Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Nov 03, 2011

K.D. rated it:

The sun is slowly rising up ushering the dawning of a new day. The mother and the father are sipping their first cups of coffee. Their schooling children are rising up from their bed. The mother attends to her children’s daily routine. She bathes, feeds them their breakfast and makes sure that their things are all in their individual school bags. Para Kanino Ka Bumabangon? (translation: Whom Do You Wake Up For?) is heard as a voice over. This is Nestle’s TV ad for Nescafe coffee but it sends More...

11 comments like (26 people liked it)

Apr 16, 2009

Ben rated it:

Reading about the holocaust awakens me to the varying sides and degrees of human nature.

"Life in a concentration camp tore open the human soul and exposed its depths. Is it surprising that in those depths we again found only human qualities which in there very nature were a mixture of good and evil? The rift dividing good from evil, which goes through all human beings, reaches into the lowest depths and becomes apparent even on the bottom of the abyss which is laid open by the More...

5 comments like (21 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2008

Emily rated it:

After the Book of Mormon, this would be my second recommendation to anyone looking for purpose in life.

Here's a poignant excerpt from one of my favorite parts of the book when Frankl has been in Auschwitz and other camps for several years and doesn't know the war is only weeks away from ending. He had decided to escape his camp near Dachau with a friend and was visiting some of his patients for the last time.

"I came to my only countryman, who was almost dying, and More...

8 comments like (20 people liked it)

Jul 28, 2011

Stephanie rated it:

The three stars are for the first section of this book, which I loved. I was really drawn in by Frankl's descriptions of his experiences and thoughts during the Holocaust. It was interesting to hear his professional thoughts alongside his memories and it was quite a page turner. This was an interesting memoir as it was effective, giving an insight into the horrific happenings and the emotional impact that the Holocaust had, without being extremely personal - it almost had a sense of detachment. More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2012

Frank rated it:

After I read this book, which I finished many, many years ago, I had become self-critical of any future endeavours which would take up a lot of my time. I would ask myself "is this or will this be meaningful to me?", and if the answer was "no", I wouldn't do it. It was this book that influenced me to consciously live as meaningful a life as possible, to place a great value on the journey and not just the destination, while knowing that "meaningful" doesn't always me More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 20, 2009

Luann rated it:

Powerful. A must-read for those interested in reading about the holocaust. I felt guilty reading while eating my lunch.

This is also a wonderful book for putting your own life experiences and suffering into perspective. I especially liked his theories about responsibility - that we are all responsible for our own choices and for finding meaning in our life.

I wouldn't have been nearly as interested in the second half, "Logotherapy in a Nutshell" and "The C More...

9 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2011

Riku rated it:

For most of the book, I felt as dumbfounded as I would have been if I were browsing through a psychiatric journal. Filled with references and technical terms and statistics, it was mostly a book-long affirmation of the then innovative technique called 'logo-therapy'. I do not understand how this book is still relevant and found in most popular book stores. It might have been that the book was popular in the sixties and seventies as it offered a powerful and logical argument against the reduction More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 15, 2011

Laurel rated it:

I read this book for the first time during my senior year in high school. The year prior, I had gone to Germany for spring break with some fellow classmates. During the trip, we spent a day visiting a former WWII concentration camp in Dachau. As one might expect, this visit had a profound affect on me. I had of course read and knew about the atrocities that occurred under the Nazi regime, but to actually see the gas chambers in person is a deeply haunting and disturbing experience. Perhaps for t More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Sep 20, 2008

booklady rated it:

Throughout history humanity has always been in search of purpose and meaning to our existence on this earth. One of the oldest jokes in the world is the young person asking the ancient one, “What is the meaning of life?” and receiving some sort of reply like, “If you find out, you let me know, okay?!”

Viktor Frankl’s classic work was originally written in 1945 and published in 1959. I own a 1984 paperback edition of the book which had already been through seventy-three editions in Eng More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 14, 2011

Wendyslc rated it:

Reading this book in high school changed my life. I grew up in an abusive home and was in constant survival mode. After reading this book I realized that I had a choice. I could let my circumstances dictate my attitude or I could choose my attitude, which could then change my circumstances.

