Out of My Mind: The Discovery of Saunders-Vixen

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!

This was the 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.

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 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 attempt 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.

Yes,Yes we are all upset that Richard Bach divorced Leslie (me too!)...but this is about books not somebodies personal life. As Richard Bach books go, this is one of my favorites (I have read every word he has published). Like Illusions and JLS this book is short and to the point, and like those two previous books it also conveys a truth about life that only Richard Bach can express in such a marvelous way. I am an aircraft designer for Boeing an I too have on some very few occasions been to Saunders-Vixen. The place does exist, and when that little immage of the design you are struggling with finally floats in space in front of your eyes, you can not immagine the joy you receive from knowing that there is an idea factory out there in space-time that sends these beautiful designs to you. Yes, the book is short, it has a lot of blank pages ( I suggest you communicate with Saunders-Vixen and draw your designs on them!) and it tells the truth like Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions. If You want to read the best Richard Bach books, read the short ones! JLS,Illusions and OUT OF MY MIND!Have [email protected]

in all his glory or lack there-of. I have read the other reviews and I think people need to lighten up. Richard Bach is an author who does not write for the purpose of commercial acceptance or pleasing anyone but himself, he has a story to tell and this just happened to be a very short story. Regardless of the length of the book, it is classic Bach. Better than ONE or BRIDGE, because it is his story , not Leslie's. I rate this book right up there with RUNNING FROM SAFETY. If you truly love Richard Bach as an author, you simply have to read this book and form your own opinion.