Product Description
The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 867 reviews)

Thank you Ishmael

This book changed my life.

Like a fish swimming in the ocean who takes water for granted, we can't help but take our own culture for granted. It has become invisible to us, because we live in it. This book will make it so you can see it again. Once you start to see it, you won't be able to make it become invisible again.

If you've ever wondered how things got this bad, you should read this book. Prepare for a paradigm shift.
September 25, 2008

Original, Thought-Provoking and Intriguing

While I read 2 to 3 hours per day, this is not a book I would have chosen to read on my own (mostly because it is fiction). I read it only because an authoratative figure asked me to. I'm glad he did. I enjoyed the story and the insight. What the author, Daniel Quinn, has done, however, is simply to identify the invention that ultimately allowed man to build civilizations. Inasmuch as civilization is the cause of most of society's ills, the book challenges us to think about the necessity of civilization. Though written in an easy, highly readable style, I was left unfullfilled at the end. Perhaps this is why author Quinn has written other books on the same theme, to solidify his argument. I recommend the book, only because it is a delightful story and it does something man has a natural tendency to resist...educate man...

But Daniel Quinn's talents could perhaps be better used on another area of civilization-politics. Explain those deceptions, as I have done in Don't Weep for Me, America: How Democracy in America Became the Prince (While We Slept), and the duped among us will really feel the shock.
September 18, 2008

Step out of the box!

It is hard to explain but Ishamel by Daniel Quinn, takes careful reading and re-reading and is well worth the effort. It is not written with unfamiliar words or complex sentences, but it challenges everything you perceive as "normal" in our society. This novel is designed for people who are sceptical of the answers to big questions.

I encourage you to put the library to good use, or to purchase gently-used. The copy I borrowed is printed on recycled paper, on the back page, under the author bio, look for: "Text printed on recycled paper; A Bantam/Turner Book".
September 16, 2008

This should be required reading.

This book changed my worldview, and I think someday, it will have changed my life. I've read it easily five or six times, and I always come back to it every few years or so. Thus far, I have yet to actually implement Quinn's ideas in my own life, but I can never look at the world and our culture (of which I now have a better perspective and understanding) in the same way. It's through the looking glass, it's Neo discovering the Matrix, it's looking up at the puppet show. I can see the strings now, and I can hear the whispers we've all lived with our entire lives, the ones that never quite sounded right, could never entirely make sense, and always seemed unsatisfying, inconsistent and contradictory. Even if I wanted to return to my old way of thinking, I don't think I could, now. And I'm glad of it. When the opportunity comes to embrace these new values and these new ideas, I'll be ready to make the leap, wholeheartedly.
August 12, 2008

Three stars - interesting ideas, very little storyline

The bulk of Ishmael is dialog, and while I do feel I learned from the book, much of it was boring and I found it difficult to finish. There was no real storyline to grab my attention and I thought a lot of the dialog was pretentious.

Go into this book to expand your knowledge - but don't expect "an adventure of the mind and spirit" as the title suggests. As another reviewer suggested, if you treat it as a work of non-fiction (in that you will be absorbing mostly straight history and philosophy) you will probably enjoy it more.

If you are looking for a good story that will change the way you look at life, I would recommend reading The Alchemist by Paul Coelho.
August 04, 2008

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