Everyday Greatness is a collection of some of the best and most inspiring stories from Reader's Digest over the past eighty years. The main idea of the book is that the world celebrates heroic achievements and rare talents, but there's greatness in small and simple deeds in everyday life that deserves a bigger honor. The book is dedicated to celebrating the important elements of human character such as responsibility, courage, integrity, humility, vision, ethics, respect, empathy, charity, perseverance and simplicity, which are often overlooked in this material world.
The book contains sixty-three motivational and inspirational stories, hundreds of quotations, a few jokes and other short stories. Though the cover displays "Stephen R. Covey" in big letters, the stories aren't written by Covey. He provides commentary at the beginning and end of each chapter that compel the readers to introspect and reflect over the morals presented in the chapter.
The good part about this book is that you don't need to read it cover to cover. I don't think it's meant to be taken in large dozes. You can pick up the book, read a story in 5-10 minutes, and put it back. Idea is to do self-reflection after reading each story and try to implement the values in one's life in order to lead a life of meaning and satisfaction.
Being a member of Toastmasters International, I found this book particularly useful. It gave me lot of fresh ideas for my future speeches and table topics. It would be very useful resource for anyone involved with any sort of public speaking activity.
My biggest complaint about this book is that all the stories have an "American" theme. Though many stories have a universal appeal, there are some which I didn't find as appealing as an American would probably find. The book would have been more balanced had the stories been selected from different cultures and regions around the world. I'm sure everyone would agree that there's lot of "Everyday Greatness" in other parts of the world.
Some of the stories in the book are very insightful and really touched my heart. The book claims to expand your thinking and open your mind and I agree that it succeeded in doing so in my case. I wouldn't call this a compelling read, but it's one of those books that you treasure in your collection. I would recommend this book and rate it 4 out of 5.
P.S.: I received this book free of cost from Thomas Nelson Inc. under their Book Review Bloggers program. I would like to thank them for offering me the opportunity to review this wonderful book.
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