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Diaries and Letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Against Wind and Tide: Letters and Journals, 1947-1986
Why, as an eager and talented writer, has Anne Morrow Lindbergh published so relatively little in forty years of marriage?” asked reviewer John Barkham in 1970. “After a promising start with those first books on flying, she tapered off into long silences broken by an infrequent volume of verse or prose.” Many years later, Lindbergh replied with a quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe, who claimed that writing, for a wife and mother, is “rowing against wind and tide.” In this sixth and final collection of Lindbergh’s diaries and letters, taking us from 1947 to 1986, we mark her progress as she navigated a remarkable life and a remarkable century with enthusiasm and delight, humor and wit, sorrow and bewilderment, but above all devoted to finding the essential truth in life’s experiences through a hard-won spirituality and a passion for literature. Between the inevitable squalls of life with her beloved but elusive husband, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, she shepherded their five children through whooping cough, horned toads, fiancés, the Vietnam War, and their own personal tragedies. She researched and wrote many books and articles on issues ranging from the condition of Europe after World War II to the meaning of marriage to the launch of Apollo 8. She published one of the most beloved books of inspiration of all time, Gift from the Sea. She left penetrating accounts of meetings with such luminaries as John and Jacqueline Kennedy, Thornton Wilder, Enrico Fermi, Leland and Slim Hayward, and the Frank Lloyd Wrights. And she found time to compose extraordinarily insightful and moving letters of consolation to friends and to others whose losses touched her deeply. More than any previous books by or about Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Against Wind and Tide makes us privy to the demons that plagued this fairy-tale bride, and introduces us to some of the people—men as well as women—who provided solace as she braved the tides of time and aging, war and politics, birth and death. Here is an eloquent and often startling collection of writings from one of the most admired women of our time.
481 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
117 people are currently reading
587 people want to read
About the author
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
81 books992 followersAnne Morrow Lindbergh was born in 1906. She married Charles Lindbergh in 1929 and became a noted aviator in her own right, eventually publishing several books on the subject and receiving several aviation awards. Gift from the Sea, published in 1955, earned her international acclaim. She was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame, the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and the Aviation Hall of Fame of New Jersey. War Within and Without, the penultimate installment of her published diaries, received the Christopher Award in 1980. Mrs. Lindbergh died in 2001 at the age of ninety-four.
Not to be confused with her daughter Anne Lindbergh.
Not to be confused with her daughter Anne Lindbergh.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
October 7, 2013
I am so glad that Reeve Lindbergh (along with others in the family) decided to publish this last collection of her mother's letters and diaries, entailing the later years of her life.
Having read all of the other collections in my 20's, it was gratifying and heartening to hear from an older Anne Morrow Lindbergh-- one who, as this book begins, was roughly my age now.
And to realize that I still think of her as a kindred spirit.
To feel like I've "grown up" with her while reading her words over the course of my life.
Any woman who has juggled the roles of marriage, motherhood and any sort of artistry (in this case writing) ... in addition to realizing she is still her own sole person ... needs to read through her books.
Having read all of the other collections in my 20's, it was gratifying and heartening to hear from an older Anne Morrow Lindbergh-- one who, as this book begins, was roughly my age now.
And to realize that I still think of her as a kindred spirit.
To feel like I've "grown up" with her while reading her words over the course of my life.
Any woman who has juggled the roles of marriage, motherhood and any sort of artistry (in this case writing) ... in addition to realizing she is still her own sole person ... needs to read through her books.
April 4, 2012
Nothing was real to Anne Morrow Lindbergh until she wrote about it. Most of her adult life she made detailed journal entries and wrote copious letters exploring and explaining her thoughts in order to sharpen her powers of observation and reflection. After five earlier volumes published between the early 1970s and 1980, this collection of letters and journal entries covers the years from 1947 to 1986, as her five surviving children grow up, get married and have children and even grandchildren of their own, but before a series of strokes starts to diminish her ability to communicate.
It’s very interesting to get a glimpse inside the later years of her marriage to trailblazing aviator Charles Lindbergh, a brilliant but difficult man who could be demanding and controlling. Anne describes him in one entry as a determined seeker of a black and white truth. He seemed to spend as much time away from the family as with it, and once Anne had to turn down an invitation to dine at the White House because she didn’t know where he was or when he’d be back. It has since been revealed that he had children with at least three other women, but that’s not covered in this book. Anne does write about relationships she had with other men that may or may not have involved having an affair, emotional or otherwise. In 1949 she updated her thoughts about matrimony in an insightful and thought provoking three page entry in her journal titled “Marriage Vows Annotated After Twenty Years.”
Anne also writes about the difficulty of balancing creative work and family life, her struggle with whether or not to terminate a pregnancy that eventually ended in miscarriage, the discovery that her mother’s death has as much to teach her about love as her children’s births, her uneasy blend of happiness and resentment when her husband’s book becomes popular since writing is her thing not his, and her mixed feeling about the public admiration for Gift From the Sea, a book she worked on and mused about for several years. Like any collection, some parts are more compelling than others but overall this is an affecting and fascinating book.
This review is based on a free advanced review copy I received.
