City Travel Guides
Home Page > Go back a page
Books : The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
Search Books - select a category
See Larger Image |
The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club) by: Sidney Poitier List Price: CDN$ 18.99 City Travel Guides Price: CDN$ 13.86 You Save: CDN$5.13 (27%)Prices subject to change. |
|
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 791.43028092 EAN: 9780061357909 ISBN: 0061357901 Label: HarperSanFrancisco Manufacturer: HarperSanFrancisco Number Of Pages: 272 Publication Date: January 15, 2007 Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Release Date: January 26, 2007 Studio: HarperSanFrancisco Sales Rank: 1569 Related Items:
Related Items:      see moreBrowse for similar items by category:
Editorial Review: From Amazon.com: Sidney Poitier wrote The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography because he "felt called to write about certain values, such as integrity and commitment, faith and forgiveness, about the virtues of simplicity, about the difference between 'amusing ourselves to death' and finding meaningful pleasures--even joy." Yet Poitier's book does not speak from on high; its tone is conversational and endearingly self-critical. He begins the first chapter by recounting an evening spent channel-surfing and wondering, as most of us do at one time or another, "What am I doing with my time?" The spiritual reflections in The Measure of a Man are nonsectarian; Poitier's faith is clearly influenced by his experience in Christian churches, but he is not, strictly, Christian. Though idiosyncratic, his faith is disciplined and rigorous, informed by leaders as diverse as Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Poitier's love--for himself, his family, and the world--infuses his recollections of his early life on Cat Island in the Bahamas and his memories of his stage and film career (including his Oscar-winning role in Lilies of the Field). Poitier has been rich and poor; he has been popular and despised; and his extremely varied experiences have made him a wise man, as he demonstrates with statements like this one: "[W]hat we do is stay within the context of what's practical, what's real, what dreams can be fashioned into reality, what values can send us to bed comfortably and make us courageous enough to face our end with character." Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Spend a few hours with a culture icon of the 60s.Sidney Poitier has led an extraordinary life that took him from his family centered agricultural life on a remote Bahamas island to the center of American Culture in the turbulent 60s. Along the journey, he learned many lessons as he lived his various personal and professional adventures. This book is about these lessons and how they reconnected him with his roots and with his family. The book is more a pleasant conversation than an essay. The lessons have no pretense of great discovery, but that probably makes them more valuable by their simplicity. You do not need to agree with all his spiritual reflections to get good value from a few hours spent contemplating the ideas and beliefs of a culture icon. Rating:  - Book Club ReviewOn the whole the book was great and Sydney Poitier is an amazing man. We found the book went in circles a bit and were not sure what his point was once we got near the end of the book. Rating: - A good book by a wonderful actorIn my spare time I don't read a lot of biography books but because it's Sidney Poitier I had to have it. After reading this up I found it to be pretty good but a bit dry in certain areas nevertheless informative along the way. This book does give us incredible journey of his life and he doesn't take credit for who he is, but gives credit to his Creator, his parents and who gave him a hand-up along the way. In this autobiography you learn what Sidney was thinking and feeling through the span of his life. From growing up on Cat Island and not having any of our modern day conveniences to Nassau, to Miami, and New York. He shares with us his thoughts and feelings and reasons why he made the decisions he did. Personally, I would love ... Read More: Rating:  - How a man should handle himselfWhen all is said and done, all we really have to define us is how we presented ourselves while on this earth. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. Along with this, find The Convention by Jeff Travis. Very spiritual book about extreme bravery. Excellent read as well. Rating: - Like the man---like the bookNormally one to read strictly fiction such as "The Time Traveler's Wife" or "Life of Pi," I instead chose this excellent book by Mr. Poitier. Glad I did. I'm always hesitant to read this type of thing, thinking that either it won't be well written or that some ghost writer will have eeked out all the good stuff and edited out the "real" things. Not so, this book. Mr. Poitier is all over it and his honest and pulls-no-punches book is just the thing for those interested in not only Hollywood and its workings but more so of the man himself. |
|