What Mama Taught Me: The Seven Core Values of Life
Tony Brown, 2003
HarperCollins
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060934309

Summary
Millions of viewers of Tony Brown's Journal, the longest-running series on PBS, know Tony Brown as an advocate for self-reliance and self-enrichment. Now, in his most personal book yet, he introduces us to the woman who brought him up and taught him the seven core values he lives by to this day: reality, knowledge, race, history, truth, patience, and love.

What Mama Taught Me states that only by understanding one's place in the world can one become free in mind and spirit, which is the path to true success. Brown argues that by following other people's rules, we betray ourselves and our desires, resulting in a vicious cycle of disconnection, unhappiness, and spiritual death./

Enhanced by the homespun storytelling he heard as a child, this is Brown's personal recipe for achievement, imparting values that provide a blueprint for reaching success and happiness — on one's own terms. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—April 11. 1933;
• Where—?
• Education—B.A., M.A., Wayne State University (USA);
• Awards—member, Silver Circle, National Academy of
   Television Arts & Sciences
• Currently—

Tony Brown hosts Tony Brown's Journal, the longest-running series on PBS. He is also the host of the radio call-in show Tony Brown on WLS-ABC Chicago, and is the author of Black Lies, White Lies and Empower the People. A sought-after speaker, he lives in New York City. (From the publisher.)

More
• 1971, he became the founding dean of Howard University's School of Communication.

• 1989, he wrote, directed, produced and distributed a dramatic movie with an anti-drug message, The White Girl.

• 2002, he was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Silver Circle.

• 2004, he became the dean of Hampton University's Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications.

Throughout the 1980s, Brown was instrumental in improving the outlook and atmosphere for African Americans in the academic world. He launched "Black College Day" in 1982, in what was called a one-man effort to save and support colleges dedicated to serving blacks. In 1985, he founded the Council for the Economic Development of Black Americans, whose motto is "Buy Freedom." The group's main platform is that blacks should patronize businesses displaying the "Freedom Seal," which signified a black owner who had agreed to be courteous, offer competitive prices, provide employment, give discounts, and stay involved in the community.

Brown's most inspired attempt to reach African Americans through the media came in 1988, when he released a cautionary film about cocaine abuse titled The White Girl. He wrote, directed, produced, and distributed the film himself, and while it was panned by the critics, it gave Brown a medium in which to address what he perceived as "two destructive trends in society: drug addiction and self-hate." Ignoring the negative reviews, he circulated the film throughout the black community for the next 18 months. Local groups showed it for a small profit, benefiting both Brown and charitable causes. (From Wikipedia)

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Book Reviews
(Some books have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)

In a meandering volume full of personal anecdotes and indirectly phrased advice, Brown uses himself as an informal case study to prove that self-empowerment is the key to success. The conviction was bred into him by the woman he called Mama: Elizabeth Sanford, who was not a relation, rescued him at the age of two months from near starvation and raised him as her own. And Brown (Black Lies, White Lies), host of PBS's Tony Brown's Journal, attributes his achieve-ments to the lessons he learned from her as a child. A poor, uneducated black Charleston maid, Sanford nonetheless instructed her adopted son in what she saw as life's fundamental values. In an atmosphere of unquestioning love she taught him to be true to himself, to invest in his abilities and to live joyfully. Brown participated in the early Civil Rights struggle with Martin Luther King, Jr., and soon decided that mass media was the best way to get his message across. A firm believer in black self-empowerment, he criticizes welfare and race-based college admission programs, and charges some black leaders with encouraging followers to victimize themselves and play the "racial blame game." Among other ideas, he recommends that African-Americans empower themselves by investing and spending money in their own communities. While not all will agree with his beliefs, many will enjoy his personal recollections of a childhood he spent with an inspiring woman.
Publishers Weekly

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Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

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A Stolen Life: A Memoir
Jaycee Dugard, 2011
Simon & Schuster
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451629187


Summary
In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.

For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse.

For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.

On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim. I survived.

A Stolen Life is my story—in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—May 3, 1980
• Raised —South Lake Tahoe, California, USA
• Education—elementary school
• Currently—lives in Northern California

The kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard occurred on June 10, 1991, when she was 11 years old. Dugard was abducted from a school bus stop within sight of her home in South Lake Tahoe, California. Searches began immediately after the kidnapping, but no reliable leads were generated. She remained missing for more than 18 years.

