Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Solitude: Memories, People, Places
    Unavailable
    Solitude: Memories, People, Places
    Unavailable
    Solitude: Memories, People, Places
    Ebook244 pages3 hours

    Solitude: Memories, People, Places

    By Terry Waite

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    ‘This is a thoughtful and sensitive book from a man who endured the fear and loneliness of captivity. Now, years later, Terry Waite explores solitude in its many forms.’
    ,Stella Rimington DBE, former Director General of MI5

    ‘No one is better qualified to write about solitude than Terry Waite, who spent nearly five years of his life in solitary confinement. His exploration of solitude – he calls it a saunter – takes him from his personal ordeal to the Australian outback, to the home of a former British double agent in Moscow, and beyond. His book will be of great value to those who have suffered from too much company or too little, or are interested in the phenomenon of being alone, which is not at all the same as being lonely. Terry Waite’s saunter through solitude is wide ranging, original, well written and (best of all) companionable.’
    Martin Bell OBE, UNICEF ambassador and former war reporter

    ‘This is a wonderfully perceptive and engaging book. Terry Waite takes the reader deep into other worlds, both geographical and psychological, from which they will emerge enlightened and spiritually enriched.’
    Ranulph Fiennes OBE, explorer, writer and poet

    Some people long to find it, others long to escape it. But, whether we welcome or dread it, solitude is something we all experience in different forms at different points in our lives.

    After enduring nearly five years of solitary confinement, in cruel and terrifying conditions, Terry Waite discovered that he was drawn to find out more about the power of solitude in the lives of other people. The result is this haunting book, in which he recalls his encounters with people who have experienced some very different ways of being solitary: among them the peaceful solitude of remote and beautiful places; the unsought and often unnoticed solitude of lonely people living in the midst of busy cities; the deceptive solitude of those living in the twilight world of espionage; the enforced solitude of the convict and the prisoner of war; and, finally, the inescapable solitude of those who are drawing near to death.

    Through all these encounters, and through the memories and reflections they trigger in the author’s mind, we see how solitude shapes the human soul – and how it can be a force for good in our own lives, if we can only learn to use it well.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSPCK
    Release dateOct 2, 2017
    ISBN9780281078837
    Unavailable
    Solitude: Memories, People, Places

    Read more from Terry Waite

    Related to Solitude

    Related ebooks

    Personal Memoirs For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Let Love In

      Jan 6, 2022

      Let Love In
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Common Genius of Lincoln and Einstein: The president and the physicist teach us a lesson about moral genius.

      Oct 30, 2014

      Abraham Lincoln would still be remembered today as a self-taught prairie prodigy and an astute political operator who crushed the Confederate uprising, even without the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the end of slavery. Albert

      6 min read

    • Article

      How Water Can Make Us Well

      Jan 6, 2020

      How Water Can Make Us Well
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Wonder Of Water

      Dec 11, 2020

      The Wonder Of Water
      7 min read

    • Article

      You Have to Invent Yourself: An Interview with Jaron Lanier

      Jun 11, 2018

      I think of a social media company, in particular Facebook and to a degree Google, as an existential mafia. They’re saying, you have to work with us or you effectively won’t exist. You’ll become invisible to everybody. Your very corporeality is in our

      11 min read

    • Article

      A Fraternity of Dreamers

      Oct 9, 2020

      The anxiety that libraries can sometimes give me is of a cosmic nature, for something ineffable affects my sense of self when I realize that the majority of human interaction, expression, and creativity shall forever be unavailable to me. The post A

      16 min read

    • Article

      Ursula K. Le Guin’s Warning: Sci-Fi as Operating Instructions for Life

      Mar 30, 2018

      1. In “Teasing Myself Out of Thought,” from her excellent last collection of essays and reviews, Words Are My Matter, the recently departed and much missed Ursula K. Le Guin wrote: “Kids are taught writing in school as a means to an end. Most writing

      6 min read

    • Article

      What Love Meant in 4500 B.C.

