book recommendations.

book recommendations. | books recommended by others. | other books with a spiritual theme.

other books with a spiritual theme.

I have read these books, though not necessarily recently. A book goes in this list if I enjoyed certain aspects of the reading but do not necessarily recommend the book to all spiritual seekers. It might depend upon where one is on the journey. Or, the book may be a bit too religion-specific, or too practice-specific, or may be a little tedious, or perhaps even too simple or too fluffy. They are generally good books which one might want to read, depending where one presently is in one's quest for truth, what one is looking for, etc. The books listed below were not quite as meaningful or relevant to my personal quest as the books in the recommended list.

I have read each book in the list below.

NOTE: None of the links here send you to buy the book. All links here lead to more information about the book, the author, and so on. I hope you enjoy this information and that you get some great reads (and a more open mind, if you need it) from this list.

• By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, by Paulo Coelho (read 14 Jan 03)
  
  From Booklist: 
  Coelho's The Alchemist (1994) was a surprise smash and made him the second most widely read Latin American author (after Gabriel Garcia Marquez). Here he offers another parable, this time about love, both personal and transcendent. The story's heroine, Pilar, remeets an old childhood friend, a charismatic seminarian who centers his devotion on Mary and the feminine face of God. Pilar, who has deliberately chosen a narrow life, is literally swept away by her unnamed friend as he takes her on a trip to the French Pyrenees. Each must search their hearts to discover whether the love they want to share can become compatible with the young man's vocation. Although the story has its charming and vibrant aspects, it is also occasionally muddled, especially in its theology, which is only vaguely explained. Readers will have only the dimmest sense of how (and, for that matter, why) the young man is torn between heaven and earth. Given that lack of definition, it's no real surprise when the couple gets together at the end. Still, the path they take to get there has a few interesting twists and turns, and Coelho's familiar message about the spirituality of love will please his devoted following. Ilene Cooper
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, by Robert Pirsig

  In his now classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts.

  Phaedrus, our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details--be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.

  In his autobiographical first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th century--why has technology alienated us from our world? what are the limits of rational analysis? if we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of our philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th century. With the exception of Poincaré, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom Phaedrus bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating Quality to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the premodern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and nonrationalism with Western subject/object dualism. The magic of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. Like a cross between The Razor's Edge and Sophie's World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility. (Editorial Review, Brian Bruya, Amazon.com)

• Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das
• Awakening to the Sacred, by Lama Surya Das
• Your God is Too Small
• Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigel [quotes ]

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book recommendations. | books recommended by others. | other books with a spiritual theme.