On August 25, 2009, convicted sex offender Phillip Craig Garrido visited the campus of UC Berkeley accompanied by two young girls. Their unusual behavior there sparked an investigation that led to his bringing the two girls to a parole office on August 26, accompanied by a woman who was then identified as Dugard.

Garrido, 58, and his wife Nancy Garrido, 54, of Antioch, California, were arrested for kidnapping and other charges; they pleaded guilty on April 28, 2011 to Dugard's kidnapping and sexual assault. Law enforcement officers believe Dugard was kept in a concealed area behind Garrido's house in Antioch for 18 years. During this time Dugard bore two daughters who were aged 11 and 15 at the time of her reappearance.

On June 2, 2011, Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 431 years' imprisonment; his wife received 36 years to life.  (From Wikipedia.)

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Book Reviews
There are novelists, most notably Emma Donoghue in Room, who have tried to imagine what a plight like this is like. There are tabloids that have capitalized on its obscenity. And there are far too many survivors of ghastly crimes who have told their stories in lurid terms laced with self-pity. But Ms. Dugard is different. Her book is brave, dignified and painstakingly honest, even when it comes to the banal particulars of how she stayed afloat.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


It's a tough read. But work through it, and you'll find more than the stomach-churning details that make you put it down the first night. This little memoir…was written plainly and simply by Dugard herself, without the help of a ghostwriter. And in that, it is powerful beyond its voyeurism…reading the experience in her own words is a revelation. It allows us to understand who [Dugard] was before she was snatched and how Garrido controlled her.
Petula Dvorak - Washington Post


A Stolen Life, gives a detailed account of Dugard’s despair and loneliness during her captivity. It also describes how Dugard came to depend on her kidnappers Phillip Garrido and wife Nancy....The book describes how Dugard, now 31, had to endure regular physical abuse from Garrido and how she managed to keep going despite repeatedly being raped by him.
Daniel Blake - Christian Post

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Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for A Stolen Life:

1. Why did Jaycee write her book? In the "Author's Note," she says...

[T]his book is my attempt to convey the overwhelming confusion I felt during those years and to begin to unravel the damage that was done to me and my family.

Do you think this memoir will help her? If so, in what way? For what other reasons might she have written A Stolen Life?

2. What effect do you think her book will have on the reading public—beneficial, prurient, neutral? What effect has it had on you? Why have you chosen to read Jaycee's memoir? Should younger girls read this memoir as a cautionary story...or should it be read by adults only?

3. Jaycee says of her confinement that "with time I grew used to all kinds of things." How would it be possible to grow used to such a horrific ordeal? Do you see her attitude as an acceptance, a shutting down, a giving up...or something else?

4. Talk about the birth of Jaycee's first daughter, the manner in which she gave birth, and how it changed her.

5. Parts of Jaycee's memoir contain graphic descriptions of her abuse at the hands of her captor. Why might she have included such frank passages? Are those descriptions a necessary part of her memoir? If so, why? If not, why not? Consider the words "rape," "molestation," and "abuse" and how frequently the are used in public discourse. As a society, do we understand those words? Does Jaycee's book help us gain a greater insight into the brutality behind those words?

6. Talk about Garrido. What is his sickness? Would you even describe it a sickness? Why did psychotherapy prove ineffective for him? Consider, also what angels mean to him.

7. In what way does Jaycee's relationship with Garrido change over the course of her 18-year captivity?

8. What is Jaycee's attitude toward her numerous pets? Do you find her concerns for their welfare ironic?

9. Do you find Jaycee an inspirational figure? Why or why not?

10. Jaycee was not allowed to use her real neame but forced to use the name, Allisa, given to her by Garrido. Why did he demand she put aside her true name? What is the significance of one's name?

11. How does our society, with all its law enforcement power and child abuse protections, allow someone like Garrido to continue operating? What do you make of the fact that police had visited Garrido's house 60 times during her captivity? What needs to be done?

12. Have you read Emma Donoghue's Room? If so, how do the two books compare?

13. What struck you most while reading Jaycee's account—what did you find most disturbing...surprising...or impressive? Also, what have you come away with after having read the book? Have you been changed in any way by this book?

