From Beginning to End:: The Rituals of Our Lives (Hardcover)

by Robert Fulghum (Author) "While the actual passages of life may follow in consequential order: birth, adolescence, marriage, retirement, and death, the actual lives we live are seldom so..." (more)
Key Phrases: sacred habits, wedding story, Mary Carrie, Martha Carter, Maxwell Peterson Brown (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Fulghum, author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten, turns his inspirational ponderings to the rituals that fill and inform our daily lives, from brushing our teeth to the grand rituals responding to birth, life, and death. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly
In this free-form meditation, former Unitarian minister Fulghum (All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten) examines how people impart meaning and structure to their lives through public rituals-weddings, funerals, high school reunions, church services-as well as myriad private and interpersonal rituals that mark events and preserve memories. Ritual, in his broad discussion, includes the repetitive yet crucial chores of parenting, learning to drive a car, walking home alone from school for the first time, one's first sexual encounter, prayer and thousands of "little deaths and little rebirths," such as partings and reconciliations. Fulghum movingly describes his recent reunion with his long-lost daughter, whom he and his fiancee had secretly placed with an adoption agency in small-town Texas in 1958. He writes with the calm wisdom and gentle reassurance that marked his previous bestsellers. First serial to Good Housekeeping, Modern Maturity and Penthouse; Literary Guild main selection; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 273 pages
• Publisher: Villard; 1 edition (March 28, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679419616
• ISBN-13: 978-0679419617
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #653,920 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For the stories and the attitude..., July 12, 2000

By	Paula Berman (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: From Beginning to End (Mass Market Paperback)

The only parts of my own wedding I regret are those I didn't personalize enough; I wish this book had been around back when I was doing my planning. Fulghum doesn't provide concrete suggestions, so much as great stories, illustrations of the impact of ritual on our lives (in which he stands firmly with Jossepoh Campbell) and a wonderfully outrageous attitude toward making those rituals fit us, not the other way around. You won't take away exact ideas of what to do for your own ritual, but you will get the inspiration to make your own ritual fit you as perfectly as some of the ones described fit their participants.

On another level, the book is also worth reading just for the stories. As other readers have commented, the one about the second wedding is just beautiful.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Read it for the stories..., January 12, 2000

By	David Cortesi (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: From Beginning to End (Mass Market Paperback)

...and not for any insight into the role of ritual in everyday life. Robert Fulghum is a sort of Winnie the Pooh of expository writers: he is the reader's loyal friend with a heart as big as outdoors, but when it comes to organizing his thoughts and presenting them clearly, he is 'a bear of very little brain.'

He tells great anecdotes and excels at bringing a tear to your eye. This book is almost worth buying for one chapter which describes the absolutely perfect nontraditional wedding. If you aren't sniffling audibly by the end of it, you aren't human. And there are several other narratives of equal sentimentality.

On the other hand, if you want advice on how to use ritual to add richness to your daily life, or your family's life, you won't get much help here -- just encouragement.

For a truly practical book on family ritual with many, many practical suggestions you can apply immediately, see Susan Lieberman's NEW TRADITIONS -- which Fulghum recommends in his bibliography.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspired, jovial look at life by a man with perspective., March 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: From Beginning to End (Paperback)

This book differs from Fulghum's other excellent works in actually having a subject, and a fairly serious one at that. I therefore approached it with apprehension, afraid that this novelty might mar his jovial air and amusing style. I need not have worried: his love of life is as contagious as ever, and his church background (one of his many varied backgrounds!) offers fresh insights into the scenes none of us can really avoid. From the gruesome act of waking up in the morning, through weddings, and funerals, to all the little things in life we never seem to notice, Fulghum continually points out the lighter side of everything, and usually one we wouldn't think of ourselves.

This book, like any other Fulghum work I've read, made me smile the whole time I was reading it, and for a good while afterwards, and probably even raised my average amount of smiling per day for ever after.

It comes highly recommended.