Status
Available
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Collection
Publication
Beacon Press (2017), Edition: Reprint, 192 pages
Description
A young readers' edition of the best-selling classic about the Holocaust and finding meaning in suffering, with a photo insert, a glossary of terms, a chronology of Frankl's life, and supplementary letters and speeches The Library of Congress called it "one of the ten most influential books in America"; the New York Times pronounced it "an enduring work of survival literature"; and O, The Oprah Magazine praised it as "one of the most significant books of the twentieth century." Man's Search for Meaning has long riveted readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. This new young readers' edition brings a beloved classic to a new generation of readers, offering a universal tribute to coping with suffering and finding one's purpose. An abridged text of the original book (emphasizing Frankl's personal story, while omitting some material on his psychological theory of logotherapy) is presented here, along with supplemental materials that vividly bring Frankl's story to life, and a foreword by prominent young adult author John Boyne. Man's Search for Meaning: A Young Readers' Edition will help readers ages twelve to eighteen grasp Frankl's enduring lessons on perseverance and strength with clarity and depth.… (more)
Awards
Sydney Taylor Book Award (Mass Import -- Pending Differentiation)
Language
User reviews
LibraryThing member EllinPollachek
Man’s Search for Meaning
In September 1942, Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, his wife, sister, brother and parents were deported from their home in Vienna, Austria to the Nazi Theresienstadt Ghetto in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. In July 1944, Frankl and his wife Tilly were transported to Auschwitz
As a prisoner, Frankl provides an existential accounting of his life in the camps. He tells the reader of the stages he and the other prisoners went through. Frankl's narrative is unemotional and still he manages to communicate the horrors of everyday life. Man's Search for Meaning is different than other books about the holocaust because he saw it through the lens of a psychiatrist. Frankl wanted to figure out why the prisoners behaved in the ways that they did and what, despite the most horrific conditions gave them the will to live. In contrast, why did other prisoners simply give up?
For Frankl, work was important; not the kind of work forced upon him by the guards but the kind of work for which he was trained. When the commanders at the camps learned he was a doctor Frankl was asked to attend to the sick. When they discovered he was a psychiatrist, he was sent around to console potential suicides.
Meanwhile, he was in the same situation as everyone else, taking warm clothes from the dead, looking through their pockets for a piece of bread they hadn't eaten and being beaten by the guards.
Frankl discovered that there are stages to giving up and there are stages to taking back their humanity. When the shock of their lives turned to apathy and then despair the suicidal thoughts began to set in. Despair was brought about by living in the future. If a prisoner spent his time thinking about the day when he would be freed, eventally despair would set in. It had to. No one imagined three or four years of this. Better yet, think of it as 1,460 days of a daily ration of 5 oz. of bread and single bowl watery soup. This was the ration for a man of 6 ft. who now weighed 100 or 115 lbs. and expected to work shoeless and coatless for 10-12 hour days in below freezing temperatures or, in summer, 100 degree heat. One day down,1,459 to go.
Living in the future is a hopeless task. Living in the present, owning one's life, acknowledging the horror may not provide the sense of euphoria that fantasy does but it forces one live in reality. Living in hope, how many days before despair was the only reality? Two hundred? Four hundred? A thousand?
Living in reality provided the prisoner with the right to feel triumphant and in that triumph, Frankl reminds us, man always has a choice.
“Life” does not mean something vague, but
ss something very real and man's destiny,which
different for each individual....Every
situation is distinguished by its uniqueness,
there is always only one right answer to
the problem posed by the situation at hand.
p. 81
The answer is the same as the title of Spike Lee's film: Do The Right Thing.
There were CAPO's (prisoners who were given power to watch over other prisoners) who were more cruel than the SS Officers and there were some SS who actually tried to be kind. And so Frankl concluded that there are only two races of people: the decent and the indecent. It all comes down to that.
In addition to introducing Viktor Frankl's work to a new generation, The relevance of Man’s Search For Meaning is not just to introduce a new generation to this brilliant man’s work but to introduce a new generation to ways of looking at the many, many problems they encounter in this unexplored world of social media, global tensions and stress-related illnesses from which our young people are not immune.
