Books to read

"In literature, as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others."
—André Maurois

A D V E N T U R E


Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes, 1605–1615 (F) The Man of La Mancha fights windmills and dreams the impossible dream.

www.bookmagazine.com - CLYDE EDGERTON Adventure books are like medicine—they have to match the particular condition of the reader—feeding needs, fears and fantasies. The action is usually action we would like to have survived and be able to tell about. Don Quixote is an inner adventure, an outer adventure and a fantasy adventure. It has humor, friendship, lost love, is earthy and exotic, and changes as we age.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, 1884 (F) One of the only sequels better than the original: Tom Sawyer came first.

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N O N F I C T I O N


Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser, 2001

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Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science
Charles Wheelan, W.W. Norton

From simple supply and demand to the much more frightening subject of monetary policy, this book manages to explain our global economy in a way that is (gasp!) actually entertaining. Economist correspondent Wheelan explains money and markets using current events and a dose of wit, and answers questions like: Do anti-globalization protesters in Seattle and elsewhere have a point? Are Asian sweatshops really a bad thing? How does the Federal Reserve work? (And why did Sen. John McCain quip that if Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan died, they would have to prop him up and put dark sunglasses on him?) Though often seen as a conservative science, economics isn't simply an advertisement for the Republican Party, Wheelan says. But he also explains why government regulations can worsen the environmental and social problems they're meant to solve when well-intentioned liberal politicians misunderstand real human motives in the marketplace. There's insight here for everyone—and even some practical investment advice along the way. All this, and without a single chart or table.
—Eric Wargo

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Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Emil Frankl

This is Frankl's powerful personal account of survival among the atrocities of the holocaust and how humans continued to explore their life's meaning and purpose. Frankl writes, "man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael upon his lips."

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How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life by Dalai Lama
This is a book for everyone. It teaches of a spiritual journey of peace of mind, happiness, and exploration into experiencing a meaningful life. Our daily living can include the awareness of the positive self. We can get rid of negative self- defeating behavior to rise above the difficulties that exist in life.

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Bhagavad Gita: A New English Translation by Stephen Mitchell
A spirit guide shows the way to the supreme wisdom and freedom that lie within all souls. Mitchell's view comes from his combination of Taoism and Zen that explores self realization through worship and meditation. Gandhi used the Gita as a spiritual handbook

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The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching : Transforming Suffering Into Peace, Joy & Liberation, by Thich Nhat Hanh

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F I C T I O N



Crescent, Diana Abu-Jaber
W.W. Norton

Full of the seductions of new love and self-discovery, this second novel by the exquisitely talented Abu-Jaber. =Sirine, the almost-forty-year-old daughter of an Iraqi man and American woman whose extraordinary tranquility and inordinate powers in the kitchen attract the attention of many men, none of whom she's truly been in love with. This steadfast reserve is broken at last when a handsome Iraqi-born professor named Hanif begins to frequent Sirine's Lebanese restaurant in Los Angeles. Hanif comes from a country Sirine has only dreamed about. He is haunted by a past he incrementally unveils, by memories of a place that contains vestiges of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Chaldean Empire.
—Beth Kephart

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The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
Houghton Mifflin

The protagonists of this immaculately written, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Interpreter of Maladies are Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, two Bengalis who come together in India in an arranged marriage and then settle in America, a country that, at least for Ashima, will never feel like home. When their first child is born, and the letter that contains his chosen name (a Bengali naming tradition) never arrives from India, Ashoke begins referring to the child by his pet name, Gogol. As Gogol struggles to find his way as a first-generation American. Gogol moves from bemused child to slightly sullen teen to industrious but independent Yale undergraduate to bruised young adult. Lahiri remains an exquisite commentator on otherness, betrayal and belonging. This isn't always a happy story; in fact, it rarely is.
—Beth Kephart

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Easter Island, Jennifer Vanderbes
The Dial Press


In this enormously impressive debut novel, two distinct narratives converge on Easter Island. The stories, each of which centers on scientific discovery, love and betrayal, unfold in tandem. The first strand involves a penniless Englishwoman who travels there after marrying a much older anthropologist to ensure the well-being of her mentally disabled sister. The second narrative concerns a widowed American expert in fossil pollens who seeks to discover what has caused the extinction of the island's trees.
—Penelope Mesic

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Mortals, Norman Rush
Alfred A. Knopf


Milton scholar Ray Finch, the American-born hero of Rush's first novel since Mating, which won the National Book Award in 1991, divides his time between teaching English at a prep school in Botswana and working as a contract agent for the CIA, for whom he reports on various minor security risks. But Ray's fundamental identity is as the lover of Iris, his wife. He lusts after her, savors her jokes, admires her beauty, defends her eccentricities, is joyfully obedient to her whims. To his anguish, Ray begins to suspect that Iris is having an affair with a recently arrived African-American physician named Dr. Davis Morel. The delicate arc of Ray's marital relationship plays out against a background of political unrest in this dazzlingly complex book, which treats readers to the insights of a protagonist of boundless erudition.
—Penelope Mesic