      Feb 21, 2022

      What Love Meant in 4500 B.C.
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Dharma Girls

      Aug 17, 2018

      The Dharma Girls
      5 min read

    • Article

      Memory Can Be a Second Chance: Ocean Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’

      Aug 22, 2019

      Thoughtful and tender, Vuong's autobiographical novel is framed as a letter from a son, Little Dog, to his illiterate single mother, Rose. The post Memory Can Be a Second Chance: Ocean Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ appeared first on The M

      6 min read

    • Article

      What’s This Doing To My Brain?

      Mar 27, 2018

      A FRIEND OF THE WRITER Kim Stolz once jumped onto subway tracks to retrieve a dropped iPhone. Telling the story in Unfriending My Ex and Other Things I’ll Never Do, Stolz reports being horrified by the risk—yet adds, “If this same friend dropped her

      7 min read

    • Article

      Alone In The Vastness Of Existence

      May 8, 2018

      Alone In The Vastness Of Existence
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Sixth Extinction

      Jan 23, 2018

      The Sixth Extinction
      5 min read

    • Article

      She Went Out For A Walk. Then Drogo The Police Dog Charged.

      Oct 15, 2020

      Growing up, few Black families in Ayanna Brooks’s neighborhood had dogs. A vicious attack reminded her why.

      13 min read

    • Article

      Protagonists

      Jun 18, 2021

      Was the craft of fiction around desire and obstacle taught by men and for men, for men protagonists and men readers? Was fiction part of the patriarchy? Was the craft of fiction part of the patriarchy? The answers were all yes. The post Protagonists

      7 min read

    • Article

      4. Tell The Truth

      Jan 19, 2021

      4. Tell The Truth
      2 min read

    • Article

      Find The Wisdom In Paradox

      Jul 21, 2020

      Sit with the paradox—this fundamental teaching from my Rinzai Zen training guides me in these coronavirus times. In our Zen tradition, students are asked to work with paradoxical stories, dialogues, or questions called koans. As an example, here is a

      2 min read

    • Article

      Through The Lens Of Madhyamaka

      Feb 6, 2018

      Through The Lens Of Madhyamaka
      9 min read

    • Article

      No 15 STORIES BY DESIGN

      Jun 6, 2018

      No 15 STORIES BY DESIGN
      2 min read

    • Article

      Steadfast In The Midst Of Samsara

      Feb 11, 2020

      Steadfast In The Midst Of Samsara
      11 min read

    • Article

      Coming In To Come Out

      Nov 17, 2022

      Coming In To Come Out
      2 min read

    Reviews for Solitude

    4/5

    1 rating1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Terry Waite, as many people will remember, was famous for being held hostage in Beirut for almost five years in the late 1980s. As envoy for the Church of England he was trying to negotiate the release of another hostage when he was seized. For the majority of his imprisonment he was held in darkness in solitary confinement, with guards instructed not to speak to him. Almost 30 years on from that experience, Waite continues to work through understanding what it was within him that enabled him to mentally survive his experience, and the premise of this book is Waite's attempt to marry his experience of solitude with that experienced by people from a wide spectrum of places and circumstances (excluding those who have chosen a solitary life for religious reasons, about whom he felt much has already been written).The book includes an intriguing cast of characters, including amongst others tough farmers who had chosen an isolated life in the Australian bush and the double secret agent George Blake. Whilst it read as a interesting travelogue of sorts, I don't think Waite successfully achieved his goal of reaching any enlightening depths on the topic of solitude. With Blake, for instance, he got caught up in his fascination with Blake's tales of how he became a double agent and whether he regretted that choice. It was certainly interesting to read, but it felt like the question of solitude was latched onto it as a bit of an afterthought to try to remain to topic. The same applied to many other stories - they were interesting for their own sake, but they really didn't get under the skin of solitude at all. Some were quite random and so brief (Myra Hindley, the notorious English child murderer, and Lana Peters, Stalin's daughter) that they read more as moments of name-dropping than anything else.Having said that, I did enjoy reading this book. Terry Waite has led a unique and fascinating life, and it was an interesting assortment of people to read about. When I heard him speak at an event last week he mentioned that he's written six books across a number of genres books and has been trying to discover his writing voice or style. I think this writing naivety was very obvious in this book, with Waite overstretching himself both as an investigative journalist and as an armchair psychologist, but that aside I enjoyed my short trot around the globe with him.3.5 stars - interesting,but would have benefited from some further editorial polishing.