Book of the Month – December 2020 : 21 Letters on Life and its Challenges

21 Letters on Life and Its Challenges
Great Gift – may well be Handy’s last published work

Wisdom in 21 Letters
One word describes the essence of this excellent book ‘wisdom’. It’s a result of an accumulation of decades of experience and reflection. It’s a book that all ambitious people – young and old – should read as it will help them understand how we as individuals grow, learn and adapt to our changing circumstances. The one insight from this book that I wish I’d known at the start of my career – and life – is that “learning is experience understood in tranquillity”.

Wonderful
I write as a long term admirer of Handy’s work and having read almost all of his previous works.
Charles Handy, in both style and content, comes across as an immensely kind, wise and likeable sage. He’s just a joy to read. He has such foresight and if you read the books he wrote decades ago you will think he owned a crystal ball.
This book does refer back to some of that earlier work but is equally readable and useful to someone who has never read his earlier work.
And it’s simply wonderful. As a 57 year old, I found it useful, relevant and most of all deeply moving. But I so wish it had been written 30 or 40 years ago. I am going to buy it for my all three of my daughters and whoever they marry. In a world full of platitudinous crap, I honestly think that these lessons will, if absorbed, lead them to have happier, fuller lives. It’s not rocket science, but its honest, wise and deeply sincere.
This may well be Handy’s last published work. If so, it will be a fitting and worthy bookend to a lifetime of valuable thinking.