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Featherstone, Kirsty Gunn
Houghton Mifflin

This mysterious and elegant third novel by the celebrated author of Rain explores one woman's flight from a small town and the loneliness of those she left behind. Set in the remote New Zealand town of Featherstone, the story, which is told by eleven townspeople, takes place over a single weekend that begins with a visitation by Francie, the town's prodigal daughter, who disappeared several decades earlier. Over time, each narrator has become defined by Francie's absence: Ray Weldon, Francie's handsome high school sweetheart, is a middle-aged celibate who still hangs on to the memory of her young body; Renee Anderson, a single mother and barmaid, struggles to keep her own wayward daughter from following in Francie's footsteps; Sonny Johanssen, Francie's aging uncle, spends his days in his garden waiting with childlike hope for Francie to return. This is more than a story about the confines of small-town life. With virtuosic prose, Gunn draws a complex study of grief, longing and the compassion that both grounds people to their birthplace and allows them to stray.
—Susan Tekulve

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Abandon, Pico Iyer
Alfred A. Knopf

Englishman John Macmillan expected both grad school and California to be simple. Alas for our best laid plans. In short order, he finds himself in a series of puzzles. His dissertation topic, the cryptic Persian poet Rumi, seems more and more opaque, his girlfriend Camilla is secretive and mysterious and he begins to suspect that his advisor, an urbane Iranian exile, knows more than he is saying about lost Persian manuscripts. Iyer's novel drops a good-hearted if methodical heir to the British empire at the crossroads of intensely emotional intercultural negotiations, revealing to him, as well as to us, that abandoning the expectation to really understand others sometimes leads to radiant forms of knowing that cannot be explained in a dissertation. In the current political climate, this is an especially noteworthy book, for it understands the Middle East as the site of remarkable cultural achievement and remarkable human understanding.
—Stephanie Foote

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The Memory Room, Mary Rakow
Counterpoint

Rakow, who holds a doctorate in theology, claims little previous knowledge of literature, approaching her first book with all the innocence of a naif. Yet she displays an uncommon genius for narrative and the finely tuned rhythms of language. With a blend of prose and poetry, she effectively renders the frightening experience of uncovering a long-repressed memory of childhood abuse. In one sense, the memory room of the title is the therapist's office, where recovery creates "a new, unchanging, sacred space" in which Dr. Barbara Harris can reassemble her fragmented self. Awash in therapeutic novels, we hardly need another victimized character to pity, but Rakow's brave heroine inspires admiration for her determination to seek spiritual healing with intelligence and imagination.
—Stephen Whited

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Mutant Message From Down Under by Marlo Morgan

The author, a healer, is given a message from the Australian Aboriginal peoples to convey to Westerners, whom they think of as mutants. Her "walk about" is miraculous with a hint of revelation. These experiences were published as fiction to protect the sacredness of "the people".

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The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure James Redfield

Is this fiction or nonfiction? A question the reader is sure to ask several times while pursuing the nine insights into the spiritual awakening of the human race and its purpose on planet earth.

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Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

This true story is of the love and gratitude that exists between a spiritual mentor and his student. It shows the opportunities of reconnecting with the past and its' learning and applying it into our present situations. Live life to its fullest.

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Blue Poppies by Jonathan Falla 2001

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The Stone Boy and Other Stories by Thich Nhat Hanh

In This collection of short fiction, the well-known Zen monk and peace activist explores Buddhist themes of love and compassion while introducing the reader to the treasures of Vietnamese culture. Difficult themes include war, exodus, living in exile, egoism, institutional oppression, and the master-disciple relationship.

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Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives by Dan Millman

During his junior year at the University of California, Dan Millman first stumbled upon his mentor (nicknamed Socrates) at an all-night gas station. At the time, Millman hoped to become a world-champion gymnast. "To survive the lessons ahead, you're going to need far more energy than ever before," Socrates warned him that night. "You must cleanse your body of tension, free your mind of stagnant knowledge, and open your heart to the energy of true emotion." From there, the unpredictable Socrates proceeded to teach Millman the "way of the peaceful warrior."

This classic in the 'spiritual' swooh-wooh ection is semi worthwhile. I wouldn't say it changed my life unfortunately. I have a harder time believing North Americans w gymnastic champions who rediscovered themselves as spiritual masters, using magic and e supernatural physical abilities to demonstrate their points, then lill old vietnamsees men [Thich Nath Han] who are a lill more severe a,bout how 'the thrut' is going to unfold...for the rest of us.

Non the less, if you must read it, it will give you a good insight on how, we stupid white man, perceive spirituality. How it must be like:"wwwwwwwwwwwwow!" in order to convice us to change our ways. How it is so difficult for us to not sugar coat everything. How we have a very hard time standing "the unkown", the imperfect, the common. So, yeah, the Peaceful warrior in a way, reveals the beginning of an awakening, that is pleasing to know.