PublishedRandom House, May 2011 |
ISBN9781846042843 |
FormatHardcover, 176 pages |
Dimensions22.2cm × 14.4cm × 2.1cm |
A handsome gift edition of one of the seminal pieces of literature to emerge from World War 2- Viktor Frankl's moving account of his experiences in Auschwitz. With new introduction and appendices.
A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn't) with the experience. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. The sort of person the concentration camp prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Only those who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp's degenerating influence - while those who made a victory of those experiences turned them into an inner triumph. Frankl came to believe man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose.
This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living.
Bill is one of the founders of Boffins and has been involved in selecting the books we stock since our beginning in 1989. His favourite reading is history, with psychology, current affairs, and business books coming close behind. His hobbies are reading, food, reading, drinking, reading, and sleeping.
Viktor Frankl was a Viennese psychiatrist who spent the last two and a half years of World War Two in German concentration camps, and survived. He died in 1997 at the age of 92. This book was written to share his experiences of that awful time, and to explain how some people survived the awful ordeal that he shared, whilst most did not. It has become a classic of its kind, a book from which so many of us have drawn inspiration for over 70 years. I read it in the late 1970s when I was confused about my direction in life. It affected me in a very positive way, helping me to focus on what really mattered to me and to understand what motivates me and draw on that knowledge in a practical way. It’s a book I often recommend to people, and often have them coming back to tell me how they felt rewarded by reading it.
