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    Gift From the Sea
    Unavailable
    Gift From the Sea
    Unavailable
    Gift From the Sea
    Audiobook2 hours

    Gift From the Sea

    Written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

    Narrated by Claudette Colbert and Reeve Lindbergh

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Over a quarter of a century after its first publication, the great and simple wisdom in this book continues to influence women's lives.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 22, 2005
    ISBN9780739318027
    Unavailable
    Gift From the Sea

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    Reviews for Gift From the Sea

    4/5

    698 ratings46 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I've read this book two or three times, but it's been a while. I'm enjoying it just as much this time; it's a very calming, centering book.
    • 5/5
      Great writing.
    • 5/5
      I completely lost myself in this book. The concerns and needs Ann Morrow Lindbergh wrote about in this book are still ones that are pertinent today. Using shells to illustrate the relationships was wonderful. Those images provided for moments of contemplation - either before, during, after, or in between reading the chapters. These thoughts show the inner strength of Anna M.Lindbergh. It is strength she is still passing on to this generation of women.
    • 5/5
      Excellent book. Well written and so many wonderful experiences and memories to ponder.
    • 5/5
      Beautiful and inspiring, simple living simple pleasures , less stress more life
    • 3/5
      Gentle reflections on feminine life with comparisons to shells, although some of it is rather dated.
    • 5/5
      This is a wonderfully insightful book about relationships written by a woman privileged to have the time for contemplation.

      Mrs. Lindbergh lived a life of great sorrow and great grace.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this book on first reading, many years ago, and again this year. Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes beautifully. A book I think every thoughtful woman should take the time to read.
    • 4/5
      this was a good book it was written by Charles Lindbergh's widow
    • 5/5
      This is my second reading of this book - the first time wasn’t an audiobook. The analogies with the sea and shells in particular by which Anne describes the tides of life really resonates with me deeply as my life has been connected with the sea, as a child, intimately.

      I would highly recommend this work to anyone looking to appreciate life, it’s motions and it’s unpredictability. One is reminded and reassured that life has persisted and will persist in the face of anything, and so can we...
    • 3/5
      In Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh concerns herself with life as it was lived in the 1950s, particularly, it seems, as lived by American women of her own social class. She finds it useful (and I won’t begrudge her the idea that it is so) to find in seashells the gift of inspirations for thinking about big and small spaces, about how life can demand too much in too little time or offer too little in much time, and about the ways one might find a success that harmonizes with one’s spirit. She writes, “If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical, or strange.” This is key: “A room of one’s own” needs an hour of one’s own, too.Lindbergh champions the idea of seeking out the unknown. She sees big-city life, with all its variety, motivating individuals to restrict their acquaintance to others like them, exchanging the opportunity presented by the unknown for the familiarity of the comfortable. She wants us, women and men, to seek the unknown, saying “it is the unknown with all its disappointments and surprises that is the most enriching.”While not a book I would have thought to pick up (it arrived at the house long ago as part of a Book Club package and I’ve only now just read it), I find myself thinking Anne Morrow Lindbergh is someone I would like to have met, to have talked with for an hour or so. And not because she knew some guy named Charles.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Incredibly, this little book written in 1955 is just as meaningful today as it was then and since. The need for each woman to learn and relearn that she "must come of age by herself-she must find her true center alone". At all ages and stages of her life.

      Favorite:

      "The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel."

      "Don't wish me happiness
      I don't expect to be happy all the time...
      It's gotton beyond that somehow.
      Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor.
      I will need them all."




      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Wonderful book, especially if you are in the midst of a family crisis, or have a growing family, with all the challenges that one encounters.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Classic inspirational book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Lovely and relaxing read. Inspirational.Ebb and flow of tides are reminders of the ebb and flow of life.Each "chapter" is inspirational and timely to all of us at one time or another.A book that can be re-read many times and insprire!
    • 5/5
      Gift from the sea by Anne Morrow LindberghHave read other books from this author/pilot and have enjoyed the reads.Like the name of the book and how it relates to her life.On her vacation away from everybody she is able to relax and really take in her surroundings.She measures her life, love, existence and even chores to the seashells she finds and how she perceives them as they pertain to her life.What a treasure!I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device).
    • 5/5
      I was struck so many times by the relativity her words had to today's world, especially since this book was published over 50 years ago. There were many profound thoughts that I want to "chew on" and even go back to again. I love her observant nature of the world around her. She name drops (love, love when authors do this) some of my favorite people...of course my man Rilke. This book was made even more precious to me by the opportunity to read it out loud with my Mum and Gran. It provoked many good discussions because I'm not blindly loving everything about this book. (insert wink) However, for the most part spot on!

