29 Gifts

How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life

By: Cami Walker

Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert

At age 35, Cami Walker was burdened by a battle with multiple sclerosis, a chronic neurological condition that made it difficult for her to walk, work, or enjoy her life. Seeking a remedy for her depression after being hospitalized, she received an uncommon prescription from an African medicine woman: give to others for 29 days.

29 Gifts is the insightful story of the author's life change as she embraces and reflects on the naturally reciprocal process of giving and receiving. Many of Walker's gifts were simple - a phone call, spare change, a Kleenex. Yet the acts were transformative. By day 29, not only had Walker's health and happiness improved, but she had created a worldwide giving movement.

The book also includes personal essays from others whose lives changed for the better by giving, plus pages for the reader to record their own journey. More than a memoir, 29 Gifts offers inspiring lessons on how a simple daily practice of altruism can dramatically alter your outlook on the world.

©2009 Brightside Communications, Inc. (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Walker's a plucky writer, and it's hard not to be inspired by her story." ( Boston Globe)

The challenge is to be consistent

Interesting difficult to go 29 days without missing. Try try again one day I'll do it

Inspiring story with important message

I am glad Cami wrote this book to share with others the importance of gratitude and sharing what we have with others. Unfortunately the choice of reader made me rate the book a 3. Her style was challenging to listen to and kept jolting me back to the realization that I was listening to a book rather than allowing me to be immersed in the story. Her forced enunciation of words was unnatural, and her British accent was not believable or accurate.

Very good book about gifting; not preachy at all

29 Gifts talks about a woman's struggle with her diseases, MS and addiction. She found herself frightened, self-consumed and felt like her life a destined path of going nowhere and that she would never be able to acquire the simple things she wanted from live. Most of all, this woman was full of fear; fear of the unknown, fear of the future, fear of her husband leaving here when he tired from having to caretaking of her physical needs. 20 Gifts is the journey of this woman taking up a challenge presented to her by a friend and spiritual advisor that she practice for 29 days the act of giving something each day to another person. Told with honesty, this is a feel-good story and one that shares with it's readers how to practice the gift of 29 days of giving in their life. It also addresses other "gifting needs", such as why we give, how giving can either drain us or enrich us and the link to our emotional state when we are giving to someone or something. This is a very good, very nice book that charts a way to think communally while not losing sight of one's own needs. This was a gift to me, from me, in a year that has held many changes that haven't been pleasant. At 56, I am searching, once again, for the meaning of my life, my contribution in the world and what makes me happy now. It's been one of those life awareness and life changing years that take place every one in a while in my life. This book was a nice reminder of what core values I have always held about the world and it also helped me flesh out some of my own feelings around receiving and giving gifts. It even helped make clearer the definition of "gift" to me.. This is a good book.

A bore

I downloaded it 'cause was a daily deal. This book should have been a short story. By the 5th gift I satisfied. We all know where the book is headed. So after the 5th gift I became really really bored.

Healing through giving

This book is very much in alignment with what I have been studying. I really enjoyed it and plan to start my own 29 days of giving starting this week.