It’s very interesting to get a glimpse inside the later years of her marriage to trailblazing aviator Charles Lindbergh, a brilliant but difficult man who could be demanding and controlling. Anne describes him in one entry as a determined seeker of a black and white truth. He seemed to spend as much time away from the family as with it, and once Anne had to turn down an invitation to dine at the White House because she didn’t know where he was or when he’d be back. It has since been revealed that he had children with at least three other women, but that’s not covered in this book. Anne does write about relationships she had with other men that may or may not have involved having an affair, emotional or otherwise. In 1949 she updated her thoughts about matrimony in an insightful and thought provoking three page entry in her journal titled “Marriage Vows Annotated After Twenty Years.”
Anne also writes about the difficulty of balancing creative work and family life, her struggle with whether or not to terminate a pregnancy that eventually ended in miscarriage, the discovery that her mother’s death has as much to teach her about love as her children’s births, her uneasy blend of happiness and resentment when her husband’s book becomes popular since writing is her thing not his, and her mixed feeling about the public admiration for Gift From the Sea, a book she worked on and mused about for several years. Like any collection, some parts are more compelling than others but overall this is an affecting and fascinating book.
This review is based on a free advanced review copy I received.
August 12, 2013
By choice, it has taken me over a year to read this book and I've savored it, bit by bit. To my mind Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes beautifully and many of her insights find fertile ground in me. I first discovered her in the seventies and have since read everything she has written. It's not for me to judge her life in those times from this current time. But being of a certain age, i can certainly relate to a fifties mindset. I think a lot of women had unspoken conflicts and were just going along with the mores of the times, while inside we were trying to figure it all out.
I truly enjoyed this book and am grateful to her daughter Reeve for her honesty and giving us the rest of the story.
I truly enjoyed this book and am grateful to her daughter Reeve for her honesty and giving us the rest of the story.
August 7, 2012
Decades before Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963, Anne Morrow Lindbergh was living “the problem that has no name,” pondering why she in particular, and American women in general, were so unhappy about their roles in American society.
I spent my teens in the 1950s, that decade after the war when gender norms clamped down so hard on women, worried about what I could do with my life “besides get married.” In 1958, after spending my entire education in the same all-female schools that Lindbergh attended (Chapin and Smith), I took myself on a “husband hunt,” travelling alone to Europe so that I could have first dibs on any suitable young man who might come along. I had no success in England and France, but on the student ship coming home I met an incredibly feminist young man (“I’ve always wanted to meet a woman who was getting her Ph.D!”) whom I married in 1960. And guess what I packed to read on our beach honeymoon? Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift From the Sea.
Though I took it at first as a vacation book about beaches and shells, I was fascinated by what she had to say about a woman’s need for time alone away from her family and about how a good marriage could flourish if husbands and wives carved out separate niches for themselves. Henry and I talked long into the starry nights at the beach about the possibilities for an “equal marriage” with “equal careers” as college professors; wonder of wonders, we did it, though we wound up commuting between universities in different states for twenty years.
The period after the war was difficult for Anne Morrow Lindbergh, determined to preserve her selfhood and her marriage when her husband was often absent for months at a time, leaving her entirely responsible for their household of five young children. Trying to get through each day and keep afloat “against wind and tide,” she wryly recasts her marriage vows from the perspective of twenty years later, recounting what it is really like to “have it all,” juggling children (she had five after the kidnapping of her first child, as well as two miscarriages), marriage and career, struggling with household chores and solitary parental responsibility in the middle of one family crisis after another
No wonder so many of these entries have a tone of puzzled sadness.
“Is it this then that happens to women—especially feminine ones? Physically, they are so made that they want to spill it all away. And all their natural ties as a woman demand that they spill it… and not without terrible conflict—which is exhausting in itself. I work against myself all the time. I try to give as a woman over & over. I want to. I prefer to…” 1948
This was written on Captiva Island in Florida, during the genesis of Gift From the Sea as she reconsidered her life in her forties. When it became a best seller, she was both troubled and fascinated by the way women readers reacted:
“Among other things they respond to is my period of unhappiness or discontent with being a woman…This discontent corresponds to the general malaise of the American woman with being a woman. I don’t know enough to understand this profound malaise in this country of why it has become so wide, but I think it has to do with the fiercely competitive nature of our culture—certainly with the competitive struggle in America between the sexes.” 1955
Lindbergh has a gift for understanding stages of life that no one else finds interesting—A Gift from the Sea rises out of the moil and welter of middle life with a house full of children and a difficult and often absent husband; in later entries she examines what it is like to be a widow and to endure the limits of aging, problems in women’s lives which also “have no names.” For example, she writes how disappointed she is with herself when, getting on into her seventies, she can no longer summon up the energy for a new grandchild that she had devoted to earlier ones. I have felt the same sadness, and her entry hit me right between the eyes.
Near the end of the collection there is a marvelous speech where she uses the children’s game of “Musical Chairs” as a metaphor for her “pilgrim’s progress through life” a journey which
“is neither straight nor easy. It is full of stops and starts, stumbles and jerks, and sudden confused standstills. . . Glimpses of insight seem not come not when we are moving ahead in the procession, but in the jerks and stops. . All at once the music stops and you drop out of the procession…the pattern changes, you are left standing alone…It is always a surprise and a readjustment. . at each halt there is a moment of hesitation, even of panic, then a re-evaluation. At each new start, there are new glimpses of insight and other tasks and rewards.” 1981
She devotes the rest of the speech to living alone after widowhood, approaching her eighties. I am in this same stage, and I found her analysis cogent, though it’s not a pretty scenario. As so many times in your life, you are up against a deadline, but this time it’s not just for getting a project finished. It’s the last deadline of all, and there is no time left to waste. Here are some time wasters she warns against:
• Perfectionism
• Clutter
• Trying to live by other people’s standards (“By the time one reaches a certain age one should be able, as Marianne Moore said, ‘to have the courage of one’s peculiarities.’”)