14. Perhaps the most interesting question of all—how would YOU have survived Jaycee's ordeal? Or how would you have survived as her parent?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use it, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)h

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Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addition
David Sheff, 2008
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547203881


Summary
What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong? Those are the wrenching questions that haunted every moment of David Sheff ’s journey through his son Nic’s addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery. Before Nic Sheff became addicted to crystal meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings.

After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied, stole, and lived on the streets. David Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs: the denial, the 3 A.M. phone calls (is it Nic? the police? the hospital?), the rehabs. His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself, and the obsessive worry and stress took a tremendous toll. But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every avenue of treatment that might save his son and refused to give up on Nic.

Beautiful Boy is a fiercely candid memoir that brings immediacy to the emotional rollercoaster of loving a child who seems beyond help. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio 
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
• Education—University of California, Berkeley
• Currently—lives in Inverness, California


David Sheff’s books include Game Over, China Dawn, and All We Are Saying. His many articles and interviews have appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Wired, Fortune, and elsewhere. His piece for the New York Times Magazine, “My Addicted Son,” won an award from the American Psychological Association for “Outstanding Contribution to Advancing the Understanding of Addiction.” Sheff and his family live in Inverness, California (From the publisher.)

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Book Reviews 
On the long, crowded shelf of addiction memoirs Beautiful Boy is more notable for sturdiness and sense than for new insight.... [Still, it] does illustrate how the most clichéd insights into addiction can also be the most accurate. Nothing here is more succinct than what Nic’s little brother says when he tries to explain addiction. “It’s like in cartoons when some character has a devil on one shoulder,” the boy says, “and an angel on the other.”
Janet Maslin - New York Times


David describes his family's ordeal with a lucidity that will undoubtedly help many addicts and their families, providing not only a wealth of factual data but also the steadying assurance that they are not alone in their grief. He eloquently describes the sense of isolation and horror that accompanied his realization of what was happening to Nic, and the help David found in support groups.
Juliet Wittman - Washington Post


Expanding on his New York Times Magazine article, Sheff chronicles his son's downward spiral into addiction and the impact on him and his family. A bright, capable teenager, Nic began trying mind- and mood-altering substances when he was 17. In months, use became abuse, then abuse became addiction. By the time Sheff knew of his son's condition, Nic was strung out on meth, the highly potent stimulant. While his son struggles to get clean, his second wife and two younger children are pulled helplessly into the drama. Sheff, as the parent of an addict, cycles through denial and acceptance and resistance. The author was already a journalist of considerable standing when this painful story began to unfold, and his impulse for detail serves him personally as well as professionally: there are hard, solid facts about meth and the kinds of havoc it wreaks on individuals, families and communities both urban and rural. His journey is long and harrowing, but Sheff does not spare himself or anyone else from keen professional scrutiny any more than he was himself spared the pains—and joys—of watching a loved one struggling with addiction and recovery. Real recovery creates—and can itself be—its own reward; this is an honest, hopeful book, coming at a propitious moment in the meth epidemic.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) The book originated in a much-lauded New York Times Magazine article, which Sheff here expands in scope, sharing his and Nic's wisdom, missteps, and successes, and the lessons they learned. A must-read for, at the least, anyone in similar straits. —Donna Chavez
Booklist


"I'll be fine. I've stopped using." That lie is told again and again in this memoir of a father's heartbreaking struggle with his son's addiction to methamphetamines. The clearly charming and talented Nic first tried marijuana in high school and subsequently went through a decade of using, rehabilitation and relapse. Expanding on a 2005 article in the New York Times Magazine, journalist Sheff takes readers along on the grim roller-coaster ride. While on drugs, Nic leads a life of self-destruction, deception and crime. He breaks into the family home to steal money; he lies about where he is and what he is doing; he asks for help but refuses the terms on which it is offered. The effect on Sheff's family is devastating; trying to save his son and also protect his wife (not Nic's mother) and their two young children, the author suffers a near-fatal brain hemorrhage. He applies his research skills to learn everything possible about methamphetamine, what it does to the brain and what treatments are available. The hard truth is that no one really knows what works best in dealing with meth addiction, or even what doesn't work. He didn't cause Nic's addiction, Sheff comes to understand; he can't control it and he can't cure it. Eventually shifting his focus from Nic's recovery to his own, the author goes into therapy to get past his obsession with his son's problems. Whether Nic will recover remains an open question at the book's end, which offers a glimmer of hope, but no promises and no easy answers. A clear picture of what meth addiction does to a user and those who love him that may help other families better cope with this growing problem.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions 
1. In the New York Times Book Review, Janet Maslin wrote, “Addiction is a compulsion to do the same thing over and over, despite knowing that the outcome will almost certainly be the same. Addiction memoirs often illustrate this same definition of insanity…Yet the genre itself remains so addictive that readers keep hoping to discover something new.” Why are addiction memoirs so addictive? Why were you drawn to this one?

