Here are 100 books that Shivitti fans have personally recommended if you like
Shivitti.
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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.
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.
Discover this profound account of Huxley's famous experimentation with mescalin that has influenced writers and artists for decades.
'Concise, evocative, wise and, above all, humane, The Doors of Perception is a masterpiece' Sunday Times
In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gram of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers, was transformed. Huxley described his experience with breathtaking immediacy in The Doors of Perception.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I am an archaeologist dealing with prehistoric societies for the last 30 years. For many hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors worldwide practiced shamanism and altered states of consciousness. I think this is what makes us human and what allows the persistence and success of our genus. The more I learn about these two subjects, the more I understand their importance and relevance to us today. There is a lesson sent to us by past societies: Pay respect to the world. Respectful behavior is assisted by shamanism and altered states of consciousness. We can be better, feel better, and do better, and the books I recommended are the beginning of this wonderful way.
I read this wonderful book when I was a teenager, and it had a lot of influence on me. I still read it again and again and gain a lot from it.
This is one of the earliest descriptions available of a meeting with a Mexican shaman, and the teachings of that shaman. It vividly describes the way the shaman acts, thinks and operates, and this is so remote and alien from modern Western thinking that it made me realize that alternative ways of perceiving realities do exist.
Regardless of what some say, I am confident it really happened and that the descriptions are coherent and true. What a book! This is really a book for departure.
In all my travel books, I’ve followed my intuition to a destination or into a subject, pairing emotion with intellectual curiosity, travelling to try to know a people, place, idea, or time. So the pivot to navigating the ‘border' between life and death felt like an obvious extension. It’s a frontier that we'll all have to pass, and we’ll not have to worry about forgetting your passport. I began my search for my wife Katrin as a skeptic and ended it with faith in the existence of an afterlife. In sharing this journey, I hope others may be helped to prepare for and to accept the inevitable loss of those whom we love.
Although the therapeutic value of psychedelics is not yet proven, and real risks remain, a new generation of scientists and therapists is today repurposing hallucinogenic drugs.
How to Change Your Mind is a history of psychedelics and a compelling portrait of what could be the future of consciousness. This mind-altering book helped me—a psychedelic novice—to find the courage to embark on a journey to the frontiers of the human mind, and to become re-enchanted with the world.
"Pollan keeps you turning the pages . . . cleareyed and assured." -New York Times
A #1 New York Times Bestseller, New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018, and New York Times Notable Book
A brilliant and brave investigation into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs--and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences
When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such…
The Everlasting Life of Charlie Wall
by
Paul Wilborn,
It’s 1985, and Ronald Armstrong, known in the magic mushroom trade as “Trip,” takes a “sober” job as a driver for a retired Tampa mobster. His boss, Charlie Wall, has survived four attempts on his life, the last one in 1955. When Charlie falls into depression, Trip rebuilds his boss’…
I’ve been studying Shamanic energy work for over 25 years, and it’s been more than a practice—it’s a way of living, seeing, and healing. From an early age, I was drawn to the unseen parts of life. I questioned everything, all the time. I always felt that there was more to our existence than what we’re taught. My path has led me through personal transformation and into the sacred work of guiding others on their spiritual journeys. I recommend these books because they’ve moved, challenged, and expanded my understanding in soul-aligned ways. I return to them often, and I trust them to inspire those ready to look deeper into themselves.
This was the book that gave voice and context to things I already knew deep in my bones. This book felt like a homecoming—a validation of the spirit worlds I’d glimpsed and the energetic truths I’d always felt. I love how Harner approaches shamanism with both reverence and curiosity, honoring ancient practices while making them accessible to modern seekers.
It opened the door for me to connect with guides, journey between realms, and understand healing in a way that goes way beyond the physical. It gave me permission to trust what I see, feel, and know. Every time I reread it, I find something new—because I’m constantly changing and growing, and it meets me where I’m at.
This classic on shamanism pioneered the modern shamanic renaissance. It is the foremost resource and reference on shamanism. Now, with a new introduction and a guide to current resources, anthropologist Michael Harner provides the definitive handbook on practical shamanism – what it is, where it came from, how you can participate.