But this “third age,” as she calls it, has “enrichments and enlargements”:
• Work still open to us, of only for two hours a day before we get tired
• Fewer distractions
• Ever deeper enjoyment of the outer world of nature
• Enjoyment of grandchildren, from whom you demand less than you did of your own children
• Listening to your friends; being less inhibited (“One is less shy”)
• Becoming reconciled to one’s losses
Lindbergh had tremendous sorrow in her life, with a lot of joy mixed in. In her diaries she speaks to you the way she spoke to herself as she crafted a painfully won self-understanding; her letters to her friends are rich with compassionate helpfulness and down-to-earth practicality. Should you think that reading the papers of a woman whose experiences took place such a long time ago couldn’t have much relevance for present times, you will be surprised to find in her a wise, gentle, and wryly insightful guide to the coming phases of your life.
I spent my teens in the 1950s, that decade after the war when gender norms clamped down so hard on women, worried about what I could do with my life “besides get married.” In 1958, after spending my entire education in the same all-female schools that Lindbergh attended (Chapin and Smith), I took myself on a “husband hunt,” travelling alone to Europe so that I could have first dibs on any suitable young man who might come along. I had no success in England and France, but on the student ship coming home I met an incredibly feminist young man (“I’ve always wanted to meet a woman who was getting her Ph.D!”) whom I married in 1960. And guess what I packed to read on our beach honeymoon? Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift From the Sea.
Though I took it at first as a vacation book about beaches and shells, I was fascinated by what she had to say about a woman’s need for time alone away from her family and about how a good marriage could flourish if husbands and wives carved out separate niches for themselves. Henry and I talked long into the starry nights at the beach about the possibilities for an “equal marriage” with “equal careers” as college professors; wonder of wonders, we did it, though we wound up commuting between universities in different states for twenty years.
The period after the war was difficult for Anne Morrow Lindbergh, determined to preserve her selfhood and her marriage when her husband was often absent for months at a time, leaving her entirely responsible for their household of five young children. Trying to get through each day and keep afloat “against wind and tide,” she wryly recasts her marriage vows from the perspective of twenty years later, recounting what it is really like to “have it all,” juggling children (she had five after the kidnapping of her first child, as well as two miscarriages), marriage and career, struggling with household chores and solitary parental responsibility in the middle of one family crisis after another
No wonder so many of these entries have a tone of puzzled sadness.
“Is it this then that happens to women—especially feminine ones? Physically, they are so made that they want to spill it all away. And all their natural ties as a woman demand that they spill it… and not without terrible conflict—which is exhausting in itself. I work against myself all the time. I try to give as a woman over & over. I want to. I prefer to…” 1948
This was written on Captiva Island in Florida, during the genesis of Gift From the Sea as she reconsidered her life in her forties. When it became a best seller, she was both troubled and fascinated by the way women readers reacted:
“Among other things they respond to is my period of unhappiness or discontent with being a woman…This discontent corresponds to the general malaise of the American woman with being a woman. I don’t know enough to understand this profound malaise in this country of why it has become so wide, but I think it has to do with the fiercely competitive nature of our culture—certainly with the competitive struggle in America between the sexes.” 1955
Lindbergh has a gift for understanding stages of life that no one else finds interesting—A Gift from the Sea rises out of the moil and welter of middle life with a house full of children and a difficult and often absent husband; in later entries she examines what it is like to be a widow and to endure the limits of aging, problems in women’s lives which also “have no names.” For example, she writes how disappointed she is with herself when, getting on into her seventies, she can no longer summon up the energy for a new grandchild that she had devoted to earlier ones. I have felt the same sadness, and her entry hit me right between the eyes.
Near the end of the collection there is a marvelous speech where she uses the children’s game of “Musical Chairs” as a metaphor for her “pilgrim’s progress through life” a journey which
“is neither straight nor easy. It is full of stops and starts, stumbles and jerks, and sudden confused standstills. . . Glimpses of insight seem not come not when we are moving ahead in the procession, but in the jerks and stops. . All at once the music stops and you drop out of the procession…the pattern changes, you are left standing alone…It is always a surprise and a readjustment. . at each halt there is a moment of hesitation, even of panic, then a re-evaluation. At each new start, there are new glimpses of insight and other tasks and rewards.” 1981
She devotes the rest of the speech to living alone after widowhood, approaching her eighties. I am in this same stage, and I found her analysis cogent, though it’s not a pretty scenario. As so many times in your life, you are up against a deadline, but this time it’s not just for getting a project finished. It’s the last deadline of all, and there is no time left to waste. Here are some time wasters she warns against:
• Perfectionism
• Clutter
• Trying to live by other people’s standards (“By the time one reaches a certain age one should be able, as Marianne Moore said, ‘to have the courage of one’s peculiarities.’”)
