DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Learning to Breathe

One Woman's Journey of Spirit and Survival

Alison Wright author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Penguin Putnam Inc

Published:28th Jul '09

Should be back in stock very soon

Learning to Breathe cover

While travelling in Laos on a winding mountain road, the bus that award-winning journalist Alison Wright was riding is collided with a logging truck. As she waited fourteen hours for proper medical care - in excruciating pain, certain she was moments from death - Alison drew upon years of meditation practice and concentrated on every breath as if it would be her last. Despite countless surgeries and a gruelling recovery, Alison set herself the goal of achieving a new dream: to one day climb Mount Kilimanjaro - and she reached the summit on her fortieth birthday. Gasping for air once again, she stood at the highest point in Africa, determined to never again take a single breath for granted. Perfect readers who love spiritual authors travelling abroad, such as Greg Mortenson ("Three Cups of Tea") and Elizabeth Gilbert ("Eat, Pray, Love"), this memoir is an amazingly inspirational tale of how a life-changing accident transformed one woman's faith.

"[A] profound writer... a true pilgrim...There is muscle and tears here, and the fiercest flame of inspiration."—Richard Gere

“Photojournalist Wright has gone to the ends of the earth, including some mountaintops, in a career that has documented the human wonders of the world, especially resilient children and endangered cultures. In this memoir she turns her lens on herself and her own astonishing story… The author's spiritual insights are fascinating.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Wright's seize-the-day attitude and fierce determination to reach the summit will spur you to hurdle whatever obstacles might lie in your path.”—Self

“Alison’s story makes clear that if you have courage you can achieve what others consider to be impossible.”—From the Foreword by the Dalai Lama

ISBN: 9780452295353

Dimensions: 202mm x 135mm x 17mm

Weight: 257g

304 pages