Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach, 1970
★ 3.86 from 281.1k ratings on Goodreads
A seagull leaves his flock's scavenging for the discipline of flight, and finds that speed, freedom and perfection are spiritual problems. The book moves like a short, lyrical fable about flight and discipline, with a calm philosophical voice and moments of open wonder.
Feels like hope, wonder and tenderness. About freedom, time and identity.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy short, lyrical fables that treat flight as a way to think about purpose and individuality. Some readers find its lessons simplistic or preachy, so it may suit you less if you want moral questions left open.
Why read it
A brief, lyrical story about flight as discipline and freedom, useful when you want a small philosophical fable rather than a long novel.
A page from the book
The fastest thing in the sky turns out not to be a number.
You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there. What readers say
Readers report mixed responses: many find the fable inspiring and moving, appreciating its focus on purpose, individuality, and freedom; others find it simplistic, preachy, or hollow. Nostalgia also shapes some warm reactions.
Richard Bach.Richard Bach served as a U.S. Air Force pilot; the book's aerobatics come from cockpit experience rather than research.
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Questions readers ask
- Is Jonathan Livingston Seagull for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy short, lyrical fables that treat flight as a way to think about purpose and individuality. Some readers find its lessons simplistic or preachy, so it may suit you less if you want moral questions left open.
- What is Jonathan Livingston Seagull like?
- The book moves like a short, lyrical fable about flight and discipline, with a calm philosophical voice and moments of open wonder. Feels like hope, wonder and tenderness. About freedom, time and identity.
- What should I read after Jonathan Livingston Seagull?
- If you liked Jonathan Livingston Seagull, try The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho), A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle) and The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield).
A taste of the feed
The nothing-to-lose freedom of being robbed in a foreign country.
He looked around at the empty plaza again, feeling less desperate than before. This wasn’t a strange place; it was a new one…he had already traveled farther than any shepherd he knew. Oh, if they only knew how different things are just two hours by ship from where they are, he thought….As he mused about these things, he realized that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure. “I’m an adventurer, looking for treasure,” he said to himself.
The Alchemist · Paulo Coelho
The moment a familiar body becomes something no myth has a name for.
The wild colors of her clothes became muted, whitened. The pudding-bag shape stretched, lengthened, merged. And suddenly before the children was a creature more beautiful than any Meg had even imagined, and the beauty lay in far more than the outward description. Outwardly Mrs. Whatsit was surely no longer a Mrs. Whatsit. She was a marble-white body with powerful flanks, something like a horse but at the same time completely unlike a horse, for from the magnificently modeled back sprang a nobly formed torso, arms, and a head resembling a man’s, but a man with a perfection of dignity and virtue, an exaltation of joy such as Meg had never before seen.
A Wrinkle in Time · Madeleine L'Engle
Why the most alive moments of your life refuse to last.
According to the Manuscript, we’re beginning to glimpse an alternative kind of experience... moments in our lives that feel different somehow, more intense and inspiring. But we don’t know what this experience is or how to make it last, and when it ends we’re left feeling dissatisfied and restless with a life that seems ordinary again.
The Celestine Prophecy · James Redfield
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