But this “third age,” as she calls it, has “enrichments and enlargements”:
• Work still open to us, of only for two hours a day before we get tired
• Fewer distractions
• Ever deeper enjoyment of the outer world of nature
• Enjoyment of grandchildren, from whom you demand less than you did of your own children
• Listening to your friends; being less inhibited (“One is less shy”)
• Becoming reconciled to one’s losses
Lindbergh had tremendous sorrow in her life, with a lot of joy mixed in. In her diaries she speaks to you the way she spoke to herself as she crafted a painfully won self-understanding; her letters to her friends are rich with compassionate helpfulness and down-to-earth practicality. Should you think that reading the papers of a woman whose experiences took place such a long time ago couldn’t have much relevance for present times, you will be surprised to find in her a wise, gentle, and wryly insightful guide to the coming phases of your life.
May 20, 2017
As in all of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's writings, her beautiful character shines through despite towering self-doubt. Her life, tattered as it was by self-esteem issues, benefited C, as she called her Significent Other, raising him higher than he could ever have flown on his own. Although a skilled flyer and mapper of the heavens in her own right, these accomplishments remained dimmed in the blaze of fame that accompanied C's contributions to aviation.
Among much else, Anne served as her husband's mouthpiece when it suited him and bore the anger and scorn of the masses because of it. Anne was not the only one in the family with defects. Hers remained deep, directed at self. C's could and did lash out at her like a barbed whip.
Too, her sagging self-regard reflected the culture in which she lived. Persons who, in another era would have championed her, did not. Women had their place; in the background, hands folded, head bowed.
Anne was not only a skilled writer and flyer, she was a terrific mother to her five living children throughout their lives. Hers was the quiet courage, the wounded dignity, an existence borne in quiet desperation.
C used Anne's lack of confidence to build himself up and to put forth his own sometimes controversial views. Early on he had spotted the traits in her that he used to further his own ends. Had he been able, C could have fed her the honey of kindness and the broth of admiration. Sadly his strict upbringing forbade him to do so.
Ms. Lindbergh is shown in all her human frailty as is her husband Charles, world-famous aviator and charter of unmapped expanses.
At many levels this collection of diary entries and letters is the sum total of a human being fragile and tough, with the courage to embrace life in all its fullness.
Among much else, Anne served as her husband's mouthpiece when it suited him and bore the anger and scorn of the masses because of it. Anne was not the only one in the family with defects. Hers remained deep, directed at self. C's could and did lash out at her like a barbed whip.
Too, her sagging self-regard reflected the culture in which she lived. Persons who, in another era would have championed her, did not. Women had their place; in the background, hands folded, head bowed.
Anne was not only a skilled writer and flyer, she was a terrific mother to her five living children throughout their lives. Hers was the quiet courage, the wounded dignity, an existence borne in quiet desperation.
C used Anne's lack of confidence to build himself up and to put forth his own sometimes controversial views. Early on he had spotted the traits in her that he used to further his own ends. Had he been able, C could have fed her the honey of kindness and the broth of admiration. Sadly his strict upbringing forbade him to do so.
Ms. Lindbergh is shown in all her human frailty as is her husband Charles, world-famous aviator and charter of unmapped expanses.
At many levels this collection of diary entries and letters is the sum total of a human being fragile and tough, with the courage to embrace life in all its fullness.
January 23, 2013
Love reading about the life and times of this remarkable woman. This one, the last of her journals, was edited and published by her daughter Reeve. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to hear her read from her mother's journals before the book was actually released last spring (2012).
January 15, 2014
I didn't want to finish this book. I read it slowly and savoured every word. It's resonant with Anne Morrow Lindbergh's voice and her love for writing, and for her family. A beautiful book to be treasured and read over and over again.
March 28, 2012
This is a fantastic book!! My review for it is on Amazon.
June 15, 2012
What a gift Anne Morrow is. These letters are so thoughtful, so insightful. Really made me long for simpler times when writing a long letter was a normal course of events.
August 19, 2012
I have read each volume of AML's diaries and letters and found meaning and interest in them all.
July 5, 2019
An outstanding memoir of lives so unlike our norm that it almost reads like fiction. While there is much to admire about the author, there is much that can and should be condemned.
July 29, 2012
In my twenties I discovered Anne Morrow Lindbergh's first book of her journals and letters Bring Me a Unicorn. I identified with her dreams of being a writer and being a Smith College student (I went to rival nearby women's college Mount Holyoke). I adored her thoughtful reflections and how her romance and later marriage to Charles Lindbergh pulled her out of her shell and made her an aviator as well as writer. I was soon collecting all of her volumes of letters and journals and reading through them. I left off with them, always intending to return, somewhere in the war years when her husband's views and her devotion to motherhood no longer really resonated with me. What fun to rediscover her journey at midlife just as I negotiate those paths as well in this volume edited by her children after her death. Though she never specifically identifies it as such, this volume clearly starts with her challenging passage through menopause and her writing of Gifts from the Sea, which came out of that process. I feel for her struggles to find her own space as a writer and a woman when the men in her life, including her psychiatrist, regard all of her writerly ambitions as "unwomanly" and sincerely hope we have moved beyond such misguided views now. At the same time, I had to shake my head at her sometimes amazingly sheltered privileged naivete (even as she writes a personal defense to such charges from an erstwhile less-well-off friend). Not that she didn't suffer -- and rise above -- considerable tragedy in her life, just that some of her complaints, such as always packing up and moving in a yearly cycle, were personal choices resulting from owning three to four different houses around the world and having the income to make such choices possible. Considering the time period in which she was writing, the social upheavals and crises seemed not to have touched her personal life in even the remotest way. Still, as an interior journey of a well-reflected life, her writing is often brutally honest and almost always inspiring. I particularly enjoyed her writing advice in some letters later in the volume to her daughter Reese, an aspiring author and new mother, on the juggling personal expression and motherhood.
