Book summary

Anne Morrow Lindbergh's GIFT FROM THE SEA is a wonderful gem--a treasure in the sand, to use her own metaphor--that has been in print since the 1950s. The wife of Charles Lindbergh (the first man to fly across the Atlantic ocean), whose baby was kidnapped in the famous "Lindbergh Baby" case of 1932, Anne was something of a modern-woman prototype. Charles's copilot and navigator on many pioneering air trips, she wrote several books about their adventures. This is the most popular of all her writings, however. A treatise on self-discovery written during a long beach vacation, GIFT FROM THE SEA resonated among readers at the time of its publication and has lost little of its currency in the intervening decades. It should be of interest to anyone seeking self-understanding, especially women, as it addresses issues such as love, children, marriage, and old age. And of course it makes ideal beach reading.