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The Wishing Year: A House, a Man, My Soul A Memoir of Fulfilled Desire | 
 enlarge | Author: Noelle Oxenhandler
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
Buy New: $13.93
You Save: $10.07 (42%)
New (36) Used (8) Collectible (1) from $13.93
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 6564
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.8
ISBN: 1400064856
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.603
EAN: 9781400064854
ASIN: 1400064856
Publication Date: July 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
One New Year’s Day, Noelle Oxenhandler took stock of her life and found that she was alone after a long marriage, seemingly doomed to perpetual house rental and separated from the spiritual community that once had sustained her. With little left to lose, she launched a year’s experiment in desire, forcing herself to take the plunge and try the path of Putting It Out There. It wasn’t easy. A skeptic at heart, and a practicing Buddhist as well, Oxenhandler had grown up with a strong aversion to mixing spiritual and earthly matters. Still, she suspended her doubts and went for it all: a new love, a healed soul, and the 2RBD/1.5 BA of her dreams. Thus began her initiation into the art of wishing brazenly.
In this charming, compelling, and ultimately joyful book, Oxenhandler records a journey that is at once comic and poignant, light and dark, earthy and spiritual. Along the way she wonders: Does wishing have power? Is there danger in wishing? Are some wishes more worthy than others? And what about the ancient link between suffering and desire? To answer her questions, she delves into the history of wishing, from the rain dance and deer song of primeval magic to modern beliefs about mind over matter, prosperity consciousness, and the law of attraction.
As the months go by, Oxenhandler is humbled to discover the courage it takes to make a wish and thus open oneself to the unknown. She is surprised when her experiment expands to include other people and other places in ways she never imagined. But most of all, she is amazed to find that there is, indeed, both power and danger in the act of wishing. For soon her wishes begin to come true–in ways that meet, subvert, and overflow her expectations. And what started as a year’s dare turns into a way of life.
A delightfully candid memoir, unfettered, poetic, and ripe with discovery, Oxenhandler’s journey into the art and soul of wishing will inspire even the most skeptical reader to search the skies for the next shooting star.
Praise for THE WISHING YEAR
"This is a wonderful book, full of wisdom gleaned from a year of Noelle Oxenhandler's daring to embrace what she had previously denied herself--her own personal wishes. I highly recommend The Wishing Year for anyone wanting to learn more about what life has to offer when we pay attention to our heart's desires."
–Sarah Susanka, author of The Not So Big Life
"Do you want to know how wishes come true? Then read The Wishing Year. It's a book that beautifully illuminates the art and mystery of wishing--and it does so in a way that is inspiring, funny, serious, honest, heartfelt, and irresistibly readable."
–Jack Kornfield, author of After the Ecstasy, the Laundry
"The Wishing Year is an elegant exploration of the way thought shapes reality. Writing with great personal honesty and candor, Noelle Oxenhandler's exhilarating prose takes us deep into the pain and glory of being human."
–Mark Epstein, M.D., author of Open to Desire
“Oxenhandler's new book makes it okay to be a smart, sophisticated grow-up who also believes in magic. She dives beneath the new age veneer and deconstructs how wishes really come true.” –Susan Piver, author of How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Courageous and illuminating August 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Noelle Oxenhandler's work -- in the New Yorker or Tricycle or book form -- always knocks me out. Her writing is sometimes referred to as memoir, but I think she's a philosopher who uses elements of her own life, along with her research, to explore the textures and workings of the world. Her books have such a remarkable combination of pleasures: gorgeous, lucid, vivid prose; wonderful descriptions of people and places; philosophical inquiry; a rich, interdisciplinary investigation of her topics; brave but elegant personal revelation; and a feeling for the rich textures and absurdities of life. I loved The Eros of Parenthood (The Eros Of Parenthood: Explorations In Light And Dark), in which she goes into territory that most writers would be afraid to touch and handles it with such grace that she conceals the difficulty of her accomplishments as a writer and a reader.
The Wishing Year is another example of her generosity and originality. The book is funny in a subtle and complicated way, and at the same time, moving. She doesn't shy away from either library or field research (I'm including swimming with the dolphins in Hawaii, or following unlikely wishing practices, as well as delving into history, mythology, philosophy, and even self-help books).
The Wishing Year invites us to examine our own depth-monsters -- anyone who reads it is likely to have to own up to their own desires and their own choices. It's a delicious book to read but not always a comfortable one. Her writing is so beautiful that I think some people may be surprised by how challenging it is. I think it's a book one is likely to love when coming to it with an open sense of inquiry, and maybe it's a book that would enrage those readers who would rather not look into their own areas of darkness and desire.
