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Best Books of the Year So Far
Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for 2015's Best Books of the Year So Far in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, children's books, and much more.
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Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.
I followed Viktor Frankl diligently in his journey from the gas ovens of Auschwitz into the hospitals of Vienna after he beats the 1 in 20 odds of his surviving a German concentration camp. He writes that the single most important self-determinant in his survival was his deep inherent conviction under the worst of all possible conditions that life has meaning: even here under constant risk of typhus, wearing the recycled prison garb of those who had been sacrificed to the ovens, starving, freezing, beaten, demonized and dehumanized. If one can still find meaning here and survive because of it, then under better conditions meaning should be possible to find. Frankl believes that there are three sources of meaning: 1) one's work 2) other people whom you love 3) rising with dignity and integrity from a hopelessly tragic diminishment. He found that in the camps the survivors had a positive attitude, which reinforced their search for meaning and gave them hope in a hopeless situation. In Vienna hospitals he debunked theories of Freud and Adler with "logotherapy" which helps others to find the meaning in their lives and heal from thoughts of suicide, psychoses and neurotic behavior. "Logos" is Greek for "meaning" and if you can find it in your own life, then essentially it seems you are as invincible as Frankl, who not only survived Auschwitz but also lived into his 90's, is the living proof of his own thesis. Ultimately, when asked what was the meaning of his life, he wrote that the meaning of his life was to help other people find the meaning in their lives. He is an existentialist but he has a positive outlook on life unlike, for example, Camus or Sartre or the usual champions of this dark philosophy, which sprang out of the widespread, bombed-out wreckage of WWII.Read more ›
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This little one hundred page book is perhaps the most meaningful and profound that you can ever read. Disturbing, yet full of "tragic optimism," this book will change the way you think about life, happiness, and meaning. Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love."
"...every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether on to you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing and freedom and dignity..."
"The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity - even under the most difficult circumstances - to add a deeper meaning to his life."
"....And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not."
"All that oppressed me at that moment became objective, seen and described from the remote viewpoint of science. By this method I succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and I observed them as if they were already of the past."
"He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.Read more ›
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Viktor Frankl, an Austrian Jew, studied neurology and psychiatry with a focus on depression and suicide years before being arrested and deported by the Nazis in 1942. He defied odds by lasting three years in concentration camps. He lost his parents, brother, and his wife, who was pregnant. As doctors were in short supply in the camps, Frankl, after working as a slave laborer for some time, was able to work as a physician until his liberation.
As his work prior to his time in the concentration camps had focused on depression and the prevention of suicide, he turned his focus to his own survival story and the people with whom he interacted in the camps. Why did some survive and others perish? What gave people the will to live? What gives life meaning?
Some favorite moments:
•Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. •Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person) and in courage during difficult times. Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it. •Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, you freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you. •The truth- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and believe have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.Read more ›
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