Here are 100 books that All the Way to the River fans have personally recommended if you like
All the Way to the River.
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I’m a physical therapist, certified yoga therapist, and Hakomi practitioner who has spent over twenty-five years helping people heal from physical and emotional pain through the integration of yoga, mindfulness and western medicine. My passion for this topic comes from my own transformation—moving through trauma and burnout into a life guided by mindfulness, movement, and compassion. I’ve seen again and again that presence is the medicine that changes everything. Writing and teaching about this path feels like offering others the same lifeline that once saved me.
Tara Brach gave me the language of compassion I didn’t know I was missing.
Her teachings on the “trance of unworthiness” opened a doorway to self-forgiveness that changed my life and my work as a therapist. I love her mix of humor, psychology, and mindfulness practice. Each chapter feels like sitting in meditation beside a friend who understands exactly how the human heart struggles—and how it can heal.
Whenever I am having a bad day, I listen to Tara’s podcasts as well, and it feels like she is speaking directly to me.
For many of us, feelings of deficiency are right around the corner. It doesn’t take much--just hearing of someone else’s accomplishments, being criticized, getting into an argument, making a mistake at work--to make us feel that we are not okay. Beginning to understand how our lives have become ensnared in this trance of unworthiness is our first step toward reconnecting with who we really are and what it means to live fully. —from Radical Acceptance
“Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering,” says Tara Brach at the start of this illuminating book. This suffering…
Nineteen: A Daughter's Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery
by
Leslie Johansen Nack,
At nineteen, her larger-than-life father dies suddenly in a plane crash in Mexico. In the wake of his death, she descends into addiction—caught in a downward spiral, her only solace is her next fix. Ultimately, however, Leslie’s story is one of resilience: she chooses sobriety and happiness, builds a healthy…
I’m a physical therapist, certified yoga therapist, and Hakomi practitioner who has spent over twenty-five years helping people heal from physical and emotional pain through the integration of yoga, mindfulness and western medicine. My passion for this topic comes from my own transformation—moving through trauma and burnout into a life guided by mindfulness, movement, and compassion. I’ve seen again and again that presence is the medicine that changes everything. Writing and teaching about this path feels like offering others the same lifeline that once saved me.
This book met me in one of the darkest seasons of my life after my second divorce.
Pema Chödrön’s voice feels like a steady heartbeat—calm, wise, and utterly human. She doesn’t promise to remove pain; she invites us to stay present with it. Every page taught me that courage isn’t the absence of fear but the willingness to face it with open eyes and a soft heart.
I return to this book whenever I need to remember that groundlessness is not failure; it can be the greatest freedom.
Pema Choedroen reveals the vast potential for happiness, wisdom and courage even in the most painful circumstances.
Pema Choedroen teaches that there is a fundamental opportunity for happiness right within our reach, yet we usually miss it - ironically, while we are caught up in attempt to escape pain and suffering.
This accessible guide to compassionate living shows us how we can use painful emotions to cultivate wisdom, compassion and courage, ways of communication that lead to openness and true intimacy with others, practices for reversing our negative habitual patterns, methods for working with chaotic situations and ways…
I’m a physical therapist, certified yoga therapist, and Hakomi practitioner who has spent over twenty-five years helping people heal from physical and emotional pain through the integration of yoga, mindfulness and western medicine. My passion for this topic comes from my own transformation—moving through trauma and burnout into a life guided by mindfulness, movement, and compassion. I’ve seen again and again that presence is the medicine that changes everything. Writing and teaching about this path feels like offering others the same lifeline that once saved me.
This was one of the first books on spirituality and psychology that I ever read.
It helped me integrate my two worlds—Western psychology and Eastern philosophy. Stephen Cope writes with the vulnerability of a seeker and the clarity of a teacher.
I loved how he connected the practice of yoga to the search for meaning and authenticity. His story validated the idea that our struggles and contradictions are not obstacles but gateways to discovering who we truly are.
Millions of Americans know yoga as a superb form of exercise and as a potent source of calm in our stress-filled lives. Far fewer are aware of the full promise of yoga as a 4,000-year-old practical path of liberation—a path that fits the needs of modern Western seekers with startling precision. Now Stephen Cope, a Western-trained psychotherapist who has lived and taught for more than ten years at the largest yoga center in America, offers this marvelously lively and irreverent "pilgrim's progress" for today's world. He demystifies the philosophy, psychology, and practice of yoga, and…
This page-turner, thrilling adventure thoroughly immerses readers into a dramatic and isolated Tanzanian wilderness, where the author vividly recreates every sensory detail from her memory. You'll hear a lion's roar near your remote tent site, feel the jolts of fear when agitated hippos surround your inflatable raft, feel aching shoulders…
I’m a physical therapist, certified yoga therapist, and Hakomi practitioner who has spent over twenty-five years helping people heal from physical and emotional pain through the integration of yoga, mindfulness and western medicine. My passion for this topic comes from my own transformation—moving through trauma and burnout into a life guided by mindfulness, movement, and compassion. I’ve seen again and again that presence is the medicine that changes everything. Writing and teaching about this path feels like offering others the same lifeline that once saved me.
