|
Booklist said of Only Spring: On Mourning the Death of My Son, “Gordon Livingston introduces this brutally honest diary as the story of the life
and death of his son. It is that, focusing on Livingston's experience of losing his six-year-old son, Lucas, to leukemia;
it is also an account of a process of mourning permeated by his gradual realization that "love is not lost even in death."
The book focuses almost entirely on the experience of Lucas' death, but the suicide of Livingston's oldest son, Andrew, the
previous year, is never far below the surface. It is to Livingston's credit that he speaks not in terms of a triumph over
death but of a confidence, gradually won, that love is not lost. This sets the book apart from much of the popular literature
of hope and makes it an important contribution to the tradition of tragedy that moves us to humanity in the embrace of mortality.
Publishers Weekly said of
Only Spring: On Mourning the Death of My Son, “Psychiatrist Livingston's earlier journals of the death
from leukemia of his six-year-old son, Lucas, were first published in the San Francisco Chronicle's Image magazine, where
they evoked wide and warm response. In those writings, he detailed the grueling regimen (including a bone-marrow transplant
from the author) that Lucas endured, bequeathing to the family a lesson about the power of the human spirit. The current journal
details the depth of Livingston's struggle with the loss of Lucas and the earlier suicide of an older son, and with his rage
at the medical technology that failed his child. A poignant account of an anguishing life-changing experience.”
Publishers Weekly said of Too
Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now, “The gentle, even-keeled warmth of
Livingston's prose distinguishes this slim book of 30 inspirational "truths." A psychiatrist familiar with trauma
from both his practice and his life (in one 13-month period, he lost one son to leukemia and another to suicide), Livingston
offers the kind of wisdom that feels simultaneously commonsensical and revelatory: "We are what we do," "The
perfect is the enemy of the good," "The major advantage of illness is relief from responsibility." He intersperses
counsel with personal experience, and tackles topics both joyful and deeply painful. In the chapter focusing on "We are
what we do," he notes that the "three components of happiness are something to do, someone to love, and something
to look forward to," and he reminds us that "love is demonstrated behaviorally"-that is, actions count more
than words. In his discussion of "Happiness is the greatest risk," he considers how our fear of losing happiness
is often a roadblock to our experiencing it. For those contemplating suicide, he writes that "it is reasonable to confront
them with the selfishness and anger implied in any act of self-destruction." Livingston's words feel true, and his wisdom
hard-earned. Among the many blithe and hollow self-help books available everywhere, this book stands out as a jewel.”
One reader of Too Soon
Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now said, “The minute anyone realizes good intentions
just don't cut it, that it's only actions that make me "me," life is immediately more fulfilling, more challenging,
more fun. The difference between a person who becomes who they want to become, and a person who doesn't, can be found in their
willingness to take real steps every day. Want to be someone who speaks another language? Get a book and teach yourself. Want
to be the kind of person who is appreciated and valued at work? Review your work ethic and your interactions and make positive
changes. Want to be healthier? Actually exercise every day instead of just planning to do so. The world can tell who you are
by how you act, and if you don't like what it's seeing you're the only one who can fix it. In addition, realizing that the
people around you aren't who they say they are, but who they act like they are, is a lesson I wish I'd been exposed to and
had been able to comprehend in high school.”
According to the book description of
How to Love, “Dr. Gordon Livingston’s books have resonated with readers as universally
and deeply as earlier books by M. Scott Peck, Rollo May, and Erich Fromm. Now, Gordon Livingston—a physician of the
human heart, a philosopher of human psychology—offers an urgently needed meditation on who best (and who best not) to
love—and how best to love. Dr. Livingston’s primary focus in this new book is on helping us to recognize in ourselves
and in others constellations of character traits and what those traits imply both with regard to compatibility and future
conduct. As in his previous books, here are Dr. Livingston’s trademark gifts—an unerring sense of what is important,
and what Elizabeth Edwards has characterized as “his unapologetic directness and his embracing compassion”—again
deployed to provide readers everywhere with a much-needed alternative to the trial-and-error learning that makes wisdom such
an expensive commodity.”
|
