Official Review: Choosing Simplicity by Steven Ayer

[ananya92]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Choosing Simplicity" by Steven Ayer.]

---

3 out of 4 stars

---

Share This Review

---

Choosing Simplicity by Steven M. Ayer is a book in the non-fiction genre. It fits well in the category of self-help and inspirational books.

The author begins the book with an introduction which explains the author’s motivation for penning down this book and how he has gone about writing this one. The book is divided into five sections. Each section is further divided into various sub-sections focusing on a particular quality like work ethic, courage, power, pleasure, fear, etc. Section one starts with describing the important concepts which the author believes are important for understanding the overall context in which a person lives. Section two with challenges or hurdles one faces in life. Section three focuses on the qualities which a person should cultivate while the next section focuses on the inverse, i.e. the qualities which one should avoid. The final section focuses on business applications where the author provides guidance related to the field of investing.

The author mainly focuses on three things: physical health, mental health and spiritual health. All the subsections begin with a quote, followed by a thought and conclude with action. The pattern of the book is pretty simple and easy to follow. There are plenty of inspirational and thought provoking quotes in the book by a number of famous personalities, for example,“There are many paths leading to the top of Mount Fuji, but there is only one summit- love” . These quotes provide a good foundation upon which the author develops his thoughts and proposes a plan of action. The plan of action proposed by the author in most cases would require the reader to sit and introspect. I believe that without some introspection and soul searching, reading this book will be a fruitless exercise for the reader.

The author in the last section branches off to giving some serious financial advice. The plus point is that this section makes the book more practically beneficial for people as it would help them in scrutinizing their finances as well. On the downside, it’s a bit off topic with the rest of the book and also, most of the advice given in this section would apply to US citizens only. Non-US people would not benefit much from the last section.

On one major count, I disagree with the author. The author mentions,“We Americans work longer hours than any other nation in the world.” Not only is this completely wrong on a factual basis, but it’s also a bit offensive. A child diamond miner in Africa spends more than ten hours per day scavenging for diamonds, sometimes for no pay or sometimes maybe less than a dollar. Let’s research a bit before we make insensitive and unqualified statements.

This book would be more suitable for American reading base compared to readers across the world. Though the book is titled Choosing Simplicity, the theme of the book is pretty generic and similar to most of the self-help books available in the market. Despite the above grievances with the book, I think the message and method promoted in this book will turn out to be quite helpful for readers. I rate it 3 out of 4 stars.

******
Choosing Simplicity
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

Like ananya92's review? Post a comment saying so!

[debo9967]

The statement about American working long hours is so typical.
Nice review though.

[ananya92]

Thanks

[zeldas_lullaby]

Great review! That did seem like an uneducated comment about work hours.

[ananya92]

Thanks