Here are 100 books that The Way of Nature fans have personally recommended if you like
The Way of Nature.
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I’m a world historian with a special interest in religion. In particular, I’m excited by the possibility that traditional religious ideas and practices can be useful in our modern, often secular, society and in our individual lives. So often, I read books about religion that make their subject accessible to readers today, but at the cost of turning religion into a modern thing and removing its transformative potential as an alternative way to think about life. I keep these five books close by on my shelves because their creators use sympathy, grace, and sharp analysis to make religion accessible even while also keeping it true to itself.
Ñāṇamoli’s anthology invites us into the world of the Pali Canon, the oldest sizable source for early Buddhism and my favourite collection of ancient texts. Although full of transcendent yet practical wisdom, with smatterings of an earthy humour, sometimes it gives me a headache—thousands of pages, endless repetition, words that have no real English equivalent.
Through genius-level editing, Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli has woven together translated excerpts from the Canon to make something like a modern biography of the Buddha. Reading The Life of the Buddha, I know I’m immersed in the authentic texts, and yet I still want to turn the page to see what will happen next.
Composed entirely of texts from the Pali canon, this unique biography presents the oldest authentic record of the Buddha’s life and revolutionary philosophy. The ancient texts are rendered here in a language marked by lucidity and dignity. A framework of narrators and voices connect the canonical texts. Vivid recollections of his personal attendant Ananda and other disciples bring the reader into the Buddha’s presence, where his example offers profound inspiration and guidance on the path to freedom.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’m a world historian with a special interest in religion. In particular, I’m excited by the possibility that traditional religious ideas and practices can be useful in our modern, often secular, society and in our individual lives. So often, I read books about religion that make their subject accessible to readers today, but at the cost of turning religion into a modern thing and removing its transformative potential as an alternative way to think about life. I keep these five books close by on my shelves because their creators use sympathy, grace, and sharp analysis to make religion accessible even while also keeping it true to itself.
Did you know that today’s “mindfulness” movement—which promises everything from greater corporate productivity to more passion in the bedroom—originated in nineteenth-century resistance to the British Empire?
After the conquest of Burma, meditation—previously something mostly the domain of wilderness hermits—became a technique everyone could use to strengthen Buddhist Burmese society against cultural imperialism. Burmese teachers brought this practice to America, and Americans came to Burma to learn it directly.
It was fascinating to follow meditation’s journey in these pages from a tool of resistance against globalization to a technique brought around the world by globalization today. This book helped me appreciate the strange history of mindfulness meditation.
Insight meditation, which claims to offer practitioners a chance to escape all suffering by perceiving the true nature of reality, is one of the most popular forms of meditation today. The Theravada Buddhist cultures of South and Southeast Asia often see it as the Buddha's most important gift to humanity. In the first book to examine how this practice came to play such a dominant and relatively recent role in Buddhism, Erik Braun takes readers to Burma, revealing that Burmese Buddhists in the colonial period were pioneers in making insight meditation indispensable to modern Buddhism. Braun focuses on the Burmese…
I’m a world historian with a special interest in religion. In particular, I’m excited by the possibility that traditional religious ideas and practices can be useful in our modern, often secular, society and in our individual lives. So often, I read books about religion that make their subject accessible to readers today, but at the cost of turning religion into a modern thing and removing its transformative potential as an alternative way to think about life. I keep these five books close by on my shelves because their creators use sympathy, grace, and sharp analysis to make religion accessible even while also keeping it true to itself.
Today, so many works on Indigenous history celebrate their subjects as heroes who appeal to our modern sensibilities, but Jackson lets the Mizo people of over a hundred years ago be themselves—not as ciphers for theory, but as actual humans with their own outlooks.
This is the first book that made an Indigenous worldview come alive for me... and still be Indigenous. I found myself fully immersed in a truly human world that makes sense on its own terms, thanks to the author’s careful research, engaging humour, and inspired and sympathetic interpretations. Discovery offered me an opportunity to confront my own assumptions.
High in the eastern Himalayan foothills, people had a unique vantage point on the British Empire. The Mizo Discovery of the British Raj presents a history of Mizoram in Northeast India told from historical Indigenous perspectives of encounters with empire from the 1890s to the 1920s. Based on a wide range of research and enriched by sources newly digitised by the author through the British Library's Endangered Archives Programme, Kyle Jackson sheds new light on the complex and violent processes of how and why diverse populations of highland clans in the Indo-Burmese borderlands came to redefine themselves as Christian Mizos.…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I’m a world historian with a special interest in religion. In particular, I’m excited by the possibility that traditional religious ideas and practices can be useful in our modern, often secular, society and in our individual lives. So often, I read books about religion that make their subject accessible to readers today, but at the cost of turning religion into a modern thing and removing its transformative potential as an alternative way to think about life. I keep these five books close by on my shelves because their creators use sympathy, grace, and sharp analysis to make religion accessible even while also keeping it true to itself.
