“We live and learn. Might as well roll with the punches. Put another way, you can’t force your will on the universe.”

A phrase from the book which made me paused and smiled.

I didn’t thought that I would love this book even better than her other books nor on any other philosophical ones.:)

We know how to get from A to Z. But what happens when life goes out of order, before we move on to a new day, there is a void we need to think about. This is what the book teaches us, living from Z 2 A. –the space in between-.

This book is about positive attitudes and actions. The author admits this weaved in and out, dealing with different aspects of life. Her last chapter talks about letting go and trusting the higher power.

The place described in the book is the author’s travel through Delhi (India). She wonderfully wrote that experience and inner thoughts in this book.

This was a fast read, plus a gallery of her paintings. Which at first glance would seem confusing, but if you actually focus on it, you’ll find its beauty between the strokes.

Z2A is a rich spiritual book helping the reader in the entire process of transformation. In this book, I find myself actually listening to the author and not merely reading. The message she sends are clear this time.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it considering this is not a genre I normally read. It made me stop and think about taking time for myself. Truly Inspiring. Highly Recommended to anyone who doesn’t mind reading philosophical books..:) ( )

The blurb on Early Reviewers sounded interesting and the title Z2A something a bit different so I was glad to ‘snag’ a copy of this book. It consists of lots of shortish (mostly about 3 pages) ‘chapters’ of thoughts on all sorts of things relating to ‘between space’, uncertainty, and when the path forward is not clear. That sentence probably does not make much sense, and indeed it is difficult to sum up the book and what I thought of it, but I did end up using my pencil to mark comments that were worth thinking further on and plan to keep the book and look through it again.

It’s quite a personal book by the author, who has connections with both the USA and Scandinavia in particular, and I gather the book was not planned out in advance. I suppose the overall message is to let things happen, trust a bit more in ‘divine design’ (which incidentally is also the name of the organisation she runs) or whatever you want to call it and not always feel you have to follow the normal ambitious path of A to Z. It's sometimes a bit repetitious, and often quite rambly, but I suppose that is to be expected with a book she just let happen.

The author is also an artist, and I did like the incorporation of some of her abstract artwork within the book, but even with those she did not want you to just look at them with an obvious theme in mind and at one point suggested turning paintings around to see if they ‘feel’ different then.

So overall, I am fairly positive about the book, and in particular the pictures. The things that did let it down a bit for me were occasional wrong uses of apostrophes (including the wrong use of it’s/its) and a few typos and one or two sections, including the final ‘essay’ where she seems to suggest that all cultures share a belief in something greater than themselves. She is inclusive in saying that this something may be called many names, such as God, Allah or other deities or gurus, or may even be nameless, but then says ‘We just know there is something bigger than us’. As an atheist I couldn’t agree with this statement and would have felt happier if she had allowed pure ‘chance’ or ‘uncontrolled serendipity’ a bit more of a look in. ( )

Veel, met name Amerikaanse zelfhulp- en managementboeken, zijn gericht op het behalen van succes, slagen, neerzetten van resultaat, kortom: hoe kom je zo efficiënt mogelijk van A naar Z. De Zweedse schrijfster en schilder Eva Dillner zoekt in haar boek Z 2 A juist de ruimte die er tussen de Z van het ene project, klus, opdracht, o.i.d. en de start van een nieuwe ligt. De chaos, onrust, uit je ritme zijn na oplevering van een project of vanuit een opdracht onverwacht in de leegloop te komen, is herkenbaar. Hoe ga je daarmee om? Dillner die wereldwijd spreekt over haar eigen worstelingen en vondsten op dit vlak, zoekt het in diverse kunstvormen en spirituele activiteiten. Haar werk is doorspekt van frasen als “Learn to trust the universe. All I need will come to me at the Divine time. All I need to know will be revealed to me at the right moment./ When we are who we are supposed to be and doing what we are supposed to do, according to our best understanding of God’s will, we are in Grace, we are in flow. If we occupy the space we are truly meant to occupy there is no room for conflict.” (p.48). Dillners verlangen is dat we als lezer wat oppikken uit haar eigen zwerftochten: “Please use all my ponderings on places as fuel for your own process. You may be thinking of how to redo the garden, or playing with ideas on how to realize your dreams. Whatever your path, let yourself be in the I don’t know how, or what, or where – eventually you’ll know. It’s OK to be in the dark. All the thinking, feeling, what ifs, lists, likes and dislikes are a natural part of crossing the chasm of no data between Z and A.” (p.60). Soms is het God, een hogere macht, yoga oefeningen, een strandwandeling, de natuur, een schilderij, dat spreekt. Z 2 A is een aardig relaas van een lotgenoot van iemand die ‘in between’ zit, maar is sterk persoonlijk verhalend geschreven. De reizen, marketingactiviteiten rond eerdere boeken, verhuizing met haar ouders, de gedachten wie na verhuizing naar Amerika voor hen zal zorgen, alles wordt gedeeld. De kernboodschap had veel en veel korter gekund. Nu zijn de eigen schilderingen als illustraties wel kenmerkend voor de zoektocht. Gaandeweg het boek worden ze vager. Dillner is zoekende, grijpt alle hulplijnen aan en vertaalt die klakkeloos naar tips voor haar lezers. Een meer overwogen, ingedikte versie had mij meer aangesproken. ( )

I tend to approach the genre of self-help with a grain of salt firmly in tow, because I find it to generally be a body of persuasive writing promoting one world view or another at some length. This book was no exception. Although the author made some cogent points, her theory falls short of either a comprehensive perspective for facing life or a compelling argument. A thought-provoking read, but not life-altering.

Sorry, this book is just not me. WHY DID I REQUEST IT???? The blurb must have struck a chord, somewhere, but the book comes across, to me, as a cop out.

Eva Dillner explains that she is exploring the space between major events in her, or indeed, all our lives. In modern parlance, 'chill out time'. That is fine, but it leads to a book of.... well, nothing. After railing at her ageing parents for wanting her help, she waffles about nothing in deeply meaningful ways. The book is, by her own admission; nay, proud boast, unstructured, perhaps her next effort could lose sentence structure and the pretence of meaning too.

There is a habit within many self improvement books to take one idea and repeat it, in as many ways as possible over numerous pages and then to describe the result as momentous. Anyone who has tried these works (and let us be honest, we nearly all have at some time), will know to what i am referring: Don't Quit - is a good adage in many walks of life but, to turn it into the single mantra for one's life is foolish. Sometimes one needs to take stock. There comes a time to say enough is enough, this is not my path. Similarly, this book is based upon a single wise idea: namely, taking time out, to take stock and just to recharge one's batteries. Sound advice but, it took less than two lines to deliver and, no matter how many ways I find to repeat it, the wisdom grows not a jot.

Getting as far as the chapter entitled, 'It Doesn't Make Sense', I began to wonder if this were a hoax; a piece of research to discover the gullibility quotient of the general public. I began to warm to Eva; perhaps she has a sense of humour, but no, I think that she does too convincing a job. My eyes began to glaze over, once more, and I slipped into the Z2A zone where one rebels against the structured expectation that one will finish a book. I decided to quit whilst the will to live was still hanging on by a thread, somewhere inside of me....

Sorry Eva, this is a cruel (but, in my estimation, fair) review. I suspect that another theory (There's one born every minute) will see you laughing all the way to the bank: perhaps you could throw a coin in the direction of an impecunious reviewer........ or perhaps not! ( )