Summer reading list
Books about meditation, mindfulness, and some just good reads.
Confidence by Ethan Nichtern
Holding Your Seat Through Life’s Eight Worldly Winds
Written by Brooklyn based Buddhist teacher, Ethan Nichtern, this book delves into the eight common human experiences that can cause suffering: gain and loss, fame and insignificance, praise and blame, and pleasure and pain. The book relates Buddhist concepts to real life experiences - I found myself writing notes all over the pages and reading it to my yoga students constantly.
Yoga by Emmanuel Carrère
“..the French author celebrated for his deeply personal accounts of tragic events embraces meditation as a means of learning to write ‘without fabrication.’ But telling the truth is complicated.” - NYT Review
This book has it all, meditation, murder, romance, psych wards and yoga.
Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Mindfulness meditation in everyday life
This is an oldie but a goodie if you want an accessible introduction to “mindfulness, both as a formal meditation practice and as a way of being in wise relationship to life as it unfolds”. I go back to this book time and time again.
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
A perfect summer read, Remarkably Bright Creatures is a novel about an elderly widow who forms an unlikely friendship with the curmudgeonly Marcellus, a Pacific octopus at the aquarium where she works.
This book has nothing and everything to do with yoga. A truly sweet story about love and loss, new beginnings, and humanity. I couldn’t recommend it more. And, there is a Netflix adaptation coming soon!
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön
How can we go on living when things fall apart—when we are overcome by pain, fear, and anxiety?
Pema Chödrön is an American-born Tibetan Buddhist. She is an ordained nun, former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism and disciple of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Pema’s writing get’s the point across in a no nonsense type of way. Someone recommended When Things Fall Apart to me when my mom was diagnosed with the big C, and it didn’t disappoint. This is a book I will continue to go back to.