29 Gifts
How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life
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29 Gifts
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Narrated by:
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Tavia Gilbert
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By:
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Cami Walker
About this listen
At age 35, Cami Walker was burdened by a battle with multiple sclerosis, a chronic neurological condition that made it difficult for her to walk, work, or enjoy her life. Seeking a remedy for her depression after being hospitalized, she received an uncommon prescription from an African medicine woman: give to others for 29 days.
29 Gifts is the insightful story of the author's life change as she embraces and reflects on the naturally reciprocal process of giving and receiving. Many of Walker's gifts were simple - a phone call, spare change, a Kleenex. Yet the acts were transformative. By day 29, not only had Walker's health and happiness improved, but she had created a worldwide giving movement.
The book also includes personal essays from others whose lives changed for the better by giving, plus pages for the reader to record their own journey. More than a memoir, 29 Gifts offers inspiring lessons on how a simple daily practice of altruism can dramatically alter your outlook on the world.
©2009 Brightside Communications, Inc. (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Critic Reviews
What listeners say about 29 Gifts
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- katrina
- 11-10-2022
Interesting concept behind the memoir
The concept and idea of 29 gifts for self growth and healing is brilliant and described very well in this memoir. However, the Cami Walkers honest intention of wanting to help others by sharing her experiences using 29 gifts must be appreciated and not subject to the twisting of readers who haven't experienced true altruistic intentions. This memoir situated in this offense-seeking culture, risks being interpreted as elitist and somewhat out of touch with the reality of where societies majority sit financially. Cami does express multiple times how the idea of a gift isnt about spending money, yet falls short of realising a healthy sense of self esteem and education is needed first, before thee reader may feel capable of considered a phone call, visit from them, or advice in their field, is worth being considered a gift. This doesn't change Cami Walker's goal of this memoir, a pure and honest intent to share how important the 29 gifts idea is.
By backing up her claims with this memoir, we get an emotionally vulnerable and painfully accurate telling about the far reaching struggles of chronic illness. She gives her readers the gift of a brutally honesty window into her life, and generously discusses areas that most people would be too proud to admit. By normalising and finding ways to be present and independent while living with chronic illness, Cami gives readers the best gift of all, a sense of hope and solidarity.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Charles Pooter
- 13-10-2021
Mary Sue has MS
I should feel bad writing this, discovering that the author has passed on, but I'm a sticker for honesty. Being the same age and having the same disease as Walker should have had something in the book resonate within me, but no. It was a "white saviour" story, where the author is very pleased with herself for the tiniest of offerings she bestows in the "less fortunate". The author was painfully unaware of her elevated position in life, and much as she liked to refer to herself as a "writer", this blissful ignorance bled through everything she did. My favourite cringey passage described her "having a self-centred conversation with herself" during an addicts anonymous meeting. Not only was her prose incredibly clumsy, she acted as if the three dollars she put into the basket to fund the refreshments was amazing generosity and not a fortunate twist that allowed her to (gasp) not have to start from scratch in her give a gift a day goal. She completely ignored the stories her fellow addicts were sharing - but her daily mission had been saved, hooray!
All too often, the reality of incurable illness is more like her Cockney friend Ingrid's mother: a poor woman suffers through domestic violence, only to be handed the further blow of a diagnosis. Not everyone gets to surround themselves with New Age well wishers and get a book contract - they die in anonymity and agony, with no one even giving them a handful of seashells.
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