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I thought, when I got this book, that it would be a book of poems or maybe prose poems. Something not too deep, but whimsical and pleasant. Why I thought that is unknown. What I got was thoughtful and lovely reflections on a life: a female life, in her middle years, a mother, a wife and a writer to boot. It anticipates such books as: "A Year by the Sea:Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman" by Joan Anderson and works by Julia Cameron. It is about writing, about finding one's center, about being human, about being whole -- and yet it is not preachy nor is it a self-help book. I really enjoyed it. An unexpected pleasure.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 3/5
      A collection of personal essays by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, each one using a seashell as an analogy. This is the type of writing that would appeal to some women, especially those who are wives and mothers. Some things she said did resonate with me and her writing was nice, but it was really hard not to try to read between the lines knowing that the author was married to Charles Lindbergh, a Nazi sympathizer who also reportedly was a cold fish but yet still managed to have secret mistresses and families with these other women. She never refers to him (or her children) directly but always speaks in very general terms, i.e. " a husband and a wife". What was really going on in her life when she wrote Gift from the Sea in 1955, I cannot help but wonder.
    • 4/5
      Anne Morrow Lindbergh shared her musings and insights using shells from the sea as a visual aid. Though she had what appeared to many to be an exciting and wondrous life - which it was - it was also a life filled with stuggle and heartbreak. In this short collection of meditations, a different Anne, a private Anne, emerges with wisdom and advice that is timeless. An introduction by her daughter, author Reeve Lindbergh, adds more undertanding to Anne's words.
    • 4/5
      I thought I read this book back in the 1960's or 1970's, but, reading it now, I had no recall of what it said or what I thought it said.As an older person, I appreciate the spiritual ramblings of this book about temporary solitude in seaside living. The author takes a look at single seashells and uses them as metaphors for those qualities of life which fulfill us as humans spiritually. Many lines of this book and ideas are deeply true and quotable. Here are some I found noteworthy:"There are...certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them.""Woman must...learn to stand alone.""We all wish to be loved alone.""Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now."This book is a quick read and a lovely pause for reflection in an otherwise troubled and hectic world. Read it when you feel the need to slow down a bit.
    • 4/5
      Your experience with this book will be like everything else in life – it depends on the attitude you bring. I think most people will find this book full of profound meditations on what it means to be an American woman, most still as true today as they were when she wrote them in 1955. This is one of those books that you can read over again at different ages and stages in your life and find totally new gems that you missed before.

      I picked this up after reading The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin, because I wanted to know more about Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who was perpetually in the shadow of her famous husband.
    • 5/5
      Wow! What a great book. It was like taking another walk with my grandmother -- something I haven't been able to do since she passed away in 2002. While some of the specific details of Lindbergh's essays are out dated, they still spoke to me. The metaphor of the sea shell is a simple but powerful one. I ended up reading the book in the course of about half an hour.
    • 4/5
      Anne Morrow Lindbergh incorporates different types of seashells in her reflection of life. Reading this book allows one to think of the different stages of life and learn to reflect on each stage. While reading the words of Lindbergh, one learns the importance of solitude and the concept of taking time for oneself in a busy life. A great read for those in their last year of high school, as it opens their eyes to a deeper understanding of the many relationships and experiences in life.
    • 3/5
      This was a thoughtful, very personal reflection on the life of a woman, with island life and sea shells providing metaphorical comparisons to the various stages of life. It could be comforting or frustrating to see that the challenges of women's lives have not changed considerably since the mid-twentieth century...
    • 3/5
      I gave this book 3 stars because many people will find it inspirational, as I did, in parts. I like the fact that Lindberg emphasizes the need for solitude which many people then and now still seem not to understand. Also, I have great respect for Lindberg's intelligence and her abilities. But her long interlude on the importance of and means of maintaining one's marriage, of overlooking faults and nurturing a continuing relationship with one's husband was grating. Lindberg's husband was also intelligent and accomplished and a non-repentant anti-semitic Nazi sympathizer who never admitted his mistakes. I suppose a good Catholic woman would think it admirable to overlook his faults as a good mafia wife would, but I don't see that as an admirable accomplishment. Anne Lindberg with her parcel of children and an anti-Semitic husband and the Kennedy women with their parcels of children and their roving husbands took solace in walking the spiritual road of their Catholic faiths. Good for them and their psyches, but I don't think they should give advice to do the same to women trying to lead lives of fuller authenticity.
    • 3/5
      I am going back and forth on the rating for this one: On the one hand, there's less than 150 pages and at least 7 sticky notes... this reflects well on the book. On the other hand, there's ... just something- A tone. A knowing-ness. A "Secret" vibe. - that made uncomfortable with the whole of the book. So, 3 stars, but with the caveat that I know Lindbergh was probably smarter & more in tune with herself than I will ever be with myself, and maybe that's off-putting to me?

