A Book of New Beginnings: Some Words for Living

by Jerry Pinto (Edited by)

‘Each ending is a beginning? And if this is true, then this is where we get another chance. We can be kinder to each other. We can be kinder to the Earth. We can do something about our faults and fears…’

Beginnings are all around us, although they are often disguised. The turning of the soil, the blossoming of the buds, a new friendship, a new day with an old familiar—these are all signs that life carries on, and that it may be good despite setbacks. In a world changed and darkened by the pandemic, A Book of New Beginnings reminds us of this eternal truth. This shining anthology is a treasure of meditations, consolations and inspirations from a range of voices through history: Rabi’ah, Rumi, Tukaram, Emily Dickinson, Tagore, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Muktabai, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Alice Munro, Shailendra and unsung, everyday people with an extraordinary gift for hope, compassion, courage and perseverance.

Edited and introduced by one of India’s finest and most admired writers, and beautifully designed and produced, this is a timeless book to possess and to gift.

151 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2022

About the author

Jerry Pinto is a Mumbai-based Indian writer of poetry, prose and children's fiction in English, as well as a journalist. His noted works include, Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb (2006) which won the Best Book on Cinema Award at the 54th National Film Awards, Surviving Women (2000) and Asylum and Other Poems (2003). His first novel Em and The Big Hoom was published in 2012.

Reviews

[Madhulika Liddle · Rating 3 out of 5]

From Rabindranath Tagore to the Dalai Lama, Vivekanand to Orwell, Jerry Pinto to Ghalib, a sign on a truck, and more: nuggets (and larger pieces) of wisdom on living. Renewal, love, peace, perseverance: these are the themes that are covered in this slim book. There are quotes, passages, poems, verses and even a small collection of photos, all gentle reading. Inspirational and often moving.

And I loved that some of my favourite poems - like Invictus is one - were part of this book.

[Mohammad Sabbir Shaikh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of hope. It features finely curated poems, couplets, prose, essays, letters, and pictures. In this slim book, you'll find works from great writers and poets, Nobel laureates, and scientists. There are learnings from a teacher's farewell letter, a Kathak dancer, a gardener, an ant, a toad, and even a flower bud. There's also a couplet from the back of a truck in this book. And why not? Hope is everywhere.

Each piece in this book offers you a hand and lifts you up. It encourages you to step forward and move onward. It asks you to be the same hand to others around you because 'each ending is a new beginning.'

From Jerry Pinto's introduction to the book:
As for public, collective efforts, there is evidence already to prove that we'll blow it again. Even as you read this, some more mountains are being dug up, some more trees are being cut down, some more rivers are being poisoned. New wars are brewing, new jackboots are about, new inequalities are piling up on the old. But we're going to have to soldier on, you and I, in hope (I include you because you have chosen to buy this book.) Perhaps your hope is getting a little world-weary, a little shop-soiled. Perhaps it has been mocked by the cynics who have now begun to show their colours again. Never mind them. Cynicism is the penultimate refuge of the scoundrel and the poseur. Hope has been painted with cotton-candy colours, labelled a Pollyanna and turned out of doors as uncool. Never mind that. We must always remember that hope is the bedrock of human civilisation. Of Life.

[Chitra Ahanthem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edited by author and translator Jerry Pinto, A Book of New Beginnings: Some Words for the Living is a collection of heart warming thoughts, the kind that settles in you heart and consciousness when you read them one by one, slowly or in a quick romp trying to figure if some quote you hold dear is included in this.Made of prayers and poems and quotes, this collection comes in a hardback edition that will surely make this a very thoughtful gift for loved ones besides being something you can go to from time to time, to take refuge in the words of hope and perseverance. 


And no, this isn't only about the romanticism of hope and everything rosy but also about greiving, about floundering, about trying to find your feet, about the effort of trying, about holding on even if briefly when the going gets difficult. There are words from Ghalib to Chekov and passages from essays by George Orwell to profound musings written on trucks in the highways.This collection is like a balm you did not know you needed.

[Dr. Anushka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice quick read.

"How many errors time has patience for,
How wrong they are in being always right."

[Apoorva Pathak · Rating 4 out of 5]

:)