2. David Sheff writes that “drug stories are sinister” (p. 87). What does he mean by that? How are drug stories different than addiction memoirs, if at all?

3. In the introduction, Sheff writes, “I have felt and thought and done almost everything an addict’s parent can feel and think and do” (p. 13). Which of his experiences, thoughts, and actions were most affecting to you? Which could you relate to and which were totally foreign?

4. Sheff begins his story with the statement, “We are among the first generation of self-conscious parents. Before us, people had kids. We parent” (p. 20). What does it mean to parent, as opposed to just having kids? At the end, Sheff writes, “I wish I had gotten here quicker, but I couldn’t. If only parenting were easier” (p. 310). What does he learn about “parenting” over the course of the book?

5. Discuss Nic’s upbringing. What privileges did he have? What disadvantages? Did Sheff seem to you a “good parent”?

6. How does the integration of pop culture references—quotes from literature, song lyrics, movie dialogue—contribute to the book? Look particularly at what Sheff used as the epilogues to each section of the book: John Lennon, Kurt Cobain for Part I, Shakespeare for Part II, etc. Why might Sheff have chosen these particular passages? How do they help your understanding of events, and of Sheff’s mindset?

7. What is the extent of David Sheff’s own drug use? What is your philosophy of discussing drugs with kids? Would you be—or have you been—honest about your past with your own kids?

8. Discuss Nic’s descent. At what point do you think you would have noticed Nic had a serious problem and needed help? Were there times you disagreed with David Sheff’s course of action? What might you have done differently?

9. When David smoked pot with Nic, what was your reaction?

10. A friend of David’s expresses surprise at Nic’s addiction and says the Sheffs don’t seem like a dysfunctional family. Sheff responds, “We are dysfunctional.... I’m not sure I know any ‘functional’ families” (p. 14) How would you define a functional family? Which are the Sheffs? How you would describe your own family?

11. On page 195, Sheff explores the idea of what it means to have a “normal life,” concluding, “Now I live with the knowledge that, never mind the most modest definition of a normal or healthy life, my son may not make it to twenty-one.” How would you define a “normal life”? How do these socially-accepted definitions—a normal life, a functional family—contribute to, or hinder, Sheff’s ability to understand and accept his son’s situation? How have these definitions affected some of the decisions you’ve made about your own life?

12. In his suicide note, Kurt Cobain quoted Neil Young and wrote “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” When Sheff interview John Lennon, Lennon said, “I worship the people who survive. I’ll take the living and the healthy” (p. 118). Who do you agree with, Cobain or Lennon? Why does society glamorize those rock stars and other artists who burn out? Nic Sheff’s glamorization of alcoholics and drug-addicted artists ostensibly contributed to his own downfall. How should we counsel children and young adults on the dangers of idolizing such people?

13. As a journalist and someone with the means to do so, Sheff consults a wide variety of experts on the causes, effects, and treatment of addiction. What did you find most helpful? What else might be behind Sheff’s impulse to do more and more research?

14. Much of chapter 15 is devoted to the exploration of the disease of addiction. What is your understanding of addiction as a disease? Do you think of it as a behavioral or a brain disorder?

15. Many of the counselors and family members of addicts tell David and Karen, “Be allies. Remember, take care of yourselves. You’ll be good for no one—for each other, for your children—if you don’t” (p. 132). Do Karen and David take care of one another? Does David take care of himself?

16. A recovering addict tells Sheff, “You will believe in God before this over” (p. 133). Later, Sheff quotes John Lennon, “God is a concept by which we measure our pain” (p. 256). What does this last statement mean? How do David and Nic each come to believe in a higher power? Discuss their struggle with faith and their ultimate understanding of God.