Book Pairings: All of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's previous letters & journals volumes and, especially, A Gift from the Sea as she writes about the process of writing the book as well as the uncomfortable results of its great popularity upon publication.
Book Pairings: All of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's previous letters & journals volumes and, especially, A Gift from the Sea as she writes about the process of writing the book as well as the uncomfortable results of its great popularity upon publication.
July 7, 2017
I have always enjoyed Gift From the Sea and somehow felt that Morrow Lindbergh got the struggle of modern woman who are often desperate to balance the demands of family, career, and perhaps a space of one' own. Her letters and journal entries confirm that yes, she got it, and lived it. Some salacious details have emerged about her famous husband in the years since this was published and her daughter addresses them in the intro. She endured, which is after all, what we women do.
June 14, 2012
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting glimpse into the personal life of the author...
This book, edited and with an introduction by her daughter, Reeve Lindbergh, is basically a chronological collection of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's letters and journal entries during the years 1947-1986. Written in a formal prose typical of writers of that time, this autobiographical account of AML's life and times is both interesting and thought-provoking. She analyzes everything down to the nth detail and, with supreme candor, recounts her day to day activities, travels, and feelings about marriage, motherhood, politics and every other subject one can imagine. She corresponds with family members, close friends, and many other people with whom she or her husband -- famed aviator Charles Lindbergh -- were acquainted.
I didn't find this a particularly fast or unput-downable read, and have not read any of the previous collections of the years prior to this volume, but feel it likely doesn't matter as this can be put down and picked up sporadically. The way this is presented means that every entry can provide a glimpse into this unique lady's world and give the reader a thought or two to ponder, to agree or disagree with, or to share with another interested party. I really did not know much about the woman who was AML before reading this account, and definitely feel that she was basically left to be a single mother raising her 5 children mostly alone while her husband was gallivanting around the globe being famous and having dalliances (and other children). I was amazed that she considered Charles her ultimate partner and was mostly understanding about his "nature" to wanderlust. To each her own! Regardless, the book provides insight into the time period and AML's views on such daily news and other subjects that caught her attention. She didn't have an easy life despite her fame and relative wealth with several tragedies and a personal struggle with depression and writer's block though she went on to publish prolifically.
All told, anyone who is interested in the personal history of this very famous woman, and the details of her life during these middle-aged years of hers, will find this collection very absorbing.
This book, edited and with an introduction by her daughter, Reeve Lindbergh, is basically a chronological collection of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's letters and journal entries during the years 1947-1986. Written in a formal prose typical of writers of that time, this autobiographical account of AML's life and times is both interesting and thought-provoking. She analyzes everything down to the nth detail and, with supreme candor, recounts her day to day activities, travels, and feelings about marriage, motherhood, politics and every other subject one can imagine. She corresponds with family members, close friends, and many other people with whom she or her husband -- famed aviator Charles Lindbergh -- were acquainted.
I didn't find this a particularly fast or unput-downable read, and have not read any of the previous collections of the years prior to this volume, but feel it likely doesn't matter as this can be put down and picked up sporadically. The way this is presented means that every entry can provide a glimpse into this unique lady's world and give the reader a thought or two to ponder, to agree or disagree with, or to share with another interested party. I really did not know much about the woman who was AML before reading this account, and definitely feel that she was basically left to be a single mother raising her 5 children mostly alone while her husband was gallivanting around the globe being famous and having dalliances (and other children). I was amazed that she considered Charles her ultimate partner and was mostly understanding about his "nature" to wanderlust. To each her own! Regardless, the book provides insight into the time period and AML's views on such daily news and other subjects that caught her attention. She didn't have an easy life despite her fame and relative wealth with several tragedies and a personal struggle with depression and writer's block though she went on to publish prolifically.
All told, anyone who is interested in the personal history of this very famous woman, and the details of her life during these middle-aged years of hers, will find this collection very absorbing.
February 16, 2013
It's startling to read the rest of the story, after years of being intimately familiar with her first five volumes of her diaries and letters. The last volume, War Within and Without, had been published in 1980. Now the rest of her story, in her own words, has been released from the contents of letters and journals from the second half of her life.
Although Gift from the Sea is her most famous book, North to the Orient, Listen! the Wind, and all the volumes of her journals are well worth reading. She was an introspective, bookish person who led an adventurous, daring life, and willingly risked that life on her exploring trips with her husband in the earliest years of commercial aviation. She did things like get shot off the side of a mountain in a glider, in a spot where no one had ever glided before, while pregnant. She was navigator and co-pilot on exploring flights in the most remote parts of the world. And the remarkable thing is those were not the most noteworthy things she did, because her writing surpasses all that. The wonderful thing about someone like her going on such adventures is that it gave her unexpected subjects to write about, which she did magnificent justice to. Her descriptions of flying are often noted as some of the finest writing about the subject, ever. She and Antoine de St.-Exupery, her dear friend, are still held up together as unsurpassed in their descriptions of flying.
