Hypnotizing Maria »

Richard Bach is the author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Illusions, One, The Bridge Across Forever, and numerous other books.

Flight instructor Jamie Forbes guides a woman to landing her plane safely after her husband loses consciousness, then flies on to his own destination unimpressed by his act...flight instructors guide students every day. Only after she tells reporters that a stranger appeared in an airplane alongside hers and hypnotized her into landing, and after he meets his own guiding stranger does he solve the bigger mystery: how each of us creates, step by step, what seems to be the solid world around us. The best mysteries are the ones whose answers lie in front of us, in plain sight. The best solutions are those moments when all of a sudden we realize what we've known all along.

Publishers Weekly

The hero of Bach's new book, pilot and flight instructor Jamie Forbes, is on a routine run when Maria, the panicked spouse of another pilot, radios that her husband has collapsed at the controls. Forbes talks her through the steps to land safely. Maria's explanation to reporters that Forbes "hypnotized" her sparks a series of memories for Jamie, and the events that follow force him to examine what constitutes reality, to contemplate what lies beyond the edges of our carefully constructed worlds and whether those edges are real or created by our own limitations. While it mines the same territory as The Secret, Bach's book is far richer, raising provocative questions and striking the perfect balance, providing answers without implying that they are the only-or necessarily the right-ones. (Sept.)

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