Max Ehrmann: Desiderata: A survival guide for life

By MARGIE THOMSON

I think I prefer my Desiderata plain and unadorned, and I'm perfectly happy knowing that the place I'm most likely to see it is on my mother-in-law's toilet wall, where two versions, only slightly different, hang side by side. One purports to be by Max Ehrmann, written 1927; the other, confusingly, simply attributes St Paul's Church, Baltimore, 1692. Well, now the matter is cleared up once and for all: the blurb of this small, smart, illustrated reproduction of this classic "poem" ("go placidly amidst the noise and haste, etc") tells us that Ehrmann did write it "because it counsels those virtues I felt myself most in need of".

The church, which was founded in 1692, simply distributed copies of the poem. I don't think this new format adds anything - the confusion of type sizes and illustrations detracts from the simplicity of Ehrmann's message which is best absorbed in frequent but short reminders throughout the day. Call me a purist ...

Random House

$16.95