I am no great pioneer, climber, or even hiker, but I like a good walk in the woods, especially one with a path and little achievable goals set out along the way. Books are signposts, too, guides, records, shouts, and whispers. But they are also objects, appropriate to certain times and spaces. Here I'm nominating five, not just for the wisdom they contain, but for the role they serve as discrete companions on such a walk. Light. Brief. Happy to be dipped in and out of without regard to the prior page—or the next.
Before Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, there was this, which is considerably shorter and more to the point.
Published in 1958, Herrigel’s book was a threshold moment in the westward spread of Eastern ideas. I read it in high school, and what still sticks with me is the kyudo Master’s instruction on how to draw the bowstring: “to let only your two hands do the work, while your arm and shoulder muscles remain relaxed, as though they looked on impassively. Only when you can do this will you have fulfilled one of the conditions that make the drawing and the shooting ‘spiritual’.”
A classic work on Eastern philosophy, and a charming, deeply illuminating story of one man’s experience with Zen.
Eugen Herrigel, a German professor of Philosophy in Tokyo, took up the study of archery as a step toward an understanding of Zen Buddhism. This book is the account of the six years he spent as a student of one of Japan’s great kyudo (archery) masters, and of how he gradually overcame his initial inhibitions and began to feel his way toward new truths and ways of seeing.
This recommendation, I’ll admit, takes as its premise the hope that your partner on this walk might be Eli, the protagonist and narrator of The Beaut’, who—if I know him—probably snuck in his first read of the Huxley some time between the single day that he is remembering and the day he decided to tell us about it.
The question was, was there ever an edition of The Doors of Perception that wasn’t coupled with its customary companion, Heaven and Hell? Turns out there was, making this a mere 38-page volume of charmingly recollected mind expansion, and the next best thing to being there, which you kind of would be on your walk.
Harris Maloub, a killer with an erased official past, now in his fifties, is visited by someone who could not be alive and given an assignment. In Aarhus, Denmark, Jens Erik, police officer on pre-retirement leave, somehow cannot forget the body of a Black man recovered from the sea some…
I love translation. Oftentimes, the style to which I aspire could be called “as translated.”
I especially enjoy translations of sacred texts. The Tao Te Ching stands out in that regard first because it admits in its first line that “the Tao that can be named is not the Tao.” Second, the entire text is so short you can compare translations while standing in the aisle of the bookstore.
I recommend this one because Stephen Mitchell is kind of the Goldilocks of all translators, and because this version is also among the smallest and most portable. I also enjoy that, when I voice-typed this description, the computer translated my pronunciation of the title as “the dowdy chain.”
The bestselling, widely acclaimed translation from Stephen Mitchell
"Mitchell's rendition of the Tao Te Ching comes as close to being definitive for our time as any I can imagine. It embodies the virtues its translator credits to the Chinese original: a gemlike lucidity that is radiant with humor, grace, largeheartedness, and deep wisdom." — Huston Smith, author of The Religions of Man
In eighty-one brief chapters, Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, provides advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit, and teaches us how to work for the good with the effortless skill…
This abridged edition of the much longer Gospel is still lengthy for this list, but such a perfect size and shape—a little golden brick, perfect for the lower pocket of a cargo pant, and well worth the weight.
An account of Gupta’s meeting and brief apprenticeship with the last consensus divine incarnation in the Vedantic tradition, the Paramahamasa Sri Ramakrishna (who fell ill and died during its composition), this volume need not be read sequentially.
Every page contains its own lesson, is happy to be opened and closed, or left alone to rub against the side of your left knee. The perfect pebble for your shoe.
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is published by The Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York which bases it teachings on the principles of Vedanta, or Hinduism. Hinduism teaches that every soul is potentially divine, and that its divinity may be manifested through worship, contemplation, unselfish work, and philosophical discrimination. According to Hinduism, Truth is universal and all humankind and all existence are one. It preaches the unity of the Godhead, or ultimate Reality, and accepts every faith as a valid means for its own followers to realize the Truth. For more information about the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York.
The end of life is still a forbidden topic. Today, Baby Boomers, the largest population group in American history, are facing death. And nobody wants to talk about it!
Join Brad Stuart, M.D. as he shows how he learned the truth about dying over…
Last summer, we buried our parents’ ashes in a cemetery near the family home.
At about 3 AM the night before, lying in my boyhood bed, I was thinking about what I should read for the ceremony. I hit upon the idea of the "hazelnut" passage from Julian’s revelations, which remains just about my favorite page in all English literature. But I wasn’t able, in those wee hours, to find the right version online. Nor was there a printer in the house.
The next morning, I was going through a bunch of my old boxes in the basement—they’d been damaged in a flood the prior spring. I had to chuck almost all the books because of mold. Magically, one of the survivors was this edition of the Norwich—which I had purchased back in college, and which fittingly fits in the palm of your hand. I read directly from it at the burial.
Eli Sams is grinding his way through his junior year of high school. The pandemic is ending, but the damage is done. His family is broken and pretty broke, and the only place he finds any peace is out in the middle of the woods, where, for the past year, he and his best friend, Dukes, have been building a disc golf course together. From scratch.
They call it The Beaut’, short for "Sleeping Beauty," which is what old mapmakers used to call any territory that had yet to be charted or settled. In other words, Eli thinks that he and Dukes are alone out there. This is the story of the day he found out just how wrong he was. It is also the story of his favorite day.
