Book cover of The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Mid-Life

Book description

Author James Hollis' eloquent reading provides the listener with an accessible and yet profound understanding of a universal condition - or what is commonly referred to as the mid-life crisis. The book shows how we may travel this Middle Passage consciously, thereby rendering our lives more meaningful and the second…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Middle Passage as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love the opening quote in this book. I’ve never, ever forgotten it since I turned the first page. It’s a quote from Dante’s Inferno: “Midway through life’s journey, I found myself lost in a dark wood, having lost the way.”

That’s exactly where I found myself when I started reading this book. Like millions of other people, I was lost when I found it. I was looking for someone or something–wiser than meto help me recognize that what I was going through in early midlife is actually a very normal, perhaps essential part of life’s journey.

This is the best book ever written about the midlife crisis. Although only 117 pages long, it is dense with meaning, and multiple readings are necessary to truly get the most out of it. Hollis is a Zurich-trained Jungian analyst whose thought is permeated by Jung’s theories. His writing is very beautiful and often literary. He draws from psychology, poetry, art, his own practical experience, and much more. Hollis elucidates the difference between a job and a vocation, explains the relationship between fear and growth, shows how solitude differs from loneliness, and above all, gives us the best map to…

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