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Biography & Autobiography.
Religion & Spirituality.
Nonfiction.
Over a quarter of a century after its first publication, the great and simple wisdom in this book continues to influence women's lives.
Felt like the kind of reflection I am used to, but she was clearly not. I liked her reflection on her own book at the end, that felt very important to the story. ( )
I am amazed that a woman writing in 1955 could so clearly articulate my own (2022) feelings about womanhood, motherhood, creativity, spirituality, and marriage. Lindbergh's introspection into her life is like a beacon of light for the rest of us to follow as we stumble down our own murky paths. With grace, kindness and remarkable insight, she offers gentle advice on relationships, work, and parenting in a way few other authors have.
I'm so grateful a friend recommended this book to me. It was just what I needed at this -- the oyster bed -- phase of my life. ( )
A fabulous book that all women should read. I just re-read it last weekend and got so much out of it. The first time I read it, perhaps ten years ago, I also really liked it, but didn't get a lot of what she was saying because it wasn't yet relevant to my life. Its one of those books to read every 5-10 years. ( )
A thing of beauty which "has the eternal validity of all beautiful and fleeting things." It is a sincere and eloquent plea for the ineffable rights of the individual, especially the individual as a woman.
I would swap it for all the bestseller, do-good, inspirational books I have read. Here are some of the profoundest and most helpful observations and comments, expressed in the clearest language, in the warmest tone.
Though it deals with the essential needs, gifts, obligations and aspirations of woman as distinct from those of man, it is in no sense merely what is sometimes slightingly called a woman's book. A sensitive, tensile, original mind probes delicately into questions of balance and relationship in the world today, and the result is a book for human beings who are mature or in search of maturity, whether men or women.
added by ArrowStead | editThe New York Times Book Review
An Intensely personal book in which, nonetheless, every thoughtful woman will find a reflection of her own half- realized frustrations and answers.
The Beach is not a place to work; to read, write or think.
Quotations
I want...to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible...I believe most people are aware of periods in their lives when they seem to be "in grace" and other periods when they feel "out of grace" even though they may use different words to describe these states.
There are...certain roads that one may follow. Simplification of life is one of them.
Moon shell...You will remind me that I must try to be alone for part of each year, even a week or a few days; and for part of each day, even for an hour or a few minutes in order to keep my core, my center, my island-quality.
Woman must...learn to stand alone.
In middle age...one tries to cure the signs of growth...when really they might be angels of annunciation. Angels of annunciation of what? Of a new stage of living when, having shed many of the physical struggles, the worldly ambitions, the material encumbrances of active life, one might be free to fulfill the neglected side of one's self. One might be free for growth of mind, heart, and talent; free at last for spiritual growth...
Perhaps, middle age is or should be, a period of shedding shells; the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of the ego.
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.
When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility.
...the acquisitive instinct is incompatible with true appreciation of beauty.
Island precepts...Simplicity of living...to attain 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.
The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere.
We walk up the beach in silence, but in harmony, as the sandpipers ahead of us move like a corps of ballet dancers keeping time to some interior rhythm inaudible to us.
Biography & Autobiography.
Religion & Spirituality.
Nonfiction.
Over a quarter of a century after its first publication, the great and simple wisdom in this book continues to influence women's lives.
▾Library descriptions
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▾LibraryThing members' description
Book description
In this inimitable, beloved classic—graceful, lucid and lyrical—Anne Morrow Lindbergh shares her meditations on youth and age; love and marriage; peace, solitude and contentment as she set them down during a brief vacation by the sea. Drawing inspiration from the shells on the shore, Lindbergh's musings on the shape of a woman's life bring new understanding to both men and women at any stage of life. A mother of five, an acclaimed writer and a pioneering aviator, Lindbergh casts an unsentimental eye on the trappings of modernity that threaten to overwhelm us: the time-saving gadgets that complicate rather than simplify, the multiple commitments that take us from our families. And by recording her thoughts during a brief escape from everyday demands, she helps readers find a space for contemplation and creativity within their own lives.
With great wisdom and insight Lindbergh describes the shifting shapes of relationships and marriage, presenting a vision of life as it is lived in an enduring and evolving partnership. A groundbreaking, best-selling work when it was originally published in 1955, Gift from the Sea continues to be discovered by new generations of readers. With a new introduction by Lindbergh's daughter Reeve, this fiftieth-anniversary edition will give those who are revisiting the book and those who are coming upon it for the first time fresh insight into the life of this remarkable woman.
The sea and the beach are elements that have been woven throughout Anne Morrow Lindbergh's life. She spent her childhood summers with her family on a Maine island. After her marriage to Charles Lindbergh in 1929, she accompanied him on his survey flights around the North Atlantic to launch the first transoceanic airlines. The Lindberghs eventually established a permanent home on the Connecticut coast, where they lived quietly, wrote books and raised their family.
After the children left home for lives of their own, the Lindberghs traveled extensively to Africa and the Pacific for environmental research.
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