      I look back at the sticky notes, hoping for some inspiration, wisdom: "Communication - but not for too long. Because good communication is stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after." It's there, in the thoughts so clearly spelled out that I marked them to come back to later - her thinking through the value in and of her life, and finding out so many things about herself and her relationships, during this break from it all, sitting in an isolated cabin, walking on an abandoned beach. I don't know, something about it is so uplifting, this woman finding both the personal and universal truths in her life - "For 'there is no one-and-only,' as a friend of mine once said in a similar discussion, 'there are just one-and-only moments.'" - It's breathtaking and beautiful, and at the same time, frustrating to me.

      In a way I can't fully describe, the simplicity of it all (describing her thoughts and revelations as different types of shells) frustrates me. It makes me feel stupid, instead of inspired. Because I'm not making things as simple as they seem here, and I don't know how to. Part of what annoys me is her obvious privileges - to spare the time away, to take those breaths that renew her without constant pain or a child crying at her leg - when she counsels others to take the time for themselves, I feel that raging frustration of "Well, sure, but HOW Do You Do That In Real Life?" And I know her times were different, and I really don't know anything about her life at all (I know the basics, and looked up more after I read the book - The lost baby, the exile, the hounding press, the feminist icon, the naturalist, eventually disabled by a stroke and lost not all that long ago) but I know it was hard, and that she could put together the pieces with such clarity as she writes in this book ("Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter, and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simple there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone." And this is pre TV/Twitter/Tumblr, people, but it's my life.)

      It pisses me off and gives me hope at the same time. That deserves 3 stars all on its own, I suppose.
    • 5/5
      This book is timeless, especially for women. Written in 1955 by Anne Morrow Lindbergh while she took a couple weeks out of her busy life to write and reflect on an island in a cottage by the sea, the book still speaks to current generations. She uses various type of empty seashells to illustrate and discuss the stages of life, mostly for women, but men have found this little book a gem as well. It can be read in a day. Her reflections and observations are wise and speak to several generations. At the time, she had 5 children and was married, with a busy social and working life. She points up that all women, especially then in 1955 and probably more so now, need alone time to replenish themselves. Women give so much of themselves to people and other activities that this alone time is critical. She makes some astute observations about aging women as well.

      I think I'll read the book again now and then. It's graciously written and a good reminder.
    • 4/5
      [W]oman must come of age by herself -- she must find her true center alone. The lesson seems to need re-learning about every twenty years in a woman’s life.A Virginia Woolf-like rumination, here on the phases of women’s adult lives to early middle age. Each is explored in a short chapter that suggests a way to stay grounded in self, each made memorable through symbolism by a different seashell. Lovely, and still relevant nearly 60 years after initial publication (in fact I see aspects of it in contemporary books). I wish she had updated it with passages about the losses that come to women in midlife and beyond.
    • 4/5
      On vacation on Captiva Island by herself, with a brief visit from her sister, Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes about learning from her time there and from seashells such as the channeled whelk, the double-sunrise, and the argonauta what she calls her “island-precepts.”"Simplicity of living, as much as possible, to retain a true awareness of life. Balance of physical, intellectual, and spiritual life. Work without pressure. Space for significance and beauty. Time for solitude and sharing. Closeness to nature to strengthen understanding and faith in the intermittency of life; life of the spirit, creative life, and the life of human relationships. A few shells."Lindbergh is writing primarily about pressures, tensions, and distractions of a woman’s life at mid-life and she talks about “a room of one’s own” (without mentioning Woolf by name) and the activity of feminists. But the desire to avoid fragmentation (she uses William James’s word Zerrissenheit) and to achieve a modicum of grace, “inner and outer harmony,” is not gender-bound.She sounds very modern on the global awareness—she calls it “planetal awareness”—we are pressured by:"We are asked today to feel compassionately for everyone in the world; to digest intellectually all the information spread out in public print; and to implement in action every ethical impulse aroused by our hearts and minds"She has a tendency to write at a high level of abstraction and generalization and counters the tendency with homely metaphors like those of the shells.