I fell in love with Abigail Thomas’s memoir, her wise voice and writing style.
Her brief vignettes capture the sacredness of ordinary moments: a dog on the couch, a shared meal, a loss remembered. She taught me that healing isn’t dramatic; it’s built quietly through presence and acceptance.
Reading Safekeeping feels like sitting with a friend who has lived, grieved, and found peace in the small details that hold a life together.
A beautifully crafted and inviting account of one woman’s life, Safekeeping offers a sublimely different kind of autobiography. Setting aside a straightforward narrative in favor of brief passages of vivid prose, Abigail Thomas revisits the pivotal moments and the tiny incidents that have shaped her life: pregnancy at 18; single motherhood (of three!) by the age of 26; the joys and frustrations of three marriages; and the death of her second husband, who was her best friend. The stories made of these incidents are startling in their clarity and reassuring in their wisdom.
I grew up in a family of nature lovers and went with my parents and my brother on numerous nature hikes. These are my most precious childhood memories. I learned as a child to appreciate nature, I was fascinated by wild animals and inspired by the beauty of the natural world. As I grew up, I became more and more aware of how fragile the natural world is today and how important it is to protect it. This is one of the main motivators for me to create books for kids that will inspire them to love and respect nature.
What drew me first to this book were Cindy Derby's spectacular and unusual illustrations that are truly a celebration of wild nature. When I started reading, I was also drawn to the magic of Deborah Underwood's words and the perfect combination between words and pictures.
I identified with the feeling in the book that even when I'm inside, I can feel the outside. The outside in the book is constantly peeking in, when the main character of the story is inside–inside the house, inside school, inside the car. When I finished reading the book I couldn't wait to go outside, to the adventures that await me out there.
From the New York Times best-selling author behind The Quiet Book comes a mindful contemplation on the many ways nature affects our everyday lives, even when we're stuck inside. Five starred reviews!
Perfect for fans of Joyce Sidman and Julie Fogliano, Outside In reminds emerging readers of the ways nature creates and touches our lives in homes, apartments, and cars, and is the perfect homeschooling tool to reflect on the world's connectedness.
Outside is waiting, the most patient playmate of all. The most generous friend. The most miraculous inventor. This thought-provoking picture book poetically underscores…
The theme through all of the books on my list is that we can be in control of our health and happiness as long as we’re truly aware of this gift of life. Having been born into a modest family in England and leaving almost 60 years ago to live and work throughout the Caribbean, has opened my eyes to what creates happiness in this wonderful journey of life. From my years based in the Cayman Islands with its rich multicultural society, I’ve had a full life of working across both construction and cultural development, and with travel to more than 120 countries. It’s important to embrace the gifts I’ve both earned and received.
I found Erkhart’s book illuminating with its discussion of a key life shortcoming in the vast majority of the population: we don’t live in the “now.”
Instead, we concentrate on what went well in the past or what may or may not happen in the future. Meanwhile, we miss out on the only time we ever truly have, which is the here and now.
**CHOSEN BY OPRAH AS ONE OF HER 'BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH'**
The international bestselling spiritual book, now with a new look for its 20th anniversary. Eckhart Tolle demonstrates how to live a healthier, happier, mindful life by living in the present moment.
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'I keep Eckhart's book at my bedside. I think it's essential spiritual teaching. It's one of the most valuable books I've ever read.' Oprah Winfrey
To make the journey into The Power of Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. Although the journey is challenging, Eckhart…
How do you create a happy life when you move away from home for the first time; or move to a new city or country for work or studies or love; or retire somewhere new? The Mobile Life guides you through the challenge of making new friends and inventing new…
Growing up, I built snow forts, climbed the white birch tree in my front yard, and talked to a rabbit named Bobby who lived in the bushes. I rode my bike on adventures, getting lost and exploring woods, ditches, and surrounding landscapes. In a household where I often felt unsafe, time outdoors was a refuge. Working in a career as a university professor of social work for the past 20 years, I have used mindful outdoor experiences, as well as yoga and meditation, as a source of healing. And I have loved sharing these practices with my students. Today, I am documenting my rewilding adventures in my van which has been a joyful way to honor my inner child.
I had the great fortune of doing my mindful outdoor leadership training with the author, Micah, a few years ago.
This book is a sweet dive that introduced me to the concept and practices associated with rewilding–mindfulness in nature, forest bathing, and ancestral skills like fire building.
It’s a go-to resource that I share with students and others who are interested in reconnecting to nature as a holistic practice.
A unique guide to personal rewilding through mindfulness, yoga, and outdoor skills
At your core lies a wild, untamed soul-one with impeccable intuition, the ability to navigate the landscapes of your inner and outer worlds, and an unbreakable connection to Source. In Rewilding, Kripalu director Micah Mortali combines elements from the yoga and Buddhist traditions with ancestral skills to create a unique guide for reconnecting with your primal energy-your undomesticated inner self-and awakening your innate bond with the natural world.
