Reader Letters

Letters about WAKING by Matthew Sanford

I picked up this book last night off my side table to read a few pages and get a feel for where it was going. Three hours later I hadn’t moved and I didn’t stop reading until I finished the book. I kept forgetting to breathe.
— Santa Barbara, CA

I loved, loved, loved, loved, the book and found myself looking at Matt’s picture and bio on the outside cover, saying “Thank you.”
— Nichole Hirsch, Long Lake, MN

I shed tears over the course of this book, but was also in awe of the journey Matt has taken through his life. He shares how he has connected with his injured, imperfect body, and has inspired me to do the same. This has been a great book for our book club. Highly recommended.
— J Brekken, Orono, MN

To all human beings…young, old and everybody in between…I loved this book! It is everything you want when you open a book.
— Michele in Colorado (Message Board Post)

I will continue to love your story and to tell all I know about it and its impact on me. Your story of truth and mind- body connection and human spirit is beautiful and a blessing to my life.
— Lydia Holsten, Excelsior, MN

The biographical part is worth the read in itself. However, you definitely go beyond that in connecting mind and body, life and death, war and peace, and looking after our world. Yes, it all fits together.
— Sandy Hawkins, Williams Lake, Canada

I will be shouting from rooftops and talking to anyone who I can make listen about the book and your work.
— Jane Singer, Minneapolis, MN

I am in awe of your ability to describe what happened to you and your family and the feelings you had and your reactions to the treatment you received. The medical world has so much to learn from you, as do we all.
— Harriet Davis, Excelsior, MN

Your book is a contribution to the world of yoga and to the large body of memoir literature that continually redefines what we know about the human condition.
— Ann Kimmage, Brunswick, ME

…it is an admirable piece of writing. You have a great style, a gift for words and an enviable descriptive ability. Your book is engrossing, moving and powerful, yet so sensitive.
— Alyce Cranston, Minneapolis, MN

Long ago I found that by listening to the silence of the universe I could find the silence in myself. I just didn’t know what it was until I read your book.
— Sue Kilbride, Waikoloa, Hawaii

Read the book, you will learn a great deal about yourself and life around us. I sure did. There isn’t a life for which this story wouldn’t apply for we all experience trauma and pain, life and death — it’s how we choose to live with it that is the ultimate quest.
— Gia DesLauriers, Minnetonka MN

…as someone who tends to be very skeptical of anything possibly “New Age,” I found Matt’s account of his mental and physical growth through yoga very real and very credible. He doesn’t gloss over his ongoing struggles, or claim that he has transcended all difficulties for the rest of his life.
— J. Johnson, Amazon Reviewer

Reading this memoir was like taking an incredible journey; a page-turner that I finished in just two days! It is about strength: the strength of a community, a family, and individual spirit. It is about the fullness offered by life if one is willing to reach out and take it.
— TLC, Amazon Reviewer

It’s such an amazing portrait of courage and perseverance! I found it amazingly compelling, and it made me want to do yoga!
— Mary Prudhomme, Philadelphia, PA