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This was incredible. It was bought for my wife by a good friend of ours about 12 years ago and sat on the book shelf for as long.

The timing was good for me as the spiritual elements of the book tie in nicely with some of my philosophical meanderings right now.

“I dance when ever I can, but music only exists because the pauses exist, and sentences only exist because the blank spaces exist. When I'm doing something, I feel complete, but no one can keep active twenty-four hours a day. As soon as I stop, I feel there's something lacking. You've often said to me that I'm a naturally restless person, but I didn't choose to be that way. I'd like to sit here quietly, watching television, but I can't. My brain won't stop. Sometimes I think I'm going mad. I need always to be dancing, writing, selling land, taking care of Viorel, or reading whatever I find to read. Do think that's normal?”

I'm utterly blown away by this book. It explains way better than I ever could the exact philosophy I wrote about drunkenly to my now wife back when I was coming to understand my alcoholism and my relationship to my higher power.

This book had me mesmerised from start to finish. Some of the imagery is incredibly moving, particularly the war scenes. This is a fascinating collection of pictures and posters from an important period in European history. Stalin's rise to power was well covered and gave a real insight into his rise and paranoia. Anyone with even a passing interest in this region will find this book fascinating I'm quite sure. As it says in one of the testimonials, buy two—one for yourself and one to give away. I was going to give my copy to a friend when I was done, but I want to keep mine so I'll have to buy another for him.

Just finished and still mulling it over. On the whole I enjoyed it a lot. It was helped by listening to the author's narration; at several points you could tell he was getting emotional and that added to the impact of his words. It's just a pity that he veered off into gender politics in the Rule 11 chapter—Do Not Bother Children when they are Skateboarding. It's not that I don't disagree with him, it's that it seemed to stand out as not quite in keeping with the chapter heading and he was just looking for somewhere to slot in his views. It didn't quite fit. I did, as a former skater, enjoy listening to him describing the street skating around Toronto or wherever it was!

The highest impact moment for me was in Rule 7—Pursue what is Meaningful (Not what is Expedient). It moved me to tears and prompted me to send a screenshot to a friend that I think would get a lot of out of this chapter if not the whole book.

This is probably the book I've got the most highlights in this year. So much stood out to me as being meaningful and worth returning to. His adherence to the bible fits with my current worldview and philosophy, as too does his love of Dostoyevsky. As for Solzhenitsyn, I've had Gulag Archipelago on my TBR for a while now and have bumped it up for a definite read in 2025. I have the nice hardcover anniversary edition.

The more anecdotal parts of the book really helped to keep me engaged, like when he talked about his friend Chris (RIP) or went through the horrific story of his daughter's health issues.

Will I follow up with Beyond Order? Honestly, I feel like diving straight in to keep it going, otherwise it'll slip down the TBR and possibly right off the bottom.

And now I'm off to read some more reviews to learn why I'm wrong. Ha ha.

Mildly interesting.