Becoming an adult is the hardest thing we ever do. Being an adult means accepting responsibility for your thoughts, actions and character. I realized that I can choose my thoughts and actions rega More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Mar 02, 2009

Yulia rated it:

This is a life-changing book that I'll be rereading regularly and giving copies to those I hope can benefit from it. The book is divided into two parts, the first describing the typical experience of prisoners in concentration camps and the second introducing the practice of logotherapy.

His experiences in concentration camps showed him three main stages of reaction experienced by the prisoners. First, they went through a period of shock at their situation, followed quickly by a se More...

7 comments like (5 people liked it)

Oct 07, 2007

Elyssa rated it:

I have read this book many, many times. These are the words I live by. If I was told that I could only own one book for the rest of my life, this would be it.

Viktor Frankl's harrowing testimony of surviving in a concentration camp seems incomprehensible. Even more unbelievable is the attitude he adopts during his struggle as he remains apart from his family, starving, cold, and forced to perform hard labor with no relief in sight. Through it all, he decides that even though his body More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 06, 2012

Khalid rated it:

This book could not be added or compared to any other book. it stood still in its kind. Dr. Frankl gives illumination on human behavior in a way that might surprise many. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in psychology in general.

14 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2011

Darla rated it:

I have had this book on my shelves for years- at least a decade, but it wasn’t until my “non-fiction” book group selected it last month that I was finally spurred to read it. What took me so long? I have no idea, though I found so much significant to modern life between its pages, all my dog-earing has made it look a third larger than its one hundred seventy-nine pages.

Dr. Frankl, a trained psychotherapist and contemporary of Freud and Adler in Austria, was a prisoner of the Nazi dea More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Aug 14, 2008

Cortney rated it:

There must be something wrong with me. This is a book that everyone is supposed to love. But I didn't. I didn't even like it. I only gave it three stars because I would have felt like a first class jerk giving it only two stars.

Here's the thing- I love WWII stories- The Hiding Place, Anne Frank, etc. But Man's Search for Meaning had no emotion in it. It was so clinical and frankly quite boring.

The first section- Experiences in a Concentration Camp- was ok, but as I said, More...

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Apr 15, 2008

Shannon rated it:

I love questions, just for that feeling I get when I find an answer. This is one of those books that answered questions long present in my mind. Even if it doesn't answer things straight out, but leads me on a train of thought where I come to a conclusion.
I was reading about the meaning of life, which is to me to fulfill a life mission God assigned to me, and make choices now that lead me there. Missions are self-sacrificing, giving yourself to the benefit and service of others. In o More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Oct 19, 2007

Rick rated it:

It seems odd to give only three stars to such a powerful and moving account of life in a concentration camp. In fact, if the book consisted of only the first part (of his account of life in Nazi concentration camps) I would likely give it 5 stars. Unfortunately, his Intro to Logotherapy was less enjoyable. While it adds a necessary spiritual dimension to theoretical discussions of clinical work, I found it lacking as a stand-alone theory. Overall, though, I highly recommend reading it, espec More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2009

Ed rated it:

I have read this book more than a few times. Reading it this time was like reading it for the first time.

I am now 71 and I believe the last time I read it I was in my early fifties. My outlook has changed considerably in the intervening years so I gained different insights from Frankl's story this time through.

It is an incredible story not only because he survived 3+ years in the Nazi Death Camps but because he was able to learn something from the experience.

The More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Andrew rated it:

Viktor Frankl's entire family was murdered by the Nazis while he himself endured years of abject torment in a concentration camp under conditions so horrible it defies description. This puts in stark perspective the rancorous recriminations I unleash on a hostile and uncaring universe every time I cannot locate my keys.

Life has its ups and downs, but neither I nor anyone reading this will ever find themselves as down as Frankl did. I'm in danger of making a flippant understatement w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

nik rated it:

Have you ever been in a situation wherein unreasonable suffering seems the only task left in your life that suicide seems to be a very reasonable option? Have you ever thought that living only extends the misery and torment you've already took? Have you felt the vacuum of meaningless suffering sucking the life out of you like a black hole? Have you ever thought that breathing is a disease and only death can cure it? If yes, then you haven't read this book.

