According to Edward R. Murrow, of the old-school style of journalism, we can learn from our fear and often our personal beliefs are based on that fear. "This I Believe" is a collection of brief essays that are based on his  series from the 1950's. Each person interviewed had five minutes to give a life philosophy, which Mr. Murrow claimed was a tad bit invasive and too little time to fully express the true philosophies of the subjects. This edition takes old essays and new.

One of my favorite inspirational quotes of all time was from Helen Keller. She once said, "Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all." While I haven't necessarily lived my life by that philosophy, I have often found her inspiring when I needed a little extra dose of courage.  She is no less disappointing in this book. She says, "Like the little dumb, deaf, and blind child I once was, mankind is growing out of the darkness of ignorance and hate into the light of a brighter day." While this was decades ago, it seems just as meaningful in light of today's economic and political climate to have hope in times of darkness.

Penn Jilette proves that not everybody has the same means to find inspiration. Helen Keller, as a Christian, found her faith in God. Penn Jilette, of Penn and Teller, ironically found his faith from having no faith in God. He claims that if there is no God, the misery and suffering in the world is not caused by a God; therefore, we as people "might be able to help others in the future".

For a different topic, I enjoyed the essay by Rick Moody, a short story writer and novelist. Of course, the real reason I like this essay is that it focuses on reading. His opinion is taken from Umberto Eco's "Role of the Reader", which is that "the reader completes the text". I like the idea that there are many different ways to read a book, and that there are not always right or wrong conclusions to take from a book.

The book concludes with instructions on how to write your own "This I Believe" collection. It's not so easy to write a guiding philosophy in the span of a couple hundred words; trust me, I've tried. If you've ever read a religious text, you can see that it's not even easy to write one in an entire book.