The only work of fiction on this list, Motel of the Mysteries set me laughing, first at the book itself, then at historians more generally, and finally at myself.
Macaulay invites us to join a fictitious archaeological team from the future excavating a twentieth-century American motel that had been buried under a tsunami of junk mail. If this team is misunderstanding American culture so ridiculously and profoundly, how far have real historians missed the mark when writing about their subjects and their religions? If the Christians and Muslims of the fifteenth century read my Jesus book, would they be laughing at me?
This book makes me more cautious, more reflective, and more creative when I'm doing my own excavations of past religious cultures.
It is the year 4022; all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under many feet of detritus from a catastrophe that occurred back in 1985. Imagine, then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best, experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber. Carson's incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one…
What I love about philosophy (I’ve been a philosophy professor at the University of California, Riverside, since 1997) is not its ability to deliver the one correct answer to the nature of the world and how to live but rather its power to open our mind to new possibilities that we hadn’t previously considered; its power to blow apart our presuppositions, our culturally given “common sense” understandings, and our habitual patterns of thinking, casting us into doubt and wonder. The science writing, fiction, and personal essays I love best have that same power.
The ancient Chinese text Zhuangzi/Chuang Tzu has been translated many times, but Burton Watson’s 1968 version is still my favorite, best capturing the wit and humor of this playful Daoist.
Chuang Tzu constantly pokes at our philosophical and moral presumptions. Reading him, I feel my smugness and arrogance melting away in favor of joyful doubt and wonder. Chuang Tzu dreams he is a butterfly, flitting about, doing just as he pleases, and then he wakes up, solid and unmistakable Chuang. But is he a human who has just dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly now dreaming he’s a human?
Instead of rushing about busily, thinking we understand things, maybe we should doze beneath a giant, useless tree in the field of the bright and boundless.
The basic writings of Chuang Tzu have been savored by Chinese readers for over two thousand years. And Burton Watson's lucid and beautiful translation has been loved by generations of readers. Chuang Tzu (369?-286? B.C.) was a leading philosopher representing the Taoist strain in Chinese thought. Using parable and anecdote, allegory and paradox, he set forth, in the book that bears his name, the early ideas of what was to become the Taoist school. Central to these is the belief that only by understanding Tao (the Way of Nature) and dwelling in its unity can man achieve true happiness and…
I have had the great luck to combine my love of writing with my love of photography that in turn combines my great loves of art and of science. Oh, I have another love: to share what I know; some call it teaching. That is why I’ve lectured and talked more times than I can remember, and written millions of words in magazine features and forty books. In the early years, my attention centred on photographic techniques, but I’ve become increasingly focused on creativity and the conditions that enable full expression of the individual. My choice of books refracts that range—I hope—into a coherent spectrum of approaches.
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.
Working from existing translations, Thomas Merton composed a series of his own versions of the classic sayings of Chuang Tzu, the most spiritual of Chinese philosophers. Chuang Tzu, who wrote in the fourth and third centuries B.C., is the chief authentic historical spokesperson for Taoism and its founder Lao Tzu (a legendary character known largely through Chuang Tzu's writings). Indeed it was because of Chuang Tzu and the other Taoist sages that Indian Buddhism was transformed, in China, into the unique vehicle we now call by its Japanese name-Zen.
The Chinese sage abounds in wit and paradox and shattering insights…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I’ve been reading and making comics since I was a young kid. I’m very interested in the history of comics, and I love to see new combinations of content and form. My own graphic novels, such as Constitution Illustrated and Masterpiece Comics, use parody and pastiche to comment on and reinterpret historical and contemporary texts. I’m charmed by the earnest retelling of literature in old comic book series like Classics Illustrated, but I’m much more excited to see graphic novels that dig deep into texts and reinvent them in idiosyncratic ways.
This is a great introduction to the Taoist philosophy of Zhuangzi, as rendered by Taiwanese cartoonist Tsai. These short comic strips are instantly inviting, and rendered in an animated, funny style that feels effortless. Tsai emphasizes the humor and subversive qualities of the original text, but his approach is reverent, too, as he lays out Zhuangzi’s deep lessons on each page.
