A Beginner's Guide to Changing the World: A True Life Adventure Story - Hardcover

Losada, Isabel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006078010X ISBN 13: 9780060780104

Publisher: HarperOne, 2005

Synopsis

Tired of half-hearted attempts to effect change in the world, Isabel Losada decides to walk the talk and embarks on a journey that takes her from protests in the streets of London to India and back again.

Sometimes you just have to do something, don't you? Sometimes an injustice comes along and you think, "No, this cannot be," and -- rather than just turn off the TV, or throw away the newspaper one more time -- you know it's time to act.

If you or I decide to take an action for a cause beyond ourselves, one in which we have no historical reason to become involved, will we be greeted with cynicism and become a laughingstock? Perhaps. But I enjoy making people laugh. So that's the first problem solved.

It doesn't matter what the injustice is that's got you hopping about. It could be the destruction of the rain forest, the war in the Middle East, or the drug addiction in your neighborhood -- it's all the same. It's making a difference I'm playing with here.

So begins Losada's fast-moving narrative, a tale of romance, history, travel, politics, Buddhism, human rights, lively interviews, and, above all, humor. From visits to Nepal and Tibet to meetings with the Chinese ambassador and Tibetan awareness-raising groups, Isabel single-handedly hatches a stunning PR coup involving Trafalgar Square, a sixty-foot banner, and a base-jumping parachutist launching from Nelson's Column who captures headlines worldwide ... then she meets the Dalai Lama. Warm and funny, moving and thought provoking, this astonishing book celebrates the fact that no matter what our passions are, we can make a difference.

Isabel's List of Ten Indispensable Things You Need to Change the World:

1. A cupboard. To put your TV in.
2. A crazy, wonderful, foolish plan.
3. Selective deafness. (The complete inability to hear the word no.)
4. A coffee addiction (impossible otherwise).
5. Unconditional love for others -- 24/7.
6. Deranged friends.
7. An irrational desire to do mad things -- called fundraising (jump out of planes, etc.).
8. A Web site that you made yourself and can maintain yourself. No, really!
9. An unbalanced sense of humor.
10. Persistence. Joy. Persistence. Joy. Persistence. Joy. Persistence.

About this title

About the Author

Isabel Losada has worked as an actress, singer, television producer, and full-time single parent. She is the author of The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment, which is a bestseller in twelve countries. She really does live on Battersea Park Road, in London.

Reviews

Losada, an English actress, singer and TV producer, detailed her New Age search for happiness in her previous book, The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment. Now she turns away from the "tummy-button" of her search for personal happiness to take on social action on behalf of Tibet, harshly occupied by China, and its leader in exile, the Dalai Lama. Losada is disappointed by British organizations working in support of an autonomous Tibet, because they don't necessarily embrace the Dalai Lama ("the sanest voice on the planet"). To ease her frustration, Losada makes some contacts, develops a Web site and dreams up some publicity schemes, including "tits for Tibet," involving topless women in a van. Cooler heads prevail, and the author settles for a parachutist jumping from Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square while unfurling a picture of the Dalai Lama, a stunt that attracts international news coverage. Losada also travels to Tibet and falls in love with a monk. An audience she has with the Dalai Lama is recounted in glowing terms. She seems unfamiliar with political, historical and religious complexities, but there's no doubt that Losada is a good-humored, hard-working activist for Tibet. Her heart is in the right place, but much of the time her head doesn't follow. Illus. not seen by PW. Agents, Jonathan Lloyd and Christy Fletcher. (On sale June 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

To Londoner Losada, it was all so illogical. By fighting the war on terror with even more violence, world governments were showing terrorists that such destructive tactics were effective because they had succeeded in gaining international attention. Conversely, the world's leading advocate for peace, the Dalai Lama, was being universally ignored. The message: violence works; peace doesn't. Having already written about achieving personal enlightenment, Losada decided it was time to put her ideas into practice to determine how, or even if, one person could change world opinion. With indefatigable energy, infectious enthusiasm, and indomitable belief in her quest, Losada embraced her mission to protest Chinese domination of Tibet as an opportunity for personal growth as well as for international welfare. Whether traveling to Kathmandu, gaining audiences with Chinese officials, or staging consciousness--raising PR stunts, Losada's courageous, audacious, and frequently humorous journey from mildly interested observer to fully committed activist is an inspirational and illuminating study in the power and possibility of one person's faith and determination. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 006078010X
• ISBN 13: 9780060780104
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384