your gift... from the sea.

From the Inside Flap

modern-day classic. "Gift from the Sea is like a shell itself in its small and perfect form . . . It tells of light and life and love and the security that lies at the heart."--New York Times Book Review.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 144 pages
  • Publisher: Pantheon (January 30, 1991)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0679732411
  • ISBN-13: 978-0679732419
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (168 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,859 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
300 of 305 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
After watching _The Spirit of St. Louis_ one afternoon, my boyfriend (who is also a pilot) told me that Anne Morrow Lindbergh had written a book, which, as he was told, "every woman should read." The next time I went to his house, _Gift from the Sea_ was waiting for me.

What amazed me about this book was its timeliness, or should I say, timelessness. That a middle-aged Caucasian woman, writing during the 50's, could strike such a deeply-felt chord of sisterhood with me, a 30-something African-American woman living at the brink of a new millennium, is truly the mark of a gifted writer. We "enlightened, liberated" women of the year 2000 think, with a fair amount of condescension, that we have "progressed" so much from that time period. And yet, the issues Mrs. Lindbergh addressed are still very much with us today: how does a woman fulfill the roles of citizen, artist, wife/partner, mother, career person, friend, sibling/relative, and balance all of that with the time and self-commitment for spiritual/emotional nurturing?

I have a quote from this precious gift posted on the wall at my workstation; it is a state of being I seek as a humble pilgrim on life's journey:

"...I want first of all...to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact - to borrow from the language of the saints - to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible...By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony...I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God..."

This is a must read for women everywhere!

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98 of 98 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Not a book to race through! To be read slowly, alone, savored, re-read, meditated and mused on, with contentment. And if you can't find contentment, it will find you -- in Anne's words -- her gift from the sea.


Anne Morrow Lindbergh's thoughts are woven around her impressions gathered from her ocean-side stay away from society and civilization -- from people and things -- from noise and confusion -- from musts and don'ts.


What Anne discovers in her solitude at the beach, she offers to you the reader by way of her journal. The tiny shells she held and studied provide lessons to her and all of us.


Anne's musings about life, relationships, love, busy-ness, aging, simplicity and solitude came to me several years ago at a time I was re-assessing many things in my life. Like a grace, her words soothed me and helped me quiet my turbulent thoughts, and to gather my inmost spirit to bind the wounds, to fill myself with the good already all around me and to go forward.


I realized I could slow down my pace, choose my own path, ask for and expect some peace and quiet and harmony, because these gifts are there for all of us to enhance our lives.


Although written from a woman's perspective, Anne's gift from the sea is for all of us who hunger for the slower pace, the garden path, the sanctity in God's every creation down to the intricate sea shell in Anne's hand as she coddles it, examines its artistic swirls and ridges and colors, and listens to the lessons -- the homilies -- within its delicate curves.


A keeper of a book. You'll go back to this one, like to a favorite vacation hideaway or armchair by the fireside or corner in the garden under the stars. It'll be an old friend, a comfort and blessing.


Take a deep breath......Can you just smell the salty tang of those soft breezes off the ocean

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125 of 127 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This title was a recent selection for a book discussion group that I helped organize for my library. As the only male in the group, I felt somewhat compelled to offer token protest to the selection of this classic example of a "woman's book," but actually I was intrigued by it. Everything I had read about "Gift From the Sea" praised its meditative quality and I had to admit that the promise of that rather appealed to me.

I wound up reading the bulk of the book on Mothers' Day, which seemed quite appropriate, given that among the many issues Lindbergh addresses here is the need for mothers to find a balance between their own needs and those of their children and husbands. The need for time to one's self, a "room of one's own", the need for a spriritual dimension to one's existence--well, it seems so obvious that these needs have to be met if a woman--if any human being--is to be fulfilled and to be able to meet her (or his) responsibilities with joy rather than with dread. But the lessons that Anne Morrow Lindbergh taught in 1955 still need to be voiced in 2000--perhaps more than ever. Lindbergh seems prescient when she speaks of the dangers of the "life of multiplicity" which had already taken root in the immediate post-War era. We know all too well that it has not gotten any better in the past 50 years and that women's lives in particular have become more stressful and, to use Lindbergh's word, "fragmented" in the past half-century.

What distinguishes Lindbergh's book from today's current crop of self-help or New Age sprititual books though is its lyrical quality. Her careful, belletristic prose is soothing and, yes, meditative in and of itself. Reading it seems to bring about the very centeredness and balance that she seeks to describe.

Although she includes no bibliography (and rightly so, as this is not a tract), I would hope that many of her readers would be inspired to seek out the works of some of the writers she quotes in the context of these essays. She does the world a great service in suggesting how Rilke, for example, whose poetry may seem impenetrable at first, can actually speak to the concerns of our own lives.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Gift from the sea.
I'm looking forward in reading the book, Gift from the Sea. I was very impressed by the quality, price and how quickly I received it.

Thank You,
Laurel
Published 18 days ago by LALA
A Must Read
I read this book over 25 years ago, and it was four times as rich and deep after 25 years of lived experience. I will reread every year now. Both inspirational and insightful.
Published 1 month ago by J. McGuigan
Lindbergh shares her observations about youth and age; love and...
Heard GIFT FROM THE SEA (Random House Audio) by Anne Morrow Lindbergh and read by Claudette Colbert. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Blaine Greenfield
Gift of the Sea
It is a great book gives you a time to think and refelct and think about where you are in your life. Thank you Flo
Published 1 month ago by fontana1
Not a Guy Book
I read this book with a lady buddy of mine as part of our telephonic book club. The book has some wonderful insights about life in general, although I did not agree with all the... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Buster
Inspirational...Peaceful...Serene
I am an author myself. Recently, a woman who had purchased two of my books mentioned to me that my style of writing reminded her of this little gem of a book titled Gift from the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Dolores Ayotte
A classic for good reason
I read this book every January and imagine myself sitting in the sand with the sun on my face. The words the author wrote long ago still speak to busy women today. Read more
Published 4 months ago by F. Roberts
One of my favorites
What a beautiful book! Anne Morrow Lindbergh has truly captured the essence of simplicity. As our lives grow increasingly more busy every day, this book is truly a gem that reminds... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Hey Hey Paula
A bold, impractical, yet engaging meditation on motherhood and...
I'm afraid I'm going to get into trouble for writing this review because I believe I may be critical of one of the darlings of American Literature, especially a woman who was such... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Yelda Basar Moers
Loved the book
When I received the book, I was a little dissapointed. It is really small. However, when I started reading, it was great. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Loves books
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