"Wonderful, fascinating… Harner really knows what he's talking about." CARLOS CASTANEDA
"An intimate and practical guide to the art of shamanic healing and the technology of the sacred. Michael Harner is not just an anthropologist who has studied shamanism; he is an authentic white shaman." STANILAV GROF, author of…
Like many people, I have experienced my share of suffering. I have also spent a lifetime exploring the suffering of others through great works of literature and art. My attraction to Japanese literature–imbued with a Buddhist sensitivity to loss–reflects my taste for the melancholy beauty of works of art that transmute suffering into aesthetic form. The qualities I find in Japanese literature are in wonderfully long supply in writings from around the world. My list of favorite books is a small testament to that aesthetic work which has the potential to heal us.
Reading these messages in a bottle discovered buried under a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, I am staggered and amazed at the indomitable human capacity for resilience and creativity.
I read these harrowing literary masterworks, which report on the most hellish degradations, and I am stunned that Zalmen Gradowski, from deep within his suffering, could wrest from the horrors before him and from his own despair, a literary art that is beautiful and solacing. I am reminded of the human capacity, which we all must certainly share, to snatch shreds of beauty from the darkest of circumstances and of the human hope that somewhere beyond one’s own hell lives a sympathetic ear.
A unique and haunting first-person Holocaust account by Zalmen Gradowski, a Sonderkommando prisoner killed in Auschwitz.
On October 7, 1944, a group of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz obtained explosives and rebelled against their Nazi murderers. It was a desperate uprising that was defeated by the end of the day. More than four hundred prisoners were killed. Filling a gap in history, The Last Consolation Vanished is the first complete English translation and critical edition of one prisoner's powerful account of life and death in Auschwitz, written in Yiddish and buried in the ashes near Crematorium III.
I have always been interested in the Civil War. As I grew older and came to know Wisconsin's part in it, I learned about the famed "Iron Brigade," which was composed mostly of Wisconsin regiments. I took this as a point of pride and avidly learned everything I could about the unit and have read most of what has been published about it. I noticed there was no list for Wisconsin and the Civil War or the Iron Brigade on this website. So, I decided to offer a list on the subject closest to my heart, the Iron Brigade.
This “memoir” was originally serialized in 1902 in the National Tribune, a weekly publication aimed at veterans, under the title “Adventures of an Iron Brigade Man.”
Born in Canada, Robert Beecham’s family moved to Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, when he was about five years old. Beecham served as an enlisted man in the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry regiment (part of the Iron Brigade) and fought in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, where he was taken prisoner.
After being returned in a prisoner exchange, Beecham was commissioned a 1st Lieutenant in the 23rd United States Colored Troops. With them, he fought at the Battle of the Crater in July 1864, where he was wounded and again taken prisoner. After eight months in a Confederate prison, he escaped, but voluntarily surrendered himself in order to be exchanged (again). He rejoined his regiment and was promoted to captain in May 1865, but resigned…
In this powerful and moving memoir, Robert Beecham tells of his Civil War experiences, both as an enlisted man in the fabled Iron Brigade of the Army of the Potomac and as an officer commanding a newly raised African-American unit. Written in 1902, Beecham recounts his war experiences with a keen eye toward the daily life of the soldier, the suffering and brutality of war, and the remarkable acts of valor, by soldiers both black and white, that punctuated the grind of long campaigns. As If It Were Glory is an unforgettable account of the Civil War, unclouded by sentimentality…
Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…
For centuries, Ireland struggled to gain independence from Britain. Many Irish abroad, in the USA and elsewhere, helped to arm and fund that struggle. My Grandfather Kenny in Dublin was among those who helped Arthur Griffith, founder of the Sinn Féin liberation movement, to promote his ideas in the early twentieth century. Grandfather also sought support for the educational initiatives of Patrick Pearse before the British executed Pearse as a leading rebel in 1916. Between 1905 and 1923, a revolutionary movement in Ireland broke Britain’s resolve. The independent Irish state was founded, comprising all but six of the thirty-two counties of Ireland.
I am gripped by this account of the real impact of Ireland’s short but very bitter civil war, which left the new state fractured long after the war ended in 1923.
Aiken is the great-granddaughter of a former “terrorist” who later became foreign minister of the Republic of Ireland. She mines fiction as well as historical records to produce a lively work relevant to any war.
