52 Books Like How Roland Rolls

This is a slow-burn book. 

It is very sparse and meditative, with few fireworks that go off. It’s one of those books that when you finish, you don’t think, “What a great story!” Rather, it’s a “...wait, what just happened?”

Where The Alchemist frames purpose as something discovered and Tuesdays with Morrie offers wisdom at the end of life, Siddhartha finds meaning in the realization that every mistake, every heartache, and every detour was a necessary part of his transformation.

I reflected on this book for a while. I found that growth, for me, often comes not from choosing the right path but from finding peace through embracing life’s totality.

Daniel Kahneman’s book is a must read for all who desire to understand their mind/brains and thereby maximize the use of the mind’s power over our lives.

In clear language, Daniel Kahneman illustrated the heuristic shortcuts that often limit our understanding and predispose our actions. We all hold onto outdated psychological mechanisms that create self-imposed limitations, and in doing so, we can find ourselves living out self-limiting lives.

Kahneman does an excellent job at showing us how we think we understand what we really don’t. His transparent and careful treatment of his subject has the potential to change how we think, not just about thinking, but about how we live our lives.

This book offers an interesting perspective on the potential biological basis for religious experiences and beliefs, supported by scientific research.

Even without a background in neuroscience or psychology, I still found it to be a fully understandable book, well-written but not overly complicated. In the modern era where we need to provide a logical basis and justification, it adds to the overall endeavor to bridge science and spirituality.

While I can’t say this book has many practical tips, it has deepened my perspective on the subject of spirituality, allowing me to better comprehend and visualize physical correlates of certain esoteric experiences.

A turning point in my spiritual path was the discovery that the mystics of all traditions, in all eras, have reported similar or identical spiritual experiences. They used different terminology, hailed from different cultures, practiced different methods, and even had different belief systems, but experientially, they found that all paths lead to the same mountaintop of spiritual illumination.

Scholars have a name for this perspective: perennialism. Huxley published the classic account in the mid-40s, offering as evidence excerpts of writings from both well-known and obscure mystics. The book taught me (and millions of others) that spirituality is universal and there are treasures to be found in all the wisdom traditions. It remains a source of inspiration and illumination to this day. 

This book is an update of Bascom’s bestselling classic that was first published in 1963 and updated in 1979. I had the pleasure of learning about Bill Bascom by reading the papers presented at a symposium in his honor at the University of California, Berkeley, just a few years before his untimely death. 

Bascom was one of few people to use a DUKW boat to surf the big breakers at the Columbia River offshore shoals where the US Coast Guard cutters are intentionally rolled over in 20-30-foot breaking waves as a training exercise for new recruits (and to weed out those of faint of heart).  His buddy Kim McCoy, who is an oceanographer, sailor, and freediver, has brought this book back to life with updates regarding climatic impacts on coasts and beaches.  

While surfers and sailors will immerse themselves in this book, it vividly describes the struggle for supremacy between… show more.

A gorgeous picture book that captures the joys and excitement of being a child at the sea, playing chicken with the incoming waves. The little girl and a gaggle of gulls get braver and braver, until… SPLASH!

Suzy Lee’s lines are so fluid and expressive, her use of a limited palette works brilliantly, and there’s a clever use of the gutter (middle of the book) to build tension. Dare you not to smile and feel joy.

Yes, this is the published shooting script of the film.

When I read the premise of this story, I knew it would be special. I remember the author stating he got the idea of someone receiving a postcard through the post with the words "You have been deleted from X’s memory. Do not attempt to contact her" and how it intrigued him. From that idea, the entire idea of deleting the memory of a romantic relationship gone wrong, unfolded.

I love story ideas that stop me from breathing. The film (and script) is lovely, yet holds a twist or two up its sleeve. It is, underneath the science, a tragicomic love story. Genius.

Not all television shows are hit and somehow the decade of the 1980s had the greatest number of sitcom flops. It’s Your Move, The Best of the West, Square Pegs, The Duck Factory, and Life with Lucy are just a handful of the sitcoms that didn’t run for longer than a season. Single Season Sitcoms of the 1980s by Bob Leszczak is a delicious smorgasbord of information about these one-season wonders (and many others) that we barely remember, but refuse to forget.

The main reason I’m recommending this book is “The Little Mermaid” (the original version, not a sanitized later edition or off-the-mark Disney interpretation). I loved fairy tales as a kid and “The Little Mermaid” is my favorite because it doesn’t have a happy ending. (Not for the mermaid, at least.) I loved that just because we think things should happen a certain way doesn’t mean they will. The mermaid thought she was fated to be with the prince. But all her planning and sacrifice and suffering didn’t change the possibility that the prince was fated to be with the woman he chose. It was an early and valuable lesson for me on seeing things from a different perspective, and inspiration for one of my own short stories.

Because of this book, I crept out of bed and downstairs while my parents slept.

Why? I hoped to catch my mother’s ornaments coming to life as they do in Andersen’s tales. I reasoned that Andersen was an adult and would know about such things. Why did he put it in his book if it wasn’t true?

I never caught the china horse galloping along the shelf, but I still loved these stories. They are full of fantastical imaginings and, at the same time, thoroughly down to earth. I read the account of the mermaids’ gardens beneath the sea again and again. (And Andersen’s Little Mermaid is far better than any film of it.)

If there is a child in your life who reads, they need this book!