When You're Falling, DiveLessons
in the Art of Living |
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"How do you live?" asked Mark Matousek's older sister, Marcia, in the midst of dealing with an overwhelming depression. That question would haunt Matousek: how does a person survive his own life, the constant surprises, uncertainties, struggles, rerouting in unexpected directions? How does a soul not only preserve but come into bloom from the very muck life deals us? Seeking answers to these questions acclaimed memoirist and twenty-five year survivor of chronic illness Mark Matousek interviews hundreds of his fellow survivors and philosophical experts including Joan Didion, Elie Wiesel, Isabel Allende, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jonathan Kozol, and Sogyal Rimpoche and brings us their wisdom in When You're Falling, Dive: Lessons in the Art of Living
-Watch the ABC news interview about "When You're Falling, Dive" |
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| Do survivors of life's greatest trials possess a secret knowledge? I s there an art to
survival - a map for crossing the wilderness - of daily life? Why do some people blossom through adversity while others do not?
Drawing on twenty years' experience in this field, using stories, parables, scientific data, acclaimed memoirist Mark Matousek gives the first-ever comprehensive look at this mysterious phenomenon of viriditas, the power of drawing passion, beauty, and wisdom from the unlikeliest places. Matousek interviews hundreds of well-known survivors? - including Joan Didion, Elie Wiesel, and Isabel Allende - and experts such as Jon Kabat-Zinn, Jonathan Kozol, amd Sogyal Rinpoche. He includes extraordinary testimonials, from a Tibetan nun imprisoned by the Chinese at age eleven and the women of Calama, Chile, digging for their "disappeared," among countless others. Drawing insight and advice from these many heroic individuals, Matousek presents a chorus of wisdom for how o survive our own lives - vicissitudes of being human - and prevail. |
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Praise for When You're Falling, Dive |
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| "O!"
on When You're Falling, Dive Elevated Existence-September 2008 on When You're Falling, Dive |
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| "Filled with remarkable stories, illuminating insights and enduring lessons this gorgeously written book makes
the impossible, transformational. Matousek has found a way to live by listening, by going to the darkest and most beautiful places, and gratefully he takes us with him.: Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and Insecure at Last |
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| "Reading Mark
Matousek's When You're Falling, Dive is like discovering a great artist's lost sketchbook . It is full of little wonders hat change the way you see things. Bringing his journalist's eye to some of today's most provocative thinkers, Matousek brings us inside their minds, offering fresh counsel for perennial, but newly urgent, questions." Mark Epstein, M.D. author of Thoughts Without a Thinker and Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart |
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| "When You're Falling, Dive reveals a secret only known to the few who have pushed through greatest adversity to find life's light on the other site. Matousek makes this wisdom available to us all. This will be his defining work, both as a man and as a writer. A masterpiece." Maria Housden, author of Hannah's Gift and Unraveled |
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| "Like Dante's Inferno, Matousek's book shows us the tortures of hell - physical,
psychological, political - and a host of real people who have inhabited that
fiery pit and risen triumphantly from it. Matousek is a trustworthy guide, one who himself has struggled with angel-demons, one who offers a life-affirming gift to his readers. Voices and visions flutter from these pages to become part of the air we breath, and part of us." Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance |
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| "Beautiful and true." Rebecca Walker, author of Babylove
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| Thank god that someone has finally written a spiritual book with an edge. In this boisterous collection of true stories, Mark Matousek takes us from Himalayan peaks to a sit-down with Andy Warhol, from a homeless shelter to Joan Didion's Upper East Side apartment. Matousek knows everyone, tells all, and writes sentences that reverb likezen koans. This book is a blessed
departure from other 'survivor memoirs.' Matousek comes off as the most fascinating - and wise - cocktail-party raconteur you've ever met." Pagan Kennedy, author of The First Man Made Man and Black Livingstone
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| "When You're Falling, Dive is a brave and insightful exploration of the transformative power of tragedy. With sensitivity, grace, wit, and candor Mark Matousek tracks his own complex life path and that of others, providing sumptuous evidence that our moments of deepest despair are opportunities to experience
enduring grace, joy, awe, and healing. What is most refreshing of all is that he does so without indulging in the vapid
clichés of pop culture psychiatry, preferring instead to offer up the vital, fascinating
testimonies of people whose stories readers will be hard pressed to forget." Connie May Fowler, author of The Problem with Murmur Lee and When Katie Wakes |
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