Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 112
Printing Date: September 07, 1999
Sale Popularity Level: 1625869
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The author of eleven books, including such classic bestsellers as Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Illusions, and One, Richard Bach has earned a permanent place in the hearts of readers around the world. His visionary works have shown millions of readers the amazing possibilities of imagination, mind and spirit.
An enthralling flight into the realm of possibility, Out of My Mind shows what happens when Richard Bach sets out to solve the design problems troubling his Piper Cub. He is taken on an unforgettable journey back to 1923 and the creative heyday of a British airplane manufacturer, Saunders-Vixen Aircraft Company, where problems are solved for confused aviators. There, Bach meets Derek Hawthorne, his guide through Saunders-Vixen, and a mysterious young aircraft designer named Laura Bristol who will provide the astonishing answers to his unspoken questions. This profoundly resonant tale reminds us of a powerful truth: although our dreams may lie beyond the limits of time, space, and belief, they are never beyond reach.
Amazon.com Review:
Richard Bach, the writer who flew to sucess on the wings of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, once again returns to flight for metaphysical inspiration. Bach begins this journey with a quandary--how to customize his airplane, a small Piper Cub? For example, how can he keep his latch door from slamming shut in midflight? How to stop his oil cap from jiggling loose and disappearing? With each question the solutions appear; they are apparently delivered by a vision of a benevolent woman. Before long, Bach realizes that an aircraft designer from an earlier time and another dimension is tutoring him. Of course, Bach takes the ultimate flight into her parallel universe where he finds an old-fashioned aviation company that solves problems for troubled aviators. He also meets his mysterious muse Laura Bristol.
This is a brief story (101 pages) that wrestles with the limitations of present-day technology and the grandeur of the early days of aviation. True to Bach's mission, it also wrestles with the choices we make in this time and this moment, and how they can change our life and our universe. --Gail Hudson
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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I picked up this book unaware of the author or what the book was really about. My college had a lot of books for sale for used books at cheap prices. I purchased this book for about 50cents. I started reading it, laughing, because I was thinking, "Is this guy going to go on forever about this airplane latch?" Next thing I know the book is going in a different direction than I had started to expect. It's a wonderfully written book, short but it made me feel good inside to read this. I recommend it to everyone. I would say more but I'm afraid I would end up spoiling the entire book. Buy this book!
Rated by buyers -
This was the very very first Richard Bach book I've ever read. I read it without expectation, without comparing it to anything previously written by Bach, without looking for the return of previous characters from other books, without needing it to be a certain number of pages, without looking for a plot, without needing it to take me further than Bach's other books, without needing Bach to be married or divorced, without needing him to be a flawless person. I strolled quietly through this book unencumbered, and with a relaxed openness, simply listening as if with an ear cocked to the wind, listening to whatever it wanted to say to me. And so, I found it delightful, charming, evocative, sensitive, imaginative, tender, touching. Bach's heart was in this book, and that was enough. I was very grateful to have found "Out of My Mind". It makes me want to read others that Bach has written because in it I found the clear recognition of something intriguing and lingering... and an intense but gentle kindredness that continues to beckon to me. This is a very lovely and compelling introduction to Richard Bach.
Rated by buyers -
As the character Laura Bristol says of why she suggested leather, rather than steel cable, "...It seemed the simplest solution to your problem, and likely the most practical."
I found this, my very first introduction to Richard Bach's work, both a pleasant surprise and I suspect, something that will stay with me for a long time. Absolutely beautiful imagery! Not quite as plain, perhaps, as Hemingway, or as gut-wrenching, but it contains the same seed of powerful storytelling - not a word wasted. It was not surprising to see reviews both angry and defensive. Good writing pushes buttons. His work has obviously inspired and pricked.
I understand the inspiration - whether you've found a soulmate, or in search of one - this hints not of the sadness of loss, but at the joy of meeting and experiencing. I found that unbelievably wise in this day and time of trying to catagorize, label, psychoanalyze and define love in our desperate endeavor to catch and possess it. And the writing, simple as it is, evokes the pure emotions of attraction, curiosity, frustration and quiet acceptance with no more fanfare than the scent of fresh-mown grass or a geranium makes when you happen across it on a summer's day.
