The Wishing Year: A House, a Man, My Soul A Memoir of Fulfilled Desire (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: spiritual poverty, paper wish, Ajahn Jumnian, Vichy Springs, Santa Cruz (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Are wishes mere child’s play, or “does a wish have power?” Finding herself alone and unmoored after passion laid waste to her marriage and her California Zen Buddhist community, Oxenhandler decided to conduct a personal inquiry into the art and consequences of serious wishing. She chronicles her surprising findings in 12 scintillating chapters that mark a year spent wishing for a man, a house of her own, and spiritual healing. A writer of unusual perspectives, ruminating habits of thought, practiced skepticism, and pirouetting prose, Oxenhandler delves into the realms of magic, spirituality, philosophy, and psychology as she analyzes her reluctance to wish for money or material things; excavates the meanings of archetypal figures, symbols, and rituals; explores dreams and mind-over-matter belief systems; portrays a constellation of amazingly intuitive and plucky individuals; dissects self-help books; and attempts to understand a series of astonishing coincidences and spectacular good fortune. In a charmingly self-deprecating and anecdotal mix of the everyday ups-and-downs of a postdivorce recalibration and profound questions of purpose and desire, Oxenhandler offers a stimulating take on the mysterious workings of the universe. This just may hit it big like Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love (2006). --Donna Seaman

Review

“Inspiring . . . fascinating . . . Similar in style to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, The Wishing Year offers a thoughtful approach to the notion that we can create change simply by signifying our intent.”—Sunday Oregonian


“Readers will enjoy watching Oxenhandler realize her dreams through diligence, hard work and a ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ in the captivating magic of wishing.”—Publishers Weekly

“[Oxenhandler] mines her quotidian ups and downs during a twelve-month period with the exacting honesty and hopefulness of a Buddhist Anne Lamott. . . . [An] endearing combination of meticulous research and winsome enthusiasm.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Recommended . . . joyful and humorous reading.”—Library Journal



From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (July 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400064856
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064854
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #199,348 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Interesting and Useful Read, July 31, 2008

By	rantboi (Dayton, OH United States) - See all my reviews

I spent the whole day yesterday reading this wonderful book. It is the kind of book I've been waiting for for quite some time. It's a book for people who have read all the Law of Attraction, intention manifestation, or even magic books. If you've manifested a few things here and there, but still have some concerns about how it all works or how you can be both spiritual and materialistic, this book is a great start.

It's great to finally read a book that goes deeper into the act of wishing (as the author calls it) and provides its readers with an in-depth real life example of what happens when you take that first step. It's amazing what starts to happen when you take that first step: the Universe responds. I have had experiences like the author and I felt her excitement when things started to happen, seemingly out of nowhere.

That being said, I had a few minor issues with this book. The author herself complains a lot about how her spiritual community fell apart. That's fine and all, but I think it's perfectly clear that she was one of the reasons that happened. She had an affair with a married man (the spiritual mentor of her community) while being married herself. She glosses over this in a couple of sentences in the book. I feel that if she really wanted to grow as a spiritual individual, she would acknowledge that she played a huge part in why her spiritual community fell apart. She should face her own darkness and take some responsibility, instead of always complaining: "Oh, my spiritual community fell apart, and now I don't know who I am." I don't know, maybe she has dealt with those issues. Maybe she is reluctant to share it with the world, and that's understandable.

With that being said, that was a very minor detail I had trouble with. I actually enjoyed 99% of this book, hence the five star rating. It was fun to read her reactions to books that I've read myself, like "It Works" and "The Science of Getting Rich" or that ever-popular movie, "The Secret." (I had a similar reaction to hers.)

Overall, this is a very worthwhile book for anyone who is interested in intention manifestation, The Secret, magic, or whatever. I can't recommend it highly enough.

If you feel like all the books you've been reading sound too good to be true or extremely filtered of real human experience (a whole book of "you can do it, think positive!" gets kind of annoying when you have real life problems to deal with), then I definitely recommend picking up this very interesting memoir.

-Ater

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Wishing Year, July 12, 2008

By	Ada Jaarsma - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"The Wishing Year," by Noelle Oxenhandler, is the kind of book that I am always wishing for--absorbing and lovely to read, and at the same time provocative and intellectually engaging. Along the lines of literary non-fiction like Jonathan Franzen's "How to Be Alone" and Rebecca Solnit's "A Fieldguide to Getting Lost," this memoir stages the existential predicament of how to approach one's own longings and ambitions, with grace and authenticity, while also acknowledging the pressures and realities of our consumer-based society. The comedic pace of the narrative is note-on, populated with wide-ranging geographical adventures, winsome characters, and deeply funny everyday moments. Waking up one January morning, Oxenhandler confronts several absences in her life and decides to embark upon a yearlong quest for very specific objects. Halfway through the book, she refers to her quest as an "experiment in desire," and this phrase seems to embody the underlying ambition of the book itself--to enter into the terrifying quandaries that genuine passion brings with it, while at the same time relishing the wonderful angst, even dread, of wishing. Oxenhandler's experiment gives rise to profound and timeless questions: what do our desires reveal about ourselves? Is it possible to seek spiritual wholeness, or romance, or even financial prosperity, and still retain skepticism towards superficial success, pop psychology, and ego-based desires? Like books by Franzen and Solnit, Oxenhandler's memoir demonstrates what, in my experience, the best kinds of texts ask of their reader--to share in the spiritually intense comedy of human life and to take real risks in the questions that we pose and the desires that we wish for.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting..., August 10, 2008

By	A Reader - See all my reviews

I really liked this book and it's not the type of book I usually read. There are too many books,tapes,programs,dvd's,etc. you name it-- we are in a storm of "law of attraction" information these days. But there has never been anyone who is not connected in some way to these products that has written about their personal experience while using this information. Very savvy of Ms.Oxenhandler to write a memoir about this topic as well as timely. Magic is a delicious subject and law of attraction is the topic on everyone's list. Ms. Oxenhandler is very knowledgeable about things that I did not expect to be in this book which is what made it an interesting read. Her experiment in making wishes to better her life was fun to read but it is just one layer of this book. The one thing that did disappoint was that she did not give the readers any information about her ailing mother after she spent a great deal of time worrying about and helping to move her from France to CA. All in all it's a good read. You can read this book over a weekend.