She's one of my favorite writers, and one of those people you feel you know once you've read her books. To me, the impression her writing gives is one of an effortless style, a natural and nuanced feel for language, and a fine-tuned sense of humor. To read her is to be inside the mind of someone who thinks deeply about her life, and understands and comes to terms with it through the consolations in nature, art, and literature. She went through enough to need every consolation and inspiration she could find. Her gift to us is leaving behind her pattern for living, the transmutation of the stuff of her life into literature, which can be read as a kind of guide for how to live a life of grace in a crucible of greater pressures than most of us will ever know.
Although Gift from the Sea is her most famous book, North to the Orient, Listen! the Wind, and all the volumes of her journals are well worth reading. She was an introspective, bookish person who led an adventurous, daring life, and willingly risked that life on her exploring trips with her husband in the earliest years of commercial aviation. She did things like get shot off the side of a mountain in a glider, in a spot where no one had ever glided before, while pregnant. She was navigator and co-pilot on exploring flights in the most remote parts of the world. And the remarkable thing is those were not the most noteworthy things she did, because her writing surpasses all that. The wonderful thing about someone like her going on such adventures is that it gave her unexpected subjects to write about, which she did magnificent justice to. Her descriptions of flying are often noted as some of the finest writing about the subject, ever. She and Antoine de St.-Exupery, her dear friend, are still held up together as unsurpassed in their descriptions of flying.
She's one of my favorite writers, and one of those people you feel you know once you've read her books. To me, the impression her writing gives is one of an effortless style, a natural and nuanced feel for language, and a fine-tuned sense of humor. To read her is to be inside the mind of someone who thinks deeply about her life, and understands and comes to terms with it through the consolations in nature, art, and literature. She went through enough to need every consolation and inspiration she could find. Her gift to us is leaving behind her pattern for living, the transmutation of the stuff of her life into literature, which can be read as a kind of guide for how to live a life of grace in a crucible of greater pressures than most of us will ever know.
February 6, 2013
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of aviator Charles Lindbergh, was a prolific letter and diary writer, novelist, poet, and non-fiction author. I read her book Gift of the Sea many years ago, and while I couldn't relate to everything she wrote about in that work, the writing was good and insightful, so when I saw this at the library I decided to give it a go.
I wish I had not read the preface before reading the letters/diary entries. Lindbergh's daughter, author Reeve Lindbergh, writes in the preface about the discovery that Charles Lindbergh had fathered several children with women overseas that nobody knew about until after Anne died. Knowing this, then reading Anne's writing about C. Lindbergh's frequent extended and open-ended absences was heartbreaking. Anne was certainly independent, definitely craved and sought solitude (which is a theme in Gift of the Sea), forged her own life separate from C. Lindbergh's and did so admirably, but as a reader, knowing this information that Anne did not, haunted all of the pages. I'm glad she didn't know.
I love reading letters and diaries - it's a fascinating way to witness a life and you get to know all of the players in that persons's life too. It's like witnessing an entire universe. And Anne's work here is very good. (Although I have to say her tendency to write in a very formal way using "one" as in "one must know one's mind and what one ..." that sort of thing, was very annoying. Just use an "I" Anne, I wanted to scream, though of course, I know she comes from an era and sensibility where "I" was probably frowned upon.
I marked many passages to reread - she is very insightful when writing about solitude and her own work (writing), and growing older. I marked so many passages it may be worthwhile to buy a copy to mark up! And I certainly will seek out other volumes of her letters/diaries.
I wish I had not read the preface before reading the letters/diary entries. Lindbergh's daughter, author Reeve Lindbergh, writes in the preface about the discovery that Charles Lindbergh had fathered several children with women overseas that nobody knew about until after Anne died. Knowing this, then reading Anne's writing about C. Lindbergh's frequent extended and open-ended absences was heartbreaking. Anne was certainly independent, definitely craved and sought solitude (which is a theme in Gift of the Sea), forged her own life separate from C. Lindbergh's and did so admirably, but as a reader, knowing this information that Anne did not, haunted all of the pages. I'm glad she didn't know.
I love reading letters and diaries - it's a fascinating way to witness a life and you get to know all of the players in that persons's life too. It's like witnessing an entire universe. And Anne's work here is very good. (Although I have to say her tendency to write in a very formal way using "one" as in "one must know one's mind and what one ..." that sort of thing, was very annoying. Just use an "I" Anne, I wanted to scream, though of course, I know she comes from an era and sensibility where "I" was probably frowned upon.
I marked many passages to reread - she is very insightful when writing about solitude and her own work (writing), and growing older. I marked so many passages it may be worthwhile to buy a copy to mark up! And I certainly will seek out other volumes of her letters/diaries.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 12, 2014
This book of letters and journals encompasses the day-to-day living, relationships with family and friends, insights into a writer's life, and revelations that come from a life filled with challenges, opportunities, heartache, disappointment, self-doubt, and aloneness.
There's a lot to like about this book and good reason to read it.
