An Hour to Live, and Hour to Love by Richard Carlson and Kristine Carlson

After reading the Don't Sweat the Small Stuff with. your Family, I was eager to read Richard's other books. This book is very touching as it writes about the love from Richard to Kris, 3 years before he died in Dec 2006. I did not even knew Richard Carlson is dead until I read the cover of this book.

There are 2 parts to the book. One is the letter Richard wrote to Kris in 2003 for their 18th anniversary and the other is Kris's words about how she felt about Richard. The question it asked was "If you have an hour left to live, who would you call and what would you tell him or her?" Pondering about this question, Richard realised that he should tell Kris about he he felt about her as if he has only an hour to live. The letter was very touching and there are many lessons to be learnt from it. Kris then take the second part where she writes about the things Richard did and the feelings between both of them.

I was surprised as I finished the book in a session of about half an hour. It has only 53 pages, not counting the ending poem and the last pages for the reader to write what he or she wants to tell the other party if he has only an hour to live.

I am now looking forward to read his other books.

The Present by Spencer Johnson

This is one of the short, to-the-point and fantastic books that I have read. It is short as it has only 103 pages, to-the-point because of its no-nonsense writing and fantastic due to its teachings. Its teachings are simple yet powerful.

The main content is about a story about the life of a man, whom has an old man as a mentor. The old man taught him about the Present, which is really living in the present, focusing on what one is doing and enjoying the things he or she is doing. It continued with while living in the present, one has to review the past to learn the mistakes made and to better the present. Then, to complete the picture, one has also to plan for the future in the present so that one can have a better future. Lastly, one must have a purpose in life, to better other people's life.

There are many phrases and sentences which have quite an impact to me. One being "Pain is the difference between what is, and what you want it to be." How true. What type of pain or how long your want the pain to be there is all dependent on yourself. This is just one of the numerous teachings from this book. I would recommend all to get hold of this book and read it.