Customer Reviews

Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When "Running From Saftey" first came out I couldn't read it. I remember thinking that the book just didn't speak to me at all, and I gave up after less than 100 pages. Was I ever wrong!! Recently, I remembered the book and decided to give it another try. I am 39 this year -- youth, aging, who I was, who I will be are very heavy in my "approaching 40" mind. The wisdom, insight, and ideas I gained from this book amazed me. It is nothing short of remarkable. Read it, savor it, learn from it!

Richard Bach is one of my favorite authors and in this book he explores an area i believe must of us wish to do. As we so often wonder what might've happened if we had done things different, usually because we are not happy with the way life is going right now, here we have a way to really understand that everything we've done has made us what we are today. maybe, just maybe we are where we were meant to be...but if we are not sure or happy enough, as long as there's life, there's time to get there.

Richard Bach has written some wonderful books. I highly recommend Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions for the soul-seekers among us, The Bridge Across Forever for the romantics, and his earlier autobiographies for those of us who have always wanted to fly.

But this time he's gone overboard. I've tried a few times to get through Running From Safety, but I've never made it all the way through. In this quasi-autobiographical book, Richard Bach sets up all sorts of straw-man 'learning experiences' to show how he's learning to let go of the complications and the rationalizations of an adult mind and be true to the hopes and dreams he had as a young boy. The message is good enough, but he goes about it heavy-handedly, setting himself up repeatedly then taking himself down with the morals he's trying to get across. The result is that he doesn't portray himself realistically, and he certainly doesn't come across as the same person who the Illusions / Bridge Across Forever / One trilogy set himself up to be. This new Richard Bach is less graceful and more sappy.

But the real problem, the reason why I actively recommend against this book, is that the author's own life invalidates it. The principal message of the book is to stop being a dull, boring, un-fun adult rationalizing away all your hopes, and to remain true to what you once dreamed as a child, right? Well, The Bridge Across Forever beautifully showed Richard Bach's hopes for someday finding his soulmate, his 'other half,' without whom he's just not whole... but recent rumors, confirmed by a story on Bach's web site, are that he has divorced his soulmate because his hobbies and his career were more important to him than she was. It's very hard to accept that the person who would do that is the same person who wrote this book.

Don't get me wrong -- I don't fault the man for making choices in his own life, but I feel that Richard Bach has in recent years gone from being a brave and unusual thinker to becoming a New Age mystic, and in doing so, he's lost touch with at least this reader.

I think this is Richard Bach's best book. The book makes you realize a lot many things which we usually bury deep inside us. The conversations between Dickie and Richard are too fantastic! The way Richard explians him the fundamentals of life is very simple and at the same time very profound.Moreover, the concept used by the author is very innovative and wonderful.The book really helps the reader to explore his inner self. I have loved every line of the book and would like to thank Richard Bach for such a lovely creation.

It's a relief to hear from Richard Bach again. Reading one of his books is like sitting back with a friend you haven't heard from in awhile and catching up. Anyone who has ever read his previous novels will not only play catch up with someone who probably deeply affected their lives, but will probably start remembering some of their own unkept promises to their inner child.

I would have loved to have given this book a 10, but it really didn't get to me the way some of his other books have. Then again, maybe I'm just not ready for the message...

This is a great book, but read these first since they are the best of Richard Bach (IMHO):

1. Jonathan Livingston Seagull 2. Illusions 3. The Bridge Across Forever

This book successfully explores intimacy, comfort zones, A philosophy to live by, skeletons in the closet and the current limitations of linear space-time. Truly a must read for anyone who wants to travel through life with conscienceness.

Life is! Richard Bach makes this his central premise. We are immortal, indestrucible, if only we can release those fears that all of us have locked inside. This has long been one of my most favourite books and my most inspirational. Don't read it on face value; on the other hand don't try to read into it either. Running From Safety is a book which looks at a simple idea: we are, we have been, and we always will be.
What more essential knowledge could there be?

I think this is Richard Bach's best book. The book makes you realize a lot many things which we usually bury deep inside us. The conversations between Dickie and Richard are too fantastic! The way Richard explians him the fundamentals of life is very simple and at the same time very profound.Moreover, the concept used by the author is very innovative and wonderful.The book helps you to explore your inner self. I have loved every line of the book and would like to thank Richard Bach for such a lovely creation.

In a narrative between himself (adult Richard Bach) and his 9 year old former self ("Dickie"), the author presents a guide to life. The author's spouse, Leslie, adds to the dialogue by bringing another point of view to the philosophy presented. There are many thought provoking notions presented such as: the "physics" of thoughts, "Life is," the key(s) to a successful marriage and remembering the birth experience. It reads like the author's self-therapy with the reader as a bystander/beneficiary. Anyone who enjoys Richard Bach's philosophy will find it again here, skillfully presented in the author's clever writing style.