Amazon.com Review
Toinette Lippe, a prestigious book publisher and founder of Bell Tower publishing house, shares her life wisdom in
Nothing Left Over. Her memoir speaks to living with full-tilt generosity and joy while not clinging to material clutter, resentments, and unfulfilled passions. "In truth, it is not the number of and diversity of our possessions that is the problem but our attachment to them.... The freedom we are all seeking is the freedom from the fear of losing what we believe we own." We've heard these sentiments before, but somehow coming from Lippe, who has her share of foibles, the words feel palatable and the wisdom feels earned. Like the gentle, intelligent voice in
Gift from the Sea, Lippe contemplates the stories of her life as she passes on humble advice and observations. Whether she is writing of her existential crisis at 17 years old, her arrival in New York City as a 25-year-old virgin, the amazing conception of her son, or insider stories at Random House, Lippe offers a spiritual framework. In other words, she is an excellent storyteller--able to make meaning from her life so that readers can glean the rewards of her thorough contemplation.
--Gail Hudson
From Publishers Weekly
Originally from London, Lippe came to New York in 1964 to work in publishing for a year. She ended up staying for 40 years, and after a brief marriage (her husband turned out to be gay), managed to live in Manhattan and put her son through private school. Now semiretired (she still works at home, editing books for Bell Tower, the Harmony imprint she started in 1989), she offers her ruminations on "how to live so that supply does not exceed demand or consumption." Although she provides sound advice for living without the unnecessary and suggestions for traveling light, spring cleaning, and shopping and eating mindfully, Lippe's real focus is "not so much about what needs to take place at the physical level... as about what goes on in the mind." A one-time philosophy student and a devoted meditator and yoga practitioner, she calls on Buddhism and other Eastern religions, Judaism and the Bible to teach lessons in nonattachment to ownership or expectations, trust in the universe, present-moment living, openness and acceptance of what is. She also shares thought-provoking personal anecdotes about procrastination, honesty with self and others, single-minded focus and balance. That she lives alone clearly affects her ability to maintain space in her apartment, her mind and her life, and this creates the book's single flaw: many will find that the presence of family members in their homes and lives complicates things considerably. Nonetheless, Lippe offers readers (primarily women) an unusually authentic perspective. Professing "I don't like agony," her voice is refreshingly unsentimental for this genre, self-aware and down-to-earth.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
