Michael Meegan, All Will Be Well

"Oh" summarises "All Will Be Well" quite literally: it will be both your exclamation of shock and awe in the book's message, as well as the call to whatever form your external or internalised faith system takes. This is a self-help book with a difference - most are introspective but Meegan's path to enlightenment is outward reaching, an attitude centred on fulfilment through altruism: being kind and helpful makes you feel good and of course cheers the recipient of your generosity. Everyone's a winner.

Meegan has lived in Africa for over a quarter of a century working in areas of extreme poverty, treating the sick and comforting the dying. He has given his life to the needy. His personal motivation appears to be Christian but Meegan doesn't force religion on his readers, instead he redefines the God force as the capacity in us all to love and to be humane and generous; in doing so he also recognises the human tendency towards spirituality, and in doing so he has perhaps delivered the most achievable self-help program ever - it's easier for everyone, or at least many, to be kind than stick to a diet or go for a jog.

The book is a lightning fast read as it delivers short sharp shocks that do not so much guilt-trip you into action but more deliver a thunderbolt of realisation of how stuck in the groove and selfish society has become while encouraging you with other stories of hope and achievement in overcoming adversity. What takes time is the subsequent examination of your self, the re-evaluation of a chosen lifestyle, re-addressing the basic questions of compulsion and self worth. Are you doing enough with your life? Meegan sets high standards but explains that we all possess the same celestial power.

However, Meegan is not considered angelic by all and has his fair share of detractors, not least for his attacks on G8 resolutions and aid programs larger than his own comparatively small-scale ICROSS; in a recent BBC News Hardtalk (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/4675531.stm) he was challenged on the ICROSS approach to female circumcision that works with the local Maasai culture towards safer, less devastating operations, rather than the usual Western response of outright condemnation and chastisement. Irrespective of this, Meegan is undoubtedly a huge soul bearing a giant compassion for his fellow humans and particularly the plight of impoverished Africans, and his book makes you want to do something to help others, even minimally within the everyday course of our self-obsessed, materialistically motivated lives.