I am not so sure I understand why the "pricking". It is a small book. Perhaps we measure value in volume? Perhaps we want tidy endings - we want a story, and a story that validates our own experiences rather than offering a different perspective? Perhaps it tugs too strongly at our own regretted and unfinished endings? I personally felt none - but then I have found my soulmate, and I live with the constant in-and-out of a relationship that is measured in the moment, only. To measure it by the future and past would be to destroy it. No tidy story. No assured future. Just the joy (and sometimes hurts) of now.
Personally I think this book captures the brief moment of experience, the quickest flash of eternity, more beautifully than I could imagine described. I recommend it on a rainy, reflective day when your soul needs a little quiet.
Rated by buyers -
Well, I ordered this book before I read all the reviews here, and I kicked myself after reading them. Not because of the book, but because I had just written a letter to Richard, not knowing of the divorce, and hinted at questions I'm sure he won't want to answer. The book isn't nearly as bad as some people here led me to believe. It is a short story, and should have been presented as a short story, but I wasn't left hanging, as some people were. I think it stands ok as it is. Maybe my perceptions were lowered enough by some of the scathing reviews, that it was easy to find it better than some people thought. It seems to me that it's too easy for some people to point fingers and shout, "Rip Off", with no endeavor at understanding or empathy. Might it have occurred to them that maybe there's a reason this book is the way it is? That's certainly true of all his other books. I tried Richard's website too late; it had been shut down, so I missed what might have been said there. After doing some online research, it seems painfully obvious to me that, whatever the circumstances of the divorce, it must have been pretty rough; it seems evident that both Richard and Leslie agreed to keep the details personal, even to the exclusion of any mention of Leslie, or "Bridge Across Forever", in a recent interview for AOPAPilot. It seems plausible to me that he was driven back into seclusion by harsh criticism, just as he dismissed himself from the "Illusions" forum on CompuServe many years ago. Indeed, even in one past interview online, Leslie's face was obviously removed from a group photo. It's easy to imagine that a stipulation of the divorce is that it not be publicized. Of course, that's disconcerting to all of us that have been allowed to share in so many personal details of Richard's life in the past. But you know what? This his HIS LIFE, people; ease up. We're not entitled to anything; we should consider ourselves lucky he's still writing at all. People forget that Richard often said that he hates the act of writing, that he has to be driven to it by ideas that demand to be exposed. They also forget what a private person he can be, and how awkward it is for him at times, to have millions of people know all the personal details he shares, to the point where they feel that they have some kind of right to criticize him, or tell him what they think he should do, or what he should have done. So, "Out of My Mind" is short; so it disappointed some people who were expecting another "One" or "Running from Safety" or "Illusions". I prefer to think it was what Richard intended it to be, and maybe we should try to figure that out. Isn't that what books are for?
Rated by buyers 
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I'm very glad I read some of the reviews here on Amazon before I began reading this book; I hadn't known of Richard & Leslie's divorce, and I would have cast about for her in the story - sadly, she's not there. Alas. I suppose even good and perfect-seeming marriages sometimes end.
But this story itself is a tiny little treasure - I passionately love Richard Bach's writing voice, and his absolute love of flying, and those are here in this little book. He hasn't lost his sense of wonder, joy or amazement, despite potentially difficult and heart-rending personal trials - his emotions and his soul come shining through wonderfully.
Though it's only a very well-spaced-out 101 pages, _Out of My Mind_ still made my heart soar in the 45-odd minutes it took to read it. My mind thrilled thinking of such beautiful parallel universes as Saunders-Vixen's, and the story lifted my soul.
Perhaps it's not for everyone, as some of the reviews here sound very disappointed; so, you may want to keep your expectations low. For me, though, it was exactly what I was looking for right now, in this particular moment...
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