Quest: Discovering Your Human Potential

In the swelling ranks of end-of-the millennium gurus offering warm, fuzzy feelings and counseling the importance of serious navel-gazing, there are good, bad, and merely mediocre voices jockeying for position on the trade paperback bestseller list. Quest offers six of the more well-known: Thomas Moore, Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, Stephen Covey, Dr. Bernie Siegel, and David Whyte. As might be expected, there is a combination of genuine insight, simple common sense, and utter pabulum presented here with Siegel and Moore delivering the best more-than-sound-bites-but-not quite-developed-arguments, Covey and Chopra occupying the middle ground, and Whyte and Williamson filling the requisite space cadet positions. The gist can be reduced to a fairly easy to understand paradigm: we are undergoing great changes; change causes anxiety; anxiety takes its toll on physical, mental, and spiritual health; and poor spiritual health ensures unhappiness and an unfulfilling life. Now, if that made you see your life in a startling new perspective, I suggest that you send me $20 immediately, and I'll rush you a framed (very cheaply), autographed (Xerox) copy of that same earth-shattering sentence to ponder every day. Or you can just watch the video. Although the documentary isn't consistently thought-provoking enough to recommend it, this one is sure to be a very popular title. Libraries should therefore strongly consider it as an optional purchase. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)