First used by conservation groups to refer to restoring natural environments, "rewilding" has important implications for human well-being. When we…
As a clinical psychologist I know how critical it is to have someone help you see beyond where you can see yourself. Authors have served that role for me at every stage of my development. It boils down to a pretty simple equation, how we think and feel determines how we behave. The path to different starts in your mind, and books are one of the most successful activators of your thoughts. My path of self-discovery led me to these books and the wisdom within them continue to expand my opportunities. I hope they serve as a launch pad for you.
This book brought me valuable mindset and skillset shifts as promised, but one of the unexpected jewels was the language that it gave me for valuing work.
I have never been good at negotiating the highest salary and therefore had to learn pretty early in my career not to equate my pay with my worth. I received from this book the language that I needed to represent that money is not the only form of payment in a job.
The reader learns that wages are the first paycheck and there are three more. I have learned along the way that my greatest earnings have come from the emotional rewards from my work in the nonprofit sector (2nd paycheck) and the added skills and professional growth gained (3rd paycheck).
It’s Time for a More Conscious Approach to Work. Every day, in offices around the world, people long for a fulfilling career that makes a positive difference. Purpose-driven professionals struggle to connect the dots between what they do every day and the larger impact they want to make in life. If that describes you, no matter the type of organization you work for or your role in it, you can begin growing toward that kind of influence. You can take charge of your day-to-day experiences and radically transform your life at work—all by learning to leverage daily opportunities to grow…
I want to write about the magic of the everyday and often this is seen in the slippages between worlds like the worlds of the living and the dead. Ghosts and spirits feature heavily in my work and fascinate me as a reader too. This is not in the realm of fantasy to me, ghosts are real and actual.
Anguli Ma was a murderer from a Buddhist parable who collected his victims' fingers in a necklace.
The parable goes that he met the Buddha who converted him by emitting calm and mindfulness. Vu’s book transplants this fable into the eighties in the western suburbs of Melbourne, Anguli Ma being a war refugee from the Vietnam/American war. He joins a shared household of other refugees and encounters a monk meditating in a park. The monk brings another world of mindfulness to Anguli Ma.
I like this book because of the clever adaptation of the parable and the Buddhist themes throughout- any one of the refugees could resort to violence like Anguli Ma or find peace through mindfulness—they all suffer from war trauma. It’s also beautifully written with the other world of mindfulness poetry in motion.
Anguli Ma is the central figure in a traditional Buddhist folktale, a deranged killer who wears his victims’ fingers in a garland around his neck. Chi Vu presents him as a menacing abattoir worker who carries bloody chunks of meat home to his lodgings in plastic bags, in this suburban Gothic tale set in 1980s Melbourne, when the flight of Vietnamese refugees to Australia was at its height.
The gathering fear, the prevailing darkness, the strange contours of the house which has been divided and sub-divided to accommodate its female occupants, the macabre humour and surreal effects, mark Chi Vu’s…
As one of 67 million Americans who serve as caretakers to their elderly parents, Susan Hartzler cared for her dad for three years, gaining profound insight into Parkinson's disease and the multifaceted challenges of caregiving. Throughout this period, Hartzler's rescue dog, Baldwin, a precious gift from her late mom, provided…
Charlotte and the Quiet Place is somewhat autobiographical, as I tend to crave quiet. For many years, I’ve been meditating twice a day for 25 minutes. I relax my mind and body, sometimes silently repeating a word or sound or just breathing rhythmically. I’m almost always more peaceful and energized after meditating. In addition to being a writer, I’m a therapist with a mindfulness specialty. I believe deeply that every child (and adult, too) can tap into their quiet place inside by noticing what’s happening in their mind and body, no matter what’s going on in their lives. We all need this skill—now more than ever!
I Am Peace is part of a wonderful series by this well-known team. The series explores topics such as compassion, empathy, resilience, and what it is to be a feeling human being.I Am Peace is about a child (gender not identified) who worries about the past and future and learns how to comfort and ground themselves by noticing the here and now, breathing evenly, and practicing kindness toward themselves and others. The simple, sparse text expresses these rather deep ideas in ways that all children can understand: “I can watch my worries gently pop and disappear. I let things go"; “I can hug a tree and thank it for its beauty and strength.” The back matter features a discussion of mindfulness and a guided meditation.
When the world feels chaotic, find peace within through an accessible mindfulness practice from the bestselling picture-book dream team that brought us I Am Yoga. Express emotions through direct speech. Find empathy through imagination. Connect with the earth. Wonder at the beauty of the natural world. Breathe, taste, smell, touch, and be present.
Perfect for the classroom or for bedtime, Susan Verde's gentle, concrete narration and Peter H. Reynolds's expressive watercolor illustrations bring the tenets of mindfulness to a kid-friendly level. Featuring an author's note about the importance of mindfulness and a guided meditation for children, I Am Peace will…