17. After David Sheff suffers a cerebral hemorrhage, he can’t remember his own name, but he cannot forget Nic and his worry over his son. What is the extent of the damage of the hemorrhage? What good comes out of it?

18. What toll does Nic’s addiction take on Jasper and Daisy? How do David and Karen help them to understand their brother’s behavior?

19. At the end of his memoir, Sheff writes, “Now I am in my own program to recover from my addiction to [Nic’s addiction]” (p. 305). How is Sheff addicted to Nic’s addiction? How does David’s addiction affect his family, his job, and his life? What is his program for recovery?

20, Nic Sheff’s own memoir, Tweak, was published simultaneously with Beautiful Boy. Having only read the latter, would it surprise you to learn that Nic, during the height of his drug abuse, dealt drugs? That he prostituted himself for drug money? As a parent, do you think it would be worse knowing or not knowing such details? Think about what’s missing in David Sheff’s memoir and how that might have colored your interpretation of events.

21. When the book ends, Nic is once again in recovery. Are you left hopeful he will stay that way?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl, 1946
Beacon Press
165 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780807014295


Summary
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of those he treated in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.

At the time of Frankl's death in 1997, Man's Search for Meaning had sold more than 10 million copies in twenty-four languages. A 1991 reader survey by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club that asked readers to name a "book that made a difference in your life" found Man's Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio 
• Birth—March 26, 1905
• Where—Vienna, Austria
• Death—September 2, 1997
• Where—Austria, Austria
• Education—M.D., Ph.D., University of Vienna

Viktor E. Frankl was a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna Medical School until his death in 1997. His 29 books have been translated into 21 languages. During World War II, he spent three years as Auschwitz, Dachau, and other concentration camps. (From the publisher.)

More
Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form of Existential Analysis. His book Man's Search for Meaning (first published in 1946) chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic method of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most sordid ones, and thus a reason to continue living. He was one of the key figures in existential therapy.

Frankl was born in Vienna into a Jewish family of civil servants. His interest in psychology surfaced early. For the final exam in Gymnasium (secondary school), he wrote a paper on the psychology of philosophical thinking. After graduating from Gymnasium in 1923, he studied medicine at the University of Vienna and later specialized in neurology and psychiatry, concentrating on the topics of depression and suicide. He had personal contact with Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler.

1924 he became the president of the Sozialistische Mittelschüler Österreich. In this position he offered a special program to counsel students during the time they were to receive their grades. During his tenure, not a single Viennese student committed suicide. The success of this program grabbed the attention of the likes of Wilhelm Reich who invited him to Berlin.

From 1933 to 1937 he headed the so-called Selbstmörderpavillon, or "suicide pavilion", of the General Hospital in Vienna. Here, he treated over 30,000 women prone to suicide. Yet, starting in 1938, he was prohibited from treating Aryan patients due to his Jewish ethnicity.

He moved into private practice until starting work in 1940 at the Rothschild Hospital, where he headed its neurological department, and practiced as a brain surgeon. This hospital, at the time, was the only one in Vienna in which Jews were still admitted. Several times, his medical opinions saved patients from being euthanised via the Nazi euthanasia program. In December 1941 he married Tilly Grosser.

The Holocaust
On September 25, 1942 he, along with his wife and his parents were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Though assigned to ordinary labor details until the last few weeks of the war, Frankl (assisted by Dr. Leo Baeck and Regina Jonas among others) tried to cure fellow prisoners from despondency and prevent suicide.

He worked in the psychiatric care ward, headed the neurological clinic in block B IV, established and maintained a camp service of psychic hygiene and mental care for sick and those who were weary of life. Frankl also gave lectures on topics like "Sleep and Its Disturbances," "Body and Soul," and "Medical Care of Soul".

Since it was forbidden to actively intervene in a suicide attempt, such activity had to be both preventative and clandestine. Then, on October 19, 1944, he was transported to Auschwitz, and some days later to Türkheim, a concentration camp not far from Dachau where he arrived the 25th of October 1944. Meanwhile, his wife had been transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she died; his father and mother had been sent to Auschwitz from Theresienstadt and died there as well.

On April 27, 1945, Frankl was liberated by the Americans. Among his immediate relatives, the only survivor was his sister, who had escaped by emigrating to Australia.

