100 Books Like Things Hidden

I truly was inspired by Jennifer Bird’s intelligent yet inviting introduction to the Bible—and her explanation of why ordinary people can read it for personal spiritual benefit.

For many years, I felt intimidated by Biblical commentaries because they were written by brilliant scholars and researchers who devoted their entire lives to the Bible. How could I ever reach their depth of knowledge?

But along came Jennifer Bird, who reminds readers like me that it’s okay to bring a layperson’s perspective to scripture. As her title indicates, she gives everyone permission to mind our own ways of relating to this ancient text.

She’s not promoting fundamentalism, but rather gives us permission to balance an academic appreciation of Biblical knowledge with a personal encounter with the Spirit of love who truly inspired the Biblical writers.

I grew up in a conservative church in the American South, the home of evangelical fundamentalism—but Marcus Borg offered me a great pathway out of the narrow-mindedness of literalistic, authoritarian religion.

The subtitle of this book says it all: there is a path to taking the Bible more seriously (as a spiritual book) when we stop insisting on reading it literally. Borg combines quality scholarship with an almost mystical appreciation of the wisdom encoded in the ancient scripture.

For me, reading his book was an invitation not only to read the Bible anew, but to fall in love with it all over again.

Growing up as a Christian, I learned a Christian understanding of the Bible, but my appreciation of scripture took a quantum leap when I was exposed to Jewish perspectives, including this brilliant study of the Hebrew Bible (the Christian “Old Testament”) as a guide to meditation.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan unpacks how instructions for meditation are often carefully encoded in the ancient writings, thereby revealing not only how the Bible supports a meaningful spiritual practice, but also how it is filled with subtle mystical teachings.

I’ll never accept the criticism that “mysticism isn’t in the Bible ever again”—this book shows how that perspective is based on misunderstanding Biblical wisdom.

Just as Aryeh Kaplan helped me to read the Old Testament through Jewish (mystical) eyes, Amy-Jill Levine introduced me to a new understanding of Jesus and the New Testament, which once again completely revolutionized my understanding of the Bible and my appreciation for its wisdom.

Levine reminds us that Jesus lived and died as a Jew; his words and his teachings come alive in new and surprising ways when we take seriously his Jewish identity.

What I love about this book is not only how much it enriched my understanding of Jesus, but it also helped me to see how context is crucial for a careful reading of the Bible: knowing the social and historical background makes it so much easier to appreciate the spiritual wisdom in the sacred text.

The words and life of Eugene Peterson have been important to my own spiritual formation, so finding a book that shares the books he read that formed him was a must. He recommends classic books, a wide variety of theologians and Bible scholars, poetry, and contemporary and mystery novels. Eugene Peterson had a large and generous heart and a deep-thinking mind, and finding out that I had read many of his favorites already was an encouragement. And looking for more of his recommendations has proved useful. 

This book offers a poignant personal view of Sufism by a Scottish-born actor and writer who became disillusioned with a world “where people teach but know nothing, where the sentences flow on endlessly but lead nowhere.” He seeks and finds wisdom and solace in the deserts of Sahara under the guidance of a Sufi master to whom he dedicates his short but powerful book. When I picked it up as a reading for my class on Sufism, I thought I would find a usual mushy account of Sufism by a starry-eyed neophyte. The book was anything but: it was eloquent, deeply personal, and felicitously free from platitudes. I was pleasantly surprised and so were my students. I recommend it to everyone interested in spiritual quests regardless of his or her background.    

A book I strongly recommend on your success journey is As A Man Thinketh. This 60-page book is short, sweet, and to the point. Your thoughts are things, and you are where you are in life because of how you think. Understanding that profound statement can enable you to weave happiness and prosperity into your life. Also, As A Man Thinketh will show you how to always stay positive and keep successful thoughts flowing in your mind so you can live a prosperous life. 

I really enjoy inspirational books written as stories that use life events to portray messages.

It's an easy read coupled with a great story filled with powerful messages. What appeals to me is that the story is captivating and simple. I find in today’s world everything is over-complicated and drawn out.

Dan Millman captures you immediately and the messages are attainable for every normal person and understandable as well - isn’t that what a book should be about?

This is a rich survey of Jewish spirituality, starting from the Bible and continuing through the 20th century, including the Talmud, Kabbalah, Ḥasidism, and modern Jewish thought.

Each essay is written by a different prominent scholar. Among the topics covered are: prophecy, the spirituality of Psalms, the relation between law and spirit, the mystical meaning of the mitzvot (commandments), meditation, mystical experience, and the Ḥasidic rebbe.

I like that each essay is based on solid scholarship and yet is very readable.

This is the best book to start your journey in understanding Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological writings

I recommend this book because it not only contains some of Pareto’s most important writings in a remarkably readable translation but also because S.E Finer provides an outstanding and lengthy introduction to many crucial aspects of Pareto’s sociology.

Finer was one of the most talented and objective scholars to write on Pareto’s thinking.