"A four week course of genuinely life-improving and digestible anti-self-help from the author of imperfectionist bible, 4000 Weeks "
I think I may have recommended this book to more people than any other in my life. In combination with Oliver Burkeman’s last book, 4000 Weeks, I have definitely recommended it more than any other.
Meditations for Mortals is not about mindfulness or meditation specifically, although the ideas do come up in some of the essays. Rather, it’s Meditations in the sense of ‘thoughts for life’, from procrastination to decision-making, rounding-up familiar self-help advice and adding his astute and candid observations on why they do or don’t help with living our actual lives. The invitation is to read one chapter a day, and I love the way that this creates harmony between the form and content of the book – it encourages the reader to slow down, to let it percolate and sit alongside your ongoing life, rather than expect self-help to be a quick fix, an extreme gobbling of a fix-all potion, which would inevitably not lead to long-lasting results.
Yes, I am a Burkeman devotee. I find his writing consistently and genuinely life-improving. In fact, I convinced three of my close friends, who had already read 4000 Weeks on my recommendation, to pre-order Meditations for Mortals and read it along with me, in the prescribed 4 week course (yes, a confusing number of 4s and weeks in these books). Our group chat is called Oli B Bible Studies and our reading club brought me a lot of joy and thoughtfulness. So if you are interested in reading this book, I would highly recommend it as a solo and/or group experience.
| Primary Genre | Self Help and Personal Development |
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Meditations for Mortals takes us on a liberating journey towards a more meaningful life - one that begins not with fantasies of the ideal existence, but with the reality in which we actually find ourselves.
Addressing the fundamental questions about how to live, it offers a powerful new way to take action on what counts: a guiding philosophy of life Oliver Burkeman calls 'imperfectionism'. How can we embrace our non-negotiable limitations? Or make good decisions when there's always too much to do? What if purposeful productivity were often about letting things happen, not making them happen?
Reflecting on ideas drawn from philosophy, religion, literature, psychology, and self-help, Burkeman explores practical tools and shifts in perspective. The result is a bracing challenge to much familiar advice, and a profound yet entertaining crash course in living more fully.
To be read either as a four-week 'retreat of the mind' or devoured in one or two sittings, Meditations for Mortals will be a source of solace and inspiration, and an aid to a saner, freer, and more enchantment-filled life. In anxiety-inducing times, it is rich in truths we have never needed more.
Meditations for Mortals features in the following genres: Non-Fiction Books of the Month, Recommendations, Star Books, Humour, Lifestyle, Hobbies and Leisure, Self Help and Personal Development, Assertiveness, motivation, self-esteem and positive mental attitude, Mind, body, spirit: meditation and visualization, Popular philosophy
Meditations for Mortals is available in Paperback, Hardback
Meditations for Mortals was written by Oliver Burkeman and published by The Bodley Head an imprint of Vintage Publishing
Meditations for Mortals has 208 pages
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