Inspiring Books, Anyone?
 

I'm trying to read as many inspiring books as possible. Being grateful for who you are and what you have is the most important gift you can give yourself. Serendipitously, I found a book yesterday on Amazon's Free Kindle Book section. It's a story about a blind runner who is diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa and runs a marathon regardless. If I were in that situation I don't think I'd be as brave. Reading books like that really teach me to be grateful and to admire people who don't think of themselves as victims.

Anyway, in the book she trains for her marathon--rain, snow, heat, or dryness...no matter what the day's like and no matter how unmotivated she is.

I checked again today and it's still free to download (Running Blind: The Journey of a Blind Runner Training For Her First Marathon: Rhonda Copeland: 9780557473762: Amazon.com: Books). It's titled, Running Blind: The Journey of a Blind Runner Training for Her First Marathon.

If you get the chance to read it, tell me how you like it. In the meantime, what are your favorite inspirational books, and why?

It's another free Kindle book on amazon: 'Domestic Manners of the Americans' by Fanny Trollope. She was the mother of Anthony Trollope, whose works can also be found on amazon kindle. He wrote several books which may be familiar to the modern reader because they were adapted to video and appeared as series on public television. 'The Way We Live Now' comes to mind.

His autobiography is wonderful to read. Then you realize that he was part of a family that included his mother, Fanny, who set off for America from England with several of her children (they had large families in those days, in the 1800's) and a devoted artist friend who was a man. Her husband stayed home with some of the other children.

As she traveled, she wrote her impressions, collecting them into a manuscript that she submitted to a publisher upon returning home. Her thoughts about America and Americans were not positive and you see America through her eyes. I can understand how Americans hated the book when it became a success in England. I can also see America (even today) in the book.

There are probably several full-length feature films in this book, if someone were to do it justice. The scene in the book that is most vivid in my memory is of Fanny traveling with a friend who has a compound in the wilds, and she wants Fanny to come and stay for a visit. They are traveling in the dark, in a carriage, in woods where there are no roads. There are branches and stumps that scrape the bottom of the carriage. There's no particular signage or markers but the driver of the carriage knows the way. They come to a small river crossing and Fanny asks if maybe the water is too deep and the current too strong for them to cross there. No one even pays attention to her. The horses plunge into the water and sink right away. The driver just instructs the passengers to climb on a horse! A horse can swim! When they get to the other side, Fanny climbs out, covered with mud and soaking wet and everyone else, in the same condition as she, acts like this is 'business as usual.' What an adventure! What a brave woman!

It was her first book. She pulled her family out of financial ruin with the money she got from the publisher, and then she went on to write more and more, this time fiction, becoming a successful author in her 50s. According to Wikipedia, she wrote over 100 books. All this and she was an active mother and wife, nursing her husband through a serious illness.

I find Fanny to be an inspiration because-
She wasn't a 'plucky' little lady, although she was lively. She was a person who didn't express the thought, 'I can't do _____ because I'm ______ and _______ doesn't/don't like me and I would never fit in.' She just went forward. She wasn't pretty, slim, beautiful and charming. She wasn't brilliant. She was the embodiment of the saying, 'What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve.' No excuses.

Thanks for sharing! I recently watched "The Way We Live Now" on Netflix...of course, I'll read the book, also. Fanny sounds like a woman quite ahead of her time--good for her. From my impression of "The Way We Live Now" it looks like Trollope himself praises the strong-willed and independent women.

Outrunning my Shadow
 

Outrunning-My-Shadow-Surviving-Open-Heart
this is a great easy read book I always keep near !

I don't have kindle.. :(

Can you suggest printed books instead?

books which are not movie based
 

Try those books which are not movie based....Not used in movies till now...

I think everyone should read :

Gandhi The Man The Story of His Transformation