Man’s Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
Print | eBook (simultaneous use) on Libby (Overdrive)
The Monday Evening Book Club meets on the second Monday of the month at 7:00 PM via Zoom.
Register to drop-in and discuss this thought-provoking and inspirational classic.
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of those he treated in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl’s theory—known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos (“meaning”)—holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.
At the time of Frankl’s death in 1997, Man’s Search for Meaning had sold more than 10 million copies in twenty-four languages. A 1991 reader survey by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club that asked readers to name a “book that made a difference in your life” found Man’s Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America. (From the publisher.)
Further Reading
About Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl at Ninety: An Interview
Watch & Listen
The Monday Evening Book Club continues to meet on the second Monday of the month at 7:00 PM via Zoom.
Indigenous authors and storytellers, Richard Wagamese. With the option to download both the eAudiobook and eBook, you’ll have no problem experiencing Richard’s luminous connection to life this month.