There is, however, extensive description of the beauty of natural surroundings that AML loved to capture. For me, the time lapses between entries, the feeling of constant relocation of AML from place to place around the country and the world, and the introduction of people who come and go became disorienting. In spite of that, the book is full of discoveries.
I am always fascinated reading about the struggles faced by writers. In AML's case, since she appears to be an introvert, she longed for quiet in a household full of children and a husband who was a dominating force.
As a woman of her era, she reveals the prevailing social conditioning to meet the expectations of others, especially her husband. The demands of her family, her constant giving to ensure their well-being, her commitment to her role as mother (sometimes to friends as well), and the loneliness that she faced provide both pause and insight that is timeless.
As she aged, she toyed with writing a book about the aging process. The end of the book contains some fascinating insights about a state that she calls diminishment which is illuminating.
The book also covers the pressures of fame, loss by death of children and friends, the end of Charles Lindbergh's life, and the features of a life well lived by AML into her 90's.
There's a lot to like about this book and good reason to read it.
There is, however, extensive description of the beauty of natural surroundings that AML loved to capture. For me, the time lapses between entries, the feeling of constant relocation of AML from place to place around the country and the world, and the introduction of people who come and go became disorienting. In spite of that, the book is full of discoveries.
I am always fascinated reading about the struggles faced by writers. In AML's case, since she appears to be an introvert, she longed for quiet in a household full of children and a husband who was a dominating force.
As a woman of her era, she reveals the prevailing social conditioning to meet the expectations of others, especially her husband. The demands of her family, her constant giving to ensure their well-being, her commitment to her role as mother (sometimes to friends as well), and the loneliness that she faced provide both pause and insight that is timeless.
As she aged, she toyed with writing a book about the aging process. The end of the book contains some fascinating insights about a state that she calls diminishment which is illuminating.
The book also covers the pressures of fame, loss by death of children and friends, the end of Charles Lindbergh's life, and the features of a life well lived by AML into her 90's.
July 7, 2012
After Anne Morrow Lindbergh's death in 1986, a group including family and friends gathered her writings from 1947 to the end of her life and put them in book form. There are many of the countless letters she wrote and her diary entries from various periods of her life.
She didn't have an easy life by any means. Both she and Charles were super cautious about being recognized in public, having been traumatized by the media attention when their first child was abducted. They were also quite protective of their five surviving children and Anne gave them unconditional love. In such a large family there were always changes, problems, travel, heartbreak, and joy.
Anne was a writer, well remembered for her GIFT FROM THE SEA, but she was more a thinker. I read this book at a time of crisis in my own life when I struggled to think clearly, so I was amazed at her ability to find a way to think things through with logic and far-seeing connections no matter what was going on in her life.
I came to a desire to know more about Anne Lindbergh because I wanted to learn more about Charles Lindbergh, but reading about her has been much more rewarding to me. I think this can be counted as an important book in women's history in 20th century America.
She didn't have an easy life by any means. Both she and Charles were super cautious about being recognized in public, having been traumatized by the media attention when their first child was abducted. They were also quite protective of their five surviving children and Anne gave them unconditional love. In such a large family there were always changes, problems, travel, heartbreak, and joy.
Anne was a writer, well remembered for her GIFT FROM THE SEA, but she was more a thinker. I read this book at a time of crisis in my own life when I struggled to think clearly, so I was amazed at her ability to find a way to think things through with logic and far-seeing connections no matter what was going on in her life.
I came to a desire to know more about Anne Lindbergh because I wanted to learn more about Charles Lindbergh, but reading about her has been much more rewarding to me. I think this can be counted as an important book in women's history in 20th century America.
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January 23, 2014Anne Morrow Lindbergh was an incredibly strong and insightful woman and writer. A pioneer in the field of aviation and writing. A strong woman to endure the tragic death of her first born child and to survive the media blitz surrounding that tragedy. Charles and Anne were the "William and Kate" of their era, constantly followed by the press. In this book she goes from hectic motherhood, through empty nest to widowhood with insight and aplomb. She has to rely on her own resources while her husband was off working and traveling the world. She advises her children on topics that are still pertinent today. After reading The Aviators Wife I became interested in Anne's life and reread Gift From The Sea, and a couple of her diaries which I really enjoyed. Her views on raising a family, working and life in general are as fresh today as when she wrote them forty, fifty or sixty years ago.My mother was of this era too and we forget how strong these women were. We need books like this to remind us to look back and draw knowledge and strength from our moms.
April 30, 2015
Having just read "The Aviator's Wife" I wanted more insight into Anne's life without reading a lengthy biography. The introduction by her daughter, Reeve, answered many of my questions, more so than Anne's letters and diary entries. (Perhaps I should've gone with a biography after all.) That being said, I did enjoy Anne's introspective style and a deeper glimpse into her life. The reading is slow going and because of that I decided not to finish the book.