Statistics reveal that 150,000 teens suffer from self-inflicted wounds and 5,000 teens commit suicide each year.
Man’s Search for Meaning is not just for the young reader. It should be mandatory reading for every adult out there.
Man's Search For Meaning sold 10 million books and had been translated into 24 languages when Frankl died in 1997.
In addition to John Boyne’s Foreword and William J. Winslade’s Afterword, there is an abridged essay on Frankl’s Logotherapy and photographs.
In September 1942, Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, his wife, sister, brother and parents were deported from their home in Vienna, Austria to the Nazi Theresienstadt Ghetto in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. In July 1944, Frankl and his wife Tilly were transported to Auschwitz
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(despite the fact that they were transported together, men and women were kept in separate camps) and, a few days later he was transported to Kaufering, a camp affiliated with Dachau. Six months later he was sent to a rest camp until April, 1945 when American soldiers liberated the camp. Viktor Frankl and his sister Stella were the only two to survive the camps.As a prisoner, Frankl provides an existential accounting of his life in the camps. He tells the reader of the stages he and the other prisoners went through. Frankl's narrative is unemotional and still he manages to communicate the horrors of everyday life. Man's Search for Meaning is different than other books about the holocaust because he saw it through the lens of a psychiatrist. Frankl wanted to figure out why the prisoners behaved in the ways that they did and what, despite the most horrific conditions gave them the will to live. In contrast, why did other prisoners simply give up?
For Frankl, work was important; not the kind of work forced upon him by the guards but the kind of work for which he was trained. When the commanders at the camps learned he was a doctor Frankl was asked to attend to the sick. When they discovered he was a psychiatrist, he was sent around to console potential suicides.
Meanwhile, he was in the same situation as everyone else, taking warm clothes from the dead, looking through their pockets for a piece of bread they hadn't eaten and being beaten by the guards.
Frankl discovered that there are stages to giving up and there are stages to taking back their humanity. When the shock of their lives turned to apathy and then despair the suicidal thoughts began to set in. Despair was brought about by living in the future. If a prisoner spent his time thinking about the day when he would be freed, eventally despair would set in. It had to. No one imagined three or four years of this. Better yet, think of it as 1,460 days of a daily ration of 5 oz. of bread and single bowl watery soup. This was the ration for a man of 6 ft. who now weighed 100 or 115 lbs. and expected to work shoeless and coatless for 10-12 hour days in below freezing temperatures or, in summer, 100 degree heat. One day down,1,459 to go.
Living in the future is a hopeless task. Living in the present, owning one's life, acknowledging the horror may not provide the sense of euphoria that fantasy does but it forces one live in reality. Living in hope, how many days before despair was the only reality? Two hundred? Four hundred? A thousand?
Living in reality provided the prisoner with the right to feel triumphant and in that triumph, Frankl reminds us, man always has a choice.
“Life” does not mean something vague, but
ss something very real and man's destiny,which
different for each individual....Every
situation is distinguished by its uniqueness,
there is always only one right answer to
the problem posed by the situation at hand.
p. 81
The answer is the same as the title of Spike Lee's film: Do The Right Thing.
There were CAPO's (prisoners who were given power to watch over other prisoners) who were more cruel than the SS Officers and there were some SS who actually tried to be kind. And so Frankl concluded that there are only two races of people: the decent and the indecent. It all comes down to that.
In addition to introducing Viktor Frankl's work to a new generation, The relevance of Man’s Search For Meaning is not just to introduce a new generation to this brilliant man’s work but to introduce a new generation to ways of looking at the many, many problems they encounter in this unexplored world of social media, global tensions and stress-related illnesses from which our young people are not immune.
Statistics reveal that 150,000 teens suffer from self-inflicted wounds and 5,000 teens commit suicide each year.
Man’s Search for Meaning is not just for the young reader. It should be mandatory reading for every adult out there.
Man's Search For Meaning sold 10 million books and had been translated into 24 languages when Frankl died in 1997.
In addition to John Boyne’s Foreword and William J. Winslade’s Afterword, there is an abridged essay on Frankl’s Logotherapy and photographs.