SPIRITUAL WOUNDS challenges the widespread belief that the contentious events of the Irish Civil War (1922–23) were covered in a total blanket of silence. The book uncovers an archive of published testimonies by pro- and anti-treaty men and women, written in both English and Irish. Most of the testimonies discussed were produced in the 1920s and 1930s, and nearly all have been overlooked in historical study to date. Revolutionaries went to great lengths to testify to the ‘spiritual wounds’ of civil war: they adopted fictionalised disguises, located their writings in other places or periods of time, and found shelter behind…
On reaching my late 40’s, the topic of ageing and dying raised its head with a clarion call. This wake up call led me to draw upon my 25 years’ experience as a scientist to research why we age, how we die, and what (if anything) we can do about it all. I also looked beyond the physical into the social and emotional aspects. These book recommendations reflect my journey to understanding that a life well lived is about doing things you like with people you love, rather than swallowing vitamin pills.
This book reminds us of the human aspect of surgery, aging, and disease.
The brain is superbly complex, and its innermost workings of the brain lie beyond our grasp. I love the thwarted circularity of how we can use our brain to think about how our brain thinks without really understanding how it thinks.
In many people the brain goes wrong, this is often caused by cancerous tumours growing there. Where drugs and radiotherapy fail, surgeons are often the last resort. Marsh describes his experience as a literal brain surgeon and the effect on him of having to make life-altering decisions.
How does it feel to hold someone's life in your hands, to cut through the stuff that creates thought, feeling and reason?
How do you live with the consequences when it all goes wrong?
DO NO HARM offers an unforgettable insight into the highs and lows of a life dedicated to operating on the human brain, in all its exquisite complexity. With astonishing candour and compassion, Henry Marsh reveals the exhilarating drama of surgery, the chaos and confusion of a busy…
Some of my first memories as a kid are of films and TV shows about World War Two; the theme tune and credits of The World At War TV series still haunt me even now. But to be honest, the bombing of Germany never gripped me as much as, say, the war in Russia, that is, until I started to read up on it. It was a revelation. Suddenly, I saw incredibly young men fighting to survive in the most hostile environment on the planet–or rather above the planet, miles above, in fact. To me, I find the war they fought alien, but at the same time so absorbing I lose myself in it.
The best thing about reading this book was that it shone a light–if you can forgive the pun–on the otherwise unseen world of the nighttime air battles over Germany.
Before I read it, I admit I thought of the night war as some sort of game of chess, somehow fought at a comfortable distance. Boiten’s book shredded that distance and brought me face-to-face with the reality of it all in a gratifyingly unsentimental way.
Perhaps the most powerful image it left me with was of young British (and allied) airmen suddenly being blown out of the sky by an enemy they all so often never saw until their aircraft was turned into a horrifying fireball.
The night airwar over Western Europe was a long, intensive and costly airwar campaign. Theo Boiten tells this often harrowing and sometimes inspiring story using the personal accounts of over 70 veterans from both sides. The book is illustrated with many rare and previously unpublished photographs from the personal collections of those veterans and forms a record of this important aspect of 20th-century history.
The authoritative but accessible history of the birth of modern American intelligence in World War II that treats not just one but all of the various disciplines: spies, codebreakers, saboteurs.
Told in a relatable style that focuses on actual people, it was a New Yorker "Best of 2022" selection and…
My entire life has revolved around the military. At seven years old, I decided that I would serve my country as a Marine, so my formative years were spent reading as much as I could about the ideas of service, leadership, combat, and sacrifice. I joined the Corps at seventeen and spent the next twenty-one years trying to live up to those stories I read as a child. Now, I divide my time between training special operations Marines for combat, writing about my experiences, and encouraging veterans of all services to put their stories on paper as a senior editor for the Lethal Minds Journal. I share the lessons I’ve learned in my weekly substack, Walking Point.
I love Tellessen’s writing style. It is honest, brutal at times, and often beautiful. I began my Marine Corps service as a Marine Grunt and share a kinship with Tellessen. Many of his stories feel like stories that I lived or could have lived.
I think that is the gift of a great storyteller. He tells the good and bad of what it means to be a Marine in a way that makes me wish I was young enough to do it all again.
2023 Eugene Sledge Award winner for best Marine Corps memoir of the past three years
Kacy Tellessen is a grunt. After completing high school in rural Washington, he enlisted in the Marine Corps and began the hero's journey he imagined might parallel those epic tales he'd consumed throughout adolescence. But what Tellessen lived through--from boot camp to the battlefield and home again--had little in common with Homer's tales or Hollywood's depictions.
In his memoir, Tellessen offers a truer account of life as an infantryman: the complicated, conflicting, adrenaline-pumping, and traumatic experience of war. Though much of our country's fighting and…
