5 Great Books From a Year of Reading

I’ve done a lot of reading in the past year, and most of the books have been excellent.

I wanted to share the five books that have stuck with me most — they’ve brought about changes in my life; I’ve recommended them over and over to other people; they moved me to tears and deep realizations.

Pretty quickly, you can see a theme emerging.

1. The Power of Now. Described as “A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment,” this book has been fundamental to much of the work I’ve been doing—trying to break the identification with thought that I experience. At its essence, this is a how-to guide to awakening. It’s fundamental message is that we are not our thoughts, not our mind, not our ego; instead, what we truly are is the being and awareness which witnesses it all. … I’ve identified as an atheist for many years and have shied away from much that is “spiritual.” Eckhart Tolle’s book simply makes sense to me.

2. Tao Te Ching. While most of my reading on consciousness is non-religous, the Tao is often described as both a relgious and philosophical text. I was introduced to this book by my mother, who explored many different schools of thought after she was diagnosed with cancer. Its opening lines sum up so much: “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” … Perception and reality are not the same. It is possible to live in a way which aligns with what Is.

3. Being Peace. Called a ”starting-point for those interested in Buddhism,” this book is adapted from teachings and speeches by Thich Nhat Hanh. If I had to sum it up: The work to become more conscious and aware is important work for the well-being of the world. Individually, it is the most impactful work we can do.

4. Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior. The key to courage is not being afraid of yourself. Chögyam Trungpa writes, “Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. … You would like to spill your heart’s blood, give your heart to others. For the warrior, this experience of sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness.”

5. The Overstory. This is a novel, fiction. … One thing I have noticed, as my interest in awareness and consciousness has grown: The language of enlightenment is everywhere. Wikipedia says Richard Powers’ masterpiece is “about nine Americans whose unique life experiences with trees bring them together to address the destruction of forests.” But this is also a book about awakening to reality. It is the most beautiful novel I have read in years, and I cannot recommend it enough.

In The Margins: Project seeks to preserve book-margin notations

Ebooks are kind of a tricky subject. They are, of course, completely awesome. You can carry your entire library on vacation, they're easier to move than a cardboard box, can be read on devices from a phone to a television screen, can be replaced if lost, won't fall apart in the shower and are cheaper than their paper counterparts.

But actual paper books are awesome. Sure, you can still buy paper versions of most every major book title released now, but there's an aesthetic that's been lost, a communal feeling, in the tidal shift towards electronic readers. Somehow the weight of a physical book seems less these days.

Alas. Call it nostalgia — it's hard to deny an electronic reader isn't better in most every practical way.

Which makes this project all the more amazing. Among the things swept aside by electronic books were margin notes, those comments and underlinings and thoughts penciled in beside the passages which made us think. 

Erik Schmitt, who worked on the design team for the 1st generation Kindle, has put together a beautiful project which preserves marginalia and notations as a kind of visual art and demonstration of how knowledge and insight is preserved and passed on.

The Pages Project is based on books he inherited from his grandfather, and invites people to submit photographs of notated book pages. He describes beautifully what he is attempting:

"The goal of the project is to demonstrate the layered expansion of meaning and insight that occurs through the marginalia left by ordinary people within books."

http://thepagesproject.com/