Book cover of Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire

Book description

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year • A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year

“Vivid prose as electrifying as any beach novel you're likely to find this summer.” —San Francisco Chronicle

In June 2008 more than two thousand wildfires, all started by a single lightning storm,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Fire Monks as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

How can you resist the mix of Zen Buddhist philosophy and wildfire disaster? Set in the dry California mountains, I was truly moved by the story of how these folks viewed the threat of wildfire at a personal and group level, prepared for and survived a (real) approaching wildfire, and how they dealt with its resultant consequences.

Interestingly, since this first fire and the book, the monastery has been repeatedly threatened again. I found the book very real, aided by the fact that the author visited my campus. The story is not without paradoxes and challenging decisions. But the complex…

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