The meaning of life … Many More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Oct 07, 2011

Gregory rated it:

This book is a book of realistic optimism. Victor E. Frankl explores the existential nihilism found in much of the world today, especially in our Post Modern thought. Sophists would claim that there is no meaning in the world. It is easy to buy yourself an existential vaccum, but it sucks up all meaning.

But what then? What would Daryl Hannah do? Atlas holds the world but who holds Atlas? And if Atlas stands on-top of turtles than who is the squashed turtle on the bottom of t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 23, 2011

Johnnee rated it:

While vacationing in Brooklyn, a girl whose lent me her couch to sleep on called me a hippie for reading this book. I panicked and tried to convince her, and myself, that I was NOT a dirty hippie. I don't smoke pot, or listen to jam bands, or even love everybody. At the same time, this book really is intensively self-reflective. Frankl's Logotherapy is a great response to life in my opinion, and his philosophy has a lot of value that you can take with you after you're done reading. This book is More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 11, 2011

Michelle rated it:

I had heard about this book for years prior to stumbling upon it at a local bookstores but despite the wonderful reviews it received, I had always dismissed it as your typical "holocaust" story. In "Man's Search for Meaning", Frankl recounts his years in the concentration camp but he also focuses on the collective experience of the prisoners rather than only on his own tale. Told in an honest and surprisingly courageous tone, this book not only captures the extent/depth of h More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2011

Tenderine rated it:

Paradoxical intention should be really helpful now that I know such thing exists. In fact, I presume all of us have experienced it ourselves. For example, in cases of sleep disturbance. Have you ever noticed you find it harder to fall asleep when you need to do that? I actually watched hours go by while I tried to make myself fall asleep. Apparently, all you have to do is try to keep yourself awake, then and only then you'll be able to actually sleep. Isn't it fascinating? And childish. Remember More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 18, 2009

Cindy rated it:

Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist and neurologist who was also a survivor of a concentration camp. This book describes his experiences and the philosophy/analysis he developed, partly based on his experiences, called logotherapy. It's like two short books in one.

I loved the first half. He doesn't write much about his arrest or his family, but he does describe the emotional and mental state of those who had been arrested. He came to see that those who survived - at least survived the s More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 30, 2008

Bobby rated it:

I had read parts of this book before years ago, but finally got around to the whole thing, from beginning to the end. And now I'm sorry I waited so long! Written in 1946 by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian Psychiatrist and Neurologist, the book consists of two parts. The first part is Dr Frankl's experiences in Nazi concentration camps and his discussion of the psyche of the prisoners. The second part briefly details the basic foundation of the therapy that Dr Frankl invented (called logotherapy) base More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 21, 2008

Emily rated it:

I am going to cheat. I have two pages left. I doubt I'll change my mind after those two pages.

I feel bad not really loving a book by a holocaust survivor. The poor guy went through a lot and now he has to withstand my book review. Oh, except that he is dead. Do they have goodreads in heaven?

I was just bored by the book. As a child my mom never let us be bored. Well, technically we just could not say that we were bored. If we were bored we had to find something t More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 28, 2009

Jeffrey rated it:

This classic has been around for some time, selling some 12 million copies in the process. This new updated re-release is a testament to its selling power (June 14th 2006 (first published 2004) by Beacon Press).

But what makes it such a hot seller? Even though its title alludes to its content, it's more of a concentration camp testimonial / memoir and psychiatric exposition than philosophical pondering on man's search for meaning. However, even though this topic is not explored in qu More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 23, 2008

Kates rated it:

"For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater that oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other that oneself."

"An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior."

"The camp inmate was frightened of making decisions and of taking any sort of initiative whatsoever. This was the result of a strong feeling that fat More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 26, 2008

Patrick rated it:

This book is a philosophical/psychological treatise filled with some truly excellent insights, but even despite it's extremely short length (my edition was only 211 pages including a very lengthy bibliography) it presented something of a challenge to me from an aesthetic standpoint. Simply put, Frankl is not a great storyteller, even when one would assume his subject matter--his own experiences as a Holocaust survivor--is gripping material by its very nature.

Approximately the firs More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)