58 Books Like The Tao of Pooh & The Te of Piglet

I’ve read this book more times than I can count.

Hell, I think I actually wore the pages out, if that’s even possible. When I was younger, I went back to it like a lab rat hitting the lever for a pellet—each parable connecting another dot. To me, the mystery was life, the teacher the universe, and I was the student—albeit a lousy one. 

The Alchemist is one of those rare novels that feels both timeless and uncomfortably personal. At its foundation, it’s about following your own path—trusting the itch of intuition and chasing something bigger than yourself, even when it feels a little foolhardy in the moment.

What I love is how Coelho cuts through with fable-like simplicity: those who love walking go farther than those who love the destination—and they usually learn a hell of a lot more if they’re paying attention. 

I recommend it because it doesn’t… show more.

It just blows my mind any time I read it, the same way it did the first time. Huxley was way ahead of his time when he wrote this influential book, and he was one of the first prophets of the New Age and the Age of Consciousness.

I was deeply touched by his intimate descriptions of his own experiences with LSD and Mescaline and the way it opened his mind to understanding the complexities of our consciousness beyond our regular and daily way of perceiving the world.

One of my favorite rock bands, The Doors, is named after this book, and it gives me ultimate pleasure to listen to Jim Morrison while reading it. What an experience! 

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. 

The first science fiction book I ever read was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. This book began my lifelong passion for watching sci-fi movies and reading books. It wasn’t until the end of high school that I would discover The Law of Love by Laura Esquivel, an epic novel that combines romance, spirituality, and science fiction.

The story weaves eternal themes of love, destiny, reincarnation, and human interconnectedness juxtaposed against a futuristic society where time and space travel, telepathy, and access to the mystical Akashic records (every person’s thoughts, emotions, experiences, and actions) are accessible to all.

While the author’s book Like Water for Chocolate received widespread attention and a Hollywood movie adaptation, it was The Law of Love that to this day shapes my romantic ideals and titillates my sci-fi and philosophical curiosities.

I read this when I was in my early twenties, living in a loft apartment in Boston that was situated directly over a brew pub, and working a job divorced from whatever good I thought I had to offer the world.

There was very little Tao about that entire situation, but this book gave me a compass to navigate that period in my life. The narrator moves through his day interacting with characters from Winnie the Pooh, with remarkable observations tied to A.A. Milne's story. I still remember phrases and passages from this book, like "Bisy Backson."

You'll have to read it to find out what that means...and don't go Googling it. The power is in the actual story.

Daoism is China’s only indigenous religion and is essential to understanding the soul of China. I devoured this easy-to-read book because it is both comprehensive and deeply authentic. I found the format easy to navigate, with handy overviews of each chapter, subheadings, and highlighted areas of interest. 

With so many misunderstandings and common myths about Daoism circulating, it was great to find an accurate accounting of this ancient religion. Komjathy’s credentials are both academic and experiential: He is a professor of Theology and Religious Studies and an ordained Daoist.

The handy, detailed map at the beginning allowed me to pinpoint the areas where the various schools, lineages, foundational views, and practices of Daoism had developed, and the comprehensive notes provide depth and context.

What do you get when you cross the meditations of a Trappist monk with the teachings of a Taoist master? Wisdom rolled into small. tasty bites.

I find lots to chew on here: precisely honed, almost poetic epigrams and short stories that capture timeless truths and insights. I was enchanted to discover the book in my teens; it suited my short attention span. Now fifty years later, its humour, pithy fables and quotability seem ever pertinent, ever fresh.

I love it for random dips as a way to sign off for a day’s meditation.

Tao de Ching is the basis of the Taoist belief system, which, unlike other spiritual text, is filled with not just profound, but practical advice for navigating this world in a way that benefits the self, others, and the world at large. 

Tao de Ching simply means ‘The Book of the Way’. The name of the sage to whom this book is attributed, Lao-tzu, could be translated to mean ‘the Old Master’.

I was so inspired by these writings that I wished to create a book about such a Master - based in the time of those great adepts like Confucius, the Buddha, and indeed Lao-Tzu - and weave these life-changing teachings throughout. 

Hence the idea for my own book was ignited.

Translated many times under different titles, this is my favorite edition, influencing my life planning journey. The text is an intermingling of Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian thought.

Huanchu Daoren (who goes by various names) was a retired civil servant, as were many great philosophers and mystics in China. His book is written in brief paragraphs, each paragraph is a teaching of ethics or of spirit.

I carried a tiny version of the book that fit in the palm of my hand wherever I went for about ten years when I was going through the toughest time in my life just to give myself encouragement. Whenever I dipped into it, reading three or four sentences, I would feel as if there was something more profound than what I was going through. 

Cyndi Dale is perhaps the doyenne of the chakra experts. I’ve read a lot of her books, and she’s quite knowledgeable. However, I completely disagree with much of her chakra system. It’s too complicated for my taste, but then I am most interested in the whole population knowing how to work with their own chakras in an everyday way just like we brush our teeth. She’s training experts. Her work is valuable to know what others have discovered, and… her section on the history of the chakra system as well as how it has been a part of health and healing in cultures from the Incas to the Taoists to the Hindus to the Sufis to the Maori and more throughout time is quite simply the best.