"I had thought birth had taught me all there was to know about love, but death teaches more still." (pg 112)
"I think all of us by middle age have lived so many compromises and so much unsuitable insincerity, and if we have grown and grown more perceptive, less ambitious, and closer to the truth of society and outer pressures, we feel at this age very impatient of the frustrations of living what we don't particularly care for or about." (pg 195)
"I resent the waste of life more than I did. There is less time. There is less energy." (pg 196)
"I had thought birth had taught me all there was to know about love, but death teaches more still." (pg 112)
"I think all of us by middle age have lived so many compromises and so much unsuitable insincerity, and if we have grown and grown more perceptive, less ambitious, and closer to the truth of society and outer pressures, we feel at this age very impatient of the frustrations of living what we don't particularly care for or about." (pg 195)
"I resent the waste of life more than I did. There is less time. There is less energy." (pg 196)
July 9, 2012
I liked parts of this very much, especially the letters and diaries near the end where AML focuses on death and aging. But I didn't like it as much as I remembered liking her earlier collections of diaries and letters. Maybe because she didn't edit Against Wind & Tide? Maybe I've grown out of her?
Many of the book's earlier letters are about not having the time to write. Yes, her husband Charles Lindbergh left her alone with five children much of the time, but she also had certain privileges--household staff, the ability to disappear without her family for weeks at a time, even a "room of her own"--that made it difficult for me to sympathize the entire time. Still, reading this collection was like catching up with an old friend, and I'm glad I did.
Many of the book's earlier letters are about not having the time to write. Yes, her husband Charles Lindbergh left her alone with five children much of the time, but she also had certain privileges--household staff, the ability to disappear without her family for weeks at a time, even a "room of her own"--that made it difficult for me to sympathize the entire time. Still, reading this collection was like catching up with an old friend, and I'm glad I did.
November 17, 2012
Although I found the book interesting and challenging, I almost wished I hadn't read it. AML was one of my heroines, especially after I married a pilot, and I had really enjoyed reading her previous diaries and letters. I was uncertain about this one, though, after reading her daughter Reeve's latest book, which revealed more than I had wanted to know about both Anne and Charles. This book underscored the crumbling of the pedestal and so was a sad read for me. There were some really excellent quotes and ideas, but it seemed that she had no real foundation on which to base her life and so was at the mercy of "wind and tide."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 21, 2015
Torn between "like it" and 'really liked it". I have loved her writings. This book takes place over 40 years and is a compilation of letters and journal entries pulled together by her children. I thought I would be bored, and in some places I am, but it is fascinating to watch how she changes and grows over 40 years. In some areas I can't believe what she puts up with in terms of life style and home life. IN other areas she is beyond her time. It does seem there are some pieces of time missing...andyou wonder what happened during that time. Am not sure if its due to the fact that she didn't write or that her children didn't include everything. Interesting read.
March 18, 2013
I've loved all of her diaries and this one, while hugely condensed and edited, is satisfying if somewhat disjointed. I imagine if she had edited it herself that it would read more smoothly, but maybe not, as she had more to leave out. Her striving to be better, clearer, more able as a writer and more evenly balanced as a mother and wife, and a writer, is compelling and moving. Her struggle is right there, on the page, and mirrors what many women experience. I am sorry to think this is the last I will hear of her voice.
March 16, 2018
Anne Morrow Lindbergh's letters and diaries in this volume detail the distress she felt as a person who lived inside of herself at being a wife, mother, and friend with a very busy life. It is actually painful to read how much she just wants to go to her desk and write when she has 5 (or so) children and an extended family who all need her. In the last part of the book she talks about her philosophy of the meaning of life and of her preparations for death. I recommend this book only to those who are greatly interested in her life - as I have been for much of mine.
June 16, 2012
I have always loved AML's letters and journals so I was thrilled when I saw there was one last volume edited by her children and published after her death. These were not the happiest years for AML--near the end of the book, she is in her late 70's and her friends and family members are dying and it is depressing. Even she, who wants to write one more book, just doesn't have it in her to write anymore and she is so tired and feels so old. Makes me sad.
June 1, 2013
A really nice book. Anyone interested in Anne and her life would enjoy this... or even if you just like reading letters and journals. I did think it might be easier to read if the entries were separated by category - letters, journals, etc. Very introspective and deep-thinking. I was struck by how different it is to communicate now vs then. She apparently often had no idea where Charles was - couldn't communicate with him like we can now.
April 19, 2014
needed footnotes in the body of the book vs end of the book as shown in the Kindle- the only challenge I've ever had ona kindle in 5 yrs of being the Kindle poster child. Intrigued to read this after loving "The Aviator's Wife,". "AW" holds pretty true (except some revelations near C's death) Truly fascinated at how selfish Charles Lindbergh was & amazed at how gracious his wife remained. Perhaps marriages were different in that time, but the children certainly owe much to their mother.
April 18, 2015
Lots of hand wringing...getting old, facing death, divorce, separation, growing out of ill fitting molds, standing up for oneself.....and raising kids mostly alone as CAL went with the wind...to explore, create new children, enrich his own legacy...to be rootless.
All this book is edited after AML's death...all very discreet, genteel, by her children without passing judgment...yet reveling in the glory of their famous parents.
All this book is edited after AML's death...all very discreet, genteel, by her children without passing judgment...yet reveling in the glory of their famous parents.
April 7, 2016
Anne Morrow Lindbergh's story in her own words...so much better than a biography. I read The Aviator's Wife and came away with an entirely different impression of AML - this was an important correction to the way I view her. These collected works provide insight into the mind of a wife, mother and writer who was constantly thinking through and evaluating her life in the context of her family and the world around her.
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