By far not the best miller book I ever read. Some of it was worth the read.

This is a collection of some of Henry Miller's best writing, covering topics in philosophy, art, literature, and the state of the world, post-WWII.

I'm happy to say I've got some new authors to check out as a result of reading this collection. But most striking parts to me were when Miller went deep. After 70 years in the world, Miller has plenty to say. He seems to be heavily influenced by Zen: every moment is miraculous, there's nothing to condemn, nothing to remonstrate, and there is equally no need to understand, no need to conceptualize, no need to control. He reflects on the relative progress of civilization, the ever-forward motion, and wishes we as a species were able to first learn to stay still, to find an inner contentment with our individual lives. Peace is not external but something inherent and possible within all of us. It's not in the accomplishment of most difficult tasks, but rather in the simple and the mundane.

I've marked up this book with highlighting, underlining, asterisks. I've also accidentally spilled water on it and the cover has entirely come loose — it's safe to say this book is now thoroughly mine. It's a book I will need to come back to again when I inevitably veer of course.

She wore a green dress and was chewing Licorice gum.

Good tips for living the good life.

Re-read, 02/2011: Miller is at his best, in my opinion, when he puts his loquaciousness to use in describing his passions. These essays collected here cover a broad swath of those passions. Still one of my favorites.


Reading Henry Miller is, to me, one of life's truly great pleasures. The joy Miller got out of living, and out of relating his life through his writing, is a palpable thing, easily consumed as I read. The essays collected here are one of the most direct distillations of that joy. One of my favorites by one of my favorites.

I really like Henry Miller's writing - and I really like Henry Miller's view on life. Not the view that is there in the dark hours or that people think they see in his banned stories - but in the exhilaration he feels for action. So, I should have really loved this book, right? But it was real life and not the life he imagined...and not very exhilarating.

The best lines come from the introduction...while they're great, this fact isn't a great sign.
When you find you can go neither backward nor forward, when you discover that you are no longer able to stand, sit or lie down, when your children have died of malnutrition and your aged parents have been sent to the poorhouse or the gas chamber, when you realize that you can neither write nor not write, when you are convinced that all the exits are blocked, either you take to believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird. The miracle is that the honey is always there, right under your nose, only you were too busy searching elsewhere to realize it. The worst is not death but being blind, blind to the fact that everything about life is in the nature of the miraculous.

One of my all time favorites; great Miller collection.

2007 wrote: This collection is inspiring. Miller is an amazing author and in this collection one can see how he might have come to be that way. Here we see what Miller read on his own time and whom he revered. Thoreau, Whitman, Patchen- many of my favorites are talked of and studied by miller in this volume. "Kenneth Patchen: Man of Anger and Light" is the only real literary criticism i have ever seen on the man. "Walt Whitman" is the most personal I have seen. "Children of the Earth" is intelligent and life-affirming ( much like the rest of Miller's essays). This essay was particular poignant for me, reaffirming thoughts embracing the brillance of life, even at it's worst moments. Miller's sarcasm is a great gift. His sentimentality, as well. "First Love" was a treat, and I'd think would be for any man ever having been in puppy love. A suggested read all around. A lust for life.

Easily one of the most dear books I own. I carry it w me in my handbag almost everywhere. I’ve probably underlined every sentence in this book & read it nonstop. First, second & third read, insatiably. Please don’t overlook this book, it is a treasure

A collection of essays, articles and stories by Henry Miller. Unfortunately, most of these works were reviews of obscure people or other works - or oppositely, praise for all-too-well-known figures like Thoreau or Ianesco. Most of the articles on topics like money, morals or (as most of them) himself come off outdated, preachy and plain curmudgeonly. Miller is far more eloquent and angrily existential in his books.

I've gone through many copies of this book, and though I've read it innumerable times, still find myself picking it up regularly.

Like everything Henry Miller writes, these collected essays about literature and Europe are really all about himself. But he's pretty interesting, so I can forgive him.