Bach, Richard "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"

Bach, Richard "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" - 1970

This book was published more than 40 years ago and I remember reading it almost immediately. I was a teenager at the time and was very interested in everything spiritual, anything that contributed to world and inner peace. This book was just the right one. Jonathan Livingston is a seagull who is not happy with his life, with all the other seagulls always fighting. He tries to do something better, he wants to be the best flying seagull. Then he meets two other seagulls who want to take him to a higher place, a kind of paradise. He learns a lot about the meaning of life which he teaches to his fellow seagulls when he returns.

I loved this book. I loved it even more when Neil Diamond wrote a soundtrack to the movie they made from this story. I don't remember the movie all that well but as a huge Neil Diamond fan, I do remember his music. Very well. It might have to do with the fact that I bought the CD (well, first the vinyl, later the CD) but I doubt it, his music is just fantastic.

The novel is very positive yet very thought-provoking. And it's still very meaningful today. It advises us not to put people in a box, to keep an open mind.

From the back cover:

"This is a story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules...people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, even if only for themselves...people who know there's more to this living than meets the eye: they'll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than ever they dreamed.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is no ordinary bird. He believes it is every gull's right to fly, to reach the ultimate freedom of challenge and discovery, finding his greatest reward in teaching younger gulls the joy of flight and the power of dreams. The special 20th anniversary release of this spiritual classic!"