The book is gripping -- it reads like a novel -- it's more about stirring up the questions for readers than trying to answer them in ways that would invariably be false or reductive. What are the lines between sacred and profane? Where do traditional magic and modern science intersect? What do we allow ourselves to wish for, and how, and why? Are there wishes we should not have? How do we work with the images and desires presented to us by our unconscious minds, even those we find somehow embarrassing or scary? How do we come to terms with our lives, past and present?
A Memoir To Learn From August 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
We live vicariously through reading all kinds of books, but memoir truly gives readers the sense that they understand the writer's inner experience of life. Every once in a while a memoir appears that makes you fall in love with the author's mind. That's how I feel about Noelle Oxenhandler's The Wishing Year. At so many points in the book I found myself appreciating not just her humor and her intelligence but her entire way of being in the world. For example, when I read the account of how the author sat with her dying friend, I felt I was witnessing something essential about simply being with a dying person, about meeting those who are dying on their own terms and not ours. The other people in the memoir are presented with complexity, not as a cast of flat characters. The Wishing Year is a memoir that, among other things, shows us a person who knows how to live life with compassion, openness and grace. It's good to soak up the details of such a life.
Touching, Fascinating, & Insightful August 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Having tried to read Eat, Pray, Love and found it so sadly lightweight, I couldn't finish, I was hesitant about picking up The Wishing Year. But, Oxenhandler's book surpassed all expectations. Readable, intelligent, thought provoking, authentic, without going into useless or irrelevant details. It's a wonderful book for starting a conversation about self-limiting beliefs, core religious values (no matter what your religion is), and coming back after a huge disaster -- that you yourself caused and feel the devastating weight of still. This is the book you want to give ALL your book-loving friends this holiday season.
 Interesting... August 11, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I really liked this book and it's not the type of book I usually read. There are too many books,tapes,programs,dvd's,etc. you name it-- we are in a storm of "law of attraction" information these days. But there has never been anyone who is not connected in some way to these products that has written about their personal experience while using this information. Very savvy of Ms.Oxenhandler to write a memoir about this topic as well as timely. Magic is a delicious subject and law of attraction is the topic on everyone's list. Ms. Oxenhandler is very knowledgeable about things that I did not expect to be in this book which is what made it an interesting read. Her experiment in making wishes to better her life was fun to read but it is just one layer of this book. The one thing that did disappoint was that she did not give the readers any information about her ailing mother after she spent a great deal of time worrying about and helping to move her from France to CA. All in all it's a good read. You can read this book over a weekend.
 I wanted to pick up the phone and yell at Noelle to get over it! August 3, 2008
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
I did like this book, but I had major irritations with it. While I'm sure most of us who wish for things also worry about the "what ifs" and for every positive, we think of the negative, but Noelle's constant questioning was like a popcorn kernel wedged between tooth and gum. A few things that really bothered me:
Needing to come up with a down payment for her home, her mother suddenly remembers she has a forgotten bank account and gives the money to Noelle to help with payment. Skip ahead a few chapters and Noelle's mother is in debt, suffering miniature strokes, and she needs a place to live. Noelle wonders how she's going to help her mother find money to pay her bills and worries about finding her a place to live.
Well. I couldn't get the thought out of my head...shouldn't Noelle give the mother her money back? And if her health is bad, why wouldn't Noelle offer to take care of her?
We meet her boyfriend Nicolas, who lives in a boarding house (which bothers Noelle) and then ends up moving to his parents house and perhaps, even, living in his car.
Noelle, who has supposedly been immersed in spirituality, does not offer to have Nicolas live with her.
While reading the book, Noelle searching for her spirituality to return, traveling to spas, overseas, etc (yet she is broke?), it's hard for me to feel any empathy for her when it seems that all around her, people are helping Noelle, but Noelle is not helping herself nor is she helping other people.
I am not a student of spirituality the way Noelle claims to be, but I do know that helping others and looking out for others is usually at the top of the list.
Spirituality is so damn simple, and Carole, who was the most interesting character in the book and who should write her own book, exemplified it with such ease yet Noelle could not seem to grasp that having things is wonderful! But having no attachments is the ultimate spirituality, which Carole displays time and time again by her ability to create and let go.
There were many loose ends...what happened to her mother? Were her bills paid? Did she move to CA? Is she happy?
On the whole, a good read. But if I ever meet Noelle, I'd tell her to quit her whining, be thankful!, instead of looking for ways life is going to help her, perhaps if she stopped and helped others and herself, things would come much easier to her. And though love is wonderful, it is not the end all to be all. I have a feeling Noelle is still not yet happy with the person she is, otherwise she wouldn't worry so much about finging the 'right' man.
I really hope Carole writes a book. She is THE BEES KNEES.
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