During a period of political and social upheaval in China, the unconventional insights of the great Daoist Zhuangzi (369?-286? B.C.) pointed to a way of living naturally. Inspired by his fascination with the wisdom of this sage, the immensely popular Taiwanese cartoonist Tsai Chih Chung created a bestselling Chinese comic book. Tsai had his cartoon characters enact the key parables of Zhuangzi (pronounced jwawngdz), and he rendered Zhuangzi's most enlightening sayings into modern Chinese. Through Tsai's enthusiasm and skill, the earliest and core parts of the Zhuangzi were thus made accessible to millions of Chinese-speaking people with no other real…
I’ve been fascinated by China from a young age, and I have always wanted to go there. In my thirties, after walking into a Daoist temple in Australia, I immediately felt at home. I was initiated into the Daoist tradition, then travelled to China. I spent nearly two decades living and travelling through the country. I married a Chinese national and felt I had married not just a person but a whole family! This propelled me into a deeper understanding of the culture. The books I’ve listed helped me to understand more: I hope you enjoy them too!
Eva Wong manages to make her tales so captivating that I couldn’t put this book down. I learnt about “the dynamic spiritual tradition” of Taoism/Daoism through hermits, revolutionaries, scholars, and mystics in her beautifully told account.
Reading this book, I felt like I was travelling with Eva from the East China sea to the heights of Mt Tai, from north of the Yangtze to the fields of Sichuan, meeting immortals, Daoist cultivators, writers and alchemists as the author made obscure theories and ancient scriptures eminently understandable through her story-telling style.
She brings the soul of China to life through its legends and tales, all firmly placed in their historic context. Famous Daoist figures and semi-mythical emperors all come to life as she crisscrosses China, spatially and temporally.
Here, Taoist practitioner Eva Wong offers a colorful treatment of the history and evolution of Taoism, told through traditional teaching tales. These tales, which Wong first heard as a child growing up in Hong Kong, are gleaned from the local storytellers and the uncensored chronicles known as yeshi—the wild history of China, not monitored by the official imperial scholars and historians. The stories are by turns mysterious and intriguing, passionate and violent, and they are peppered with colorful characters, including hermits, politicians, social activists, revolutionaries, scholars, scientists, and mystics.
Arranged chronologically from prehistory through the early twentieth century, these stories…
I’ve been fascinated by China from a young age, and I have always wanted to go there. In my thirties, after walking into a Daoist temple in Australia, I immediately felt at home. I was initiated into the Daoist tradition, then travelled to China. I spent nearly two decades living and travelling through the country. I married a Chinese national and felt I had married not just a person but a whole family! This propelled me into a deeper understanding of the culture. The books I’ve listed helped me to understand more: I hope you enjoy them too!
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.
Using a historical, textual and ethnographic approach, this is the most comprehensive presentation of Daoism to date. In addition to revealing the historical contours and primary concerns of Chinese Daoists and Daoist communities, The Daoist Tradition provides an account of key themes and defining characteristics of Daoist religiosity, revealing Daoism to be a living and lived religion. Exploring Daoism from a comparative religious studies perspective, this book gives the reader a deeper understanding of religious traditions more broadly. Beginning with an overview of Daoist history, The Daoist Tradition then covers key elements of Daoist worldviews and major Daoist practices. This…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I am a Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at the University of California, Riverside. I was brought up in the family of a Chinese poetry scholar. Arriving in the States for my graduate studies at Harvard in 1982, I have engaged myself in academia here ever since. Acutely aware of, and deeply fascinated by, the cultural similarities and differences of China and the West, I have continued my learning experience, in my thirty years of college teaching, often from direct exchanges with my students. The books on my list of recommendations include both required texts chosen for my courses, and those I want to share with what Virginia Woolf called the Common Reader.
Enriched by more than 200 pictures, mostly in color, as well as maps and line drawings, it is an illuminating and succinct account of Chines civilization from prehistoric times through the rise of the “Three Teachings” (Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism) to the modern communist state. As someone who taught a popular undergraduate college course on Chinese civilization for many years, I can testify that the overall length (384 pages) of the book and its structure of 12 chapters plus an epilogue make it a perfect choice of required texts.
More populous than any other country on earth, China also occupies a unique place in our modern world for the continuity of its history and culture. In this sumptuously illustrated single-volume history, now in its second edition, noted historian Patricia Buckley Ebrey traces the origins of Chinese culture from prehistoric times to the present. She follows its development from the rise of Confucianism, Buddhism, and the great imperial dynasties to the Mongol, Manchu, and Western intrusions and the modern communist state. Her scope is phenomenal - embracing Chinese arts, culture, economics, society and its treatment of women, foreign policy, emigration,…