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LibraryThing member michaelg16
While I must applaud any edition of this remarkable book, I am unclear why a "young adult" version is warranted. Could there be a more accessible and readable account of the horrors of the concentration camp? The book is amazing and the author admirable beyond comment. Perhaps there is a fear that
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the young reader of today would be daunted by the philosophical and psychological fullness of the original. Regardless, this is a fine edition with an approachable presentation and a wonderful introduction and apparatus. Show Less
LibraryThing member Leano
I am not sure what I expected when I picked up this book, but I did not expect memories and observations of life in a concentration camp by a survivor who happened to be a psychologist. It was a good read—some of the thoughts just hit like a ton of bricks and cannot be escaped. The tone was
One point the author made was very timely (even though he died several years ago). He said he strongly believed that the Statue of Liberty on our east coast should have a counterpart on the wet coast: the Statue of Responsibility. I found that an interesting opinion from someone who had suffered so much. He had even mentioned the difficulty that some survivors experienced as they tried to reenter society: that some carried a grudge—felt that they were owed everything because of everything that had been taken from them. He felt that despite their anger they were not beyond “repair”. He talked about how each person decides how happy or unhappy he shall be and that the decision hinged upon whether the person “wants” or whether he “gives”. The idea was that people who live for the good of others have “purpose” and that “purpose” is the meaning that we unwittingly search for. The Statue of Responsibility would be the reminder that we need to look outside ourselves.
It was mentioned that this is required reading for high school and college and there are numerous ideas that could be explored, but it is thought provoking for everyone.
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almost off the cuff, but the material was chilling. One quite casual remark just haunts me; the author said that the people who survived were not “the best among us”. He talked about a shell that prisoners had to develop; that they needed dehumanizing blinders in order to survive the horrors they saw daily—the people who clung to their humanity did not live long. Scary stuff.One point the author made was very timely (even though he died several years ago). He said he strongly believed that the Statue of Liberty on our east coast should have a counterpart on the wet coast: the Statue of Responsibility. I found that an interesting opinion from someone who had suffered so much. He had even mentioned the difficulty that some survivors experienced as they tried to reenter society: that some carried a grudge—felt that they were owed everything because of everything that had been taken from them. He felt that despite their anger they were not beyond “repair”. He talked about how each person decides how happy or unhappy he shall be and that the decision hinged upon whether the person “wants” or whether he “gives”. The idea was that people who live for the good of others have “purpose” and that “purpose” is the meaning that we unwittingly search for. The Statue of Responsibility would be the reminder that we need to look outside ourselves.
It was mentioned that this is required reading for high school and college and there are numerous ideas that could be explored, but it is thought provoking for everyone.
Show Less
LibraryThing member FCClibraryoshkosh
Usually when a classic is remade for young people it is watered down and material is taken away; but with Man's Search for Meaning: Young Adult Edition, there is more to the story as we not only see the psychologist Viktor Frankl survive the horrors of the concentration camp but also waht happened
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to him afterward. It is in turns, horrorifying and beautiful. The photographs ground the story in hard, painful reality while his words find ways to still find life worth living. Show Less
LibraryThing member Shadow123
This is an excellent book. I'd even go so far as to recommend this young readers edition over the original. The main text, the memoir of Frankl's experiences in the concentration camps, is left intact. Only the logotherapy text at the end is abridged (and thankfully so, as it's useful in its
This memoir is different from other popular Holocaust survivor memoirs because Frankl goes deeper into the questions about why people acted the way they did and the various effects of the war on the human psyche.
Highly recommend.
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unabridged form only to those studying the history of psychology).This memoir is different from other popular Holocaust survivor memoirs because Frankl goes deeper into the questions about why people acted the way they did and the various effects of the war on the human psyche.
Highly recommend.
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LibraryThing member kristincedar
I received this book as a part of ER, and I haven't read the original version. While I appreciate the pared down, easy to read version, I also worry that Frankl's work would be diminished. Anytime we can get this powerful book into people's hands, I'll take it, however, let's make sure we read the
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original work too. Show Less
ISBN
0807067997 / 9780807067994