It was due to his and others' suffering in these camps that he came to his hallmark conclusion that even in the most absurd, painful and dehumanized situation, life has potential meaning and that therefore even suffering is meaningful. This conclusion served as a strong basis for Frankl's logotherapy. Another important conclusion of Frankl was that...

...if a prisoner felt that he could no longer endure the realities of camp life, he found a way out in his mental life—an invaluable opportunity to dwell in the spiritual domain, the one that the SS were unable to destroy. Spiritual life strengthened the prisoner, helped him adapt, and thereby improved his chances of survival.

Liberated after three years of life in concentration camps, he returned to Vienna. During 1945 he wrote his world-famous book, known in English by the title Man's Search for Meaning. In this book, he described the life of an ordinary concentration camp inmate from the objective perspective of a psychiatrist.

Post-war
In 1946 he was appointed to run the Vienna Poliklinik of Neurology. He remained there until 1971. In 1947 he married his second wife Eleonore Katharina Schwindt. She gave birth to one daughter, Gabriele. In 1955 he was awarded a professorship of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna, and as visiting professor, he resided at Harvard University.

In the post-war years, Frankl published more than 32 books (many were translated into 10 to 20 languages) and is most notable as the founder of logotherapy. (Logos, λόγος, is Greek for word, reason, principle; therapy, Θεραπεύω, means I heal.) He lectured and taught seminars all over the world and received 29 honorary doctorate degrees. Frankl died September 2, 1997, in Vienna. (From Wikipedia.)

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Book Reviews 
(Older works have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. Check Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)

One of the great books of our time.
Harold S. Kushner (author, When Bad Things Happen to Good People)

One of the outstanding contributions to psychological thought in the last fifty years.
Carl R. Rogers (1959)

An enduring work of survival literature.
New York Times

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Discussion Questions 
1. What do you think Frankl’s views of religion are and how are these reflected through his experiences and/or theories?

2. Throughout the book, particularly Part One, Frankl does not identify himself as Jewish. Why do you think this is?

3. Explain Frankl’s theory of success. Do you agree or disagree with him?

4. What is "barbed wire sickness" (p. 7)?

5. What is the significance of Frankl’s reasons for staying in Austria?

6. Identify some "‘Frankl-isms"that you find inspirational or with which you identify.

7. According to Frankl, “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal.” What is does he mean by this paradox? How can you relate it to a time in your own life?

8. What is the "ultimate freedom" according to Frankl?

9. Frankl says that to be alive in the camp meant that one had lost his scruples: "The best of us did not return." What does he mean by this? How does the statement reflect life in the concentration camps during the Holocaust?

10. Why do you think that cigarettes and smoking were the last pleasures enjoyed before death? Why or how would they signal imminent death to other prisoners?

11. What were the "phase 1" reactions following entry into the concentration camp scene? What were the "“phase 2" reactions to being well-entrenched in the concentration camp routine?

12. What were the "phase 3" reactions to being released and liberated from a concentration camp? Explain your understanding of the gradual shift in reactions.

13. What do you think Frankl’s definition of love is? Does it fit into Frankl’s philosophy of existentialism?

14. How does Frankl’s wife give his life meaning?

15. Read pp. 37–41 passage about Frankl’s wife. How do these passages explain or exemplify the separation of the mind from the body?

Read p. 29 passage. Compare and contrast to this famous passage from Elie Wiesel’s Night:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

16. Talk about the passage on pp. 86–87 that questions the over-simplification of decent vs. indecent or good vs. evil among human beings in the Holocaust.

17. According to Frankl, how do suffering and death complete life and give it meaning?

18. Twice Frankl mentions the fear that "we were heading to Mauthausen." What does he mean?

19. What is Frankl’s advice to the hut/block for staying alive?

20. Explain how responsibility is a crucial component of logotherapy?

21. How does Frankl explain survival in the camps with regard to logotherapy?

22. Do you agree or disagree with Frankl that " mass neurotic syndrome" is pervasive in the young generation of today? How can it be combated through logotherapy then?

23. Regarding the movie analogy on p. 143: Discuss the relevance/analogy of this passage to your own life. Do you think that the movie analogy is a good example for Frankl’s view of existentialism?

24. How do you know if or when any single situation or event in your life has been actualized? How does this movie analogy force you to reflect upon your own life?

25. According to Frankl, what are the three main avenues for reaching meaning in life?
(Questions adapted from publishers.)

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