Category: Non Fiction
Words Are My Matter — Ursula K. Le Guin
Zen: Beginner’s Guide — Ian Tuhovsky
I do like books about Zen and i’ve read a great many throughout my life: so where does this one stack up?
I really enjoyed it. Ian has a very approachable style of writing and digs into all aspects of Zen, mostly for the beginning practitioner; but i would also suggest that this is a great book for the Zen curious who have no interest, whatsoever, in pursuing a practice; or for those who maybe just want to dabble a little and see if it’s for them. And it’s also a good book for those of us who practice alone, either due to where we live or other circumstances, but need a little support and/or guidance occasionally.
It’s verily worth the 99p i paid in a Kindle sale.
My only criticism is that there’s a fair few typos that a bit of mindfulness in the proof reading would have prevented which, to be honest, i found rather amusing considering the topic of this book.
Ian’s Page
#zen #iantuhovsky
Wabi Sabi — Beth Kempton
I really enjoyed Andrew Juniper’s book, Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence so i thought i’d may as well give Beth’s book a read as well.
However, unlike Andrew’s book, which i seemed to remember focussed more on the actual aesthetics and the Zen side of Wabi Sabi, with Beth’s book we look deeper into the lifestyle and world view of this wonderful concept.
In reading this book you soon become aware that Beth really has done a lot of homework, lifework, career work and academic work on Japan, and she does a wonderful job of bringing another take on the concept of Wabi Sabi to us non-Japanese readers who are always eager to learn more.
When it all boils down to it, it’s essentially a self help book coming from a really interesting angle. There’s plenty of food for thought in here for anyone looking to make their life even a little bit better tomorrow than it was yesterday. I’m fairly certain that everyone could find at least one thing in here to help improve their own lives in a really good way.
Beth’s Page
#japan #wabisabi #bethkempton
Wake Up — Bonnie Myotai Treace
Having recently restarted my meditation practice, which is going really well, i thought it about time to give this a read.
I would firmly put this book on the shelf for anyone interested in Zen and deepening their practice: lots of little nuggets of info in here, well presented and easily read.
Also contains a good list of further resources at the back of the book.
Bonnie’s Page
#zen #bonniemyotaitreace
Atomic Habits — James Clear
This book is a must for everyone who wants to improve their lives in any way at all.
James dives deep into how our human brains work and how we’re hardwired, and gives great, sound advice as to how to use this hardwiring to our advantage instead of being mindless slaves to it. I just wish i’d read this 40 years ago, but, it’s never to late to change and i look forward to the benefits that this information can bring to my life moving forward. I would even go so far to say that his book should be essential reading at all schools: the sooner people can get this stuff into their heads the better their lives and their futures would be.
It’s definitely a keeper and a book that i know i’ll be re-reading some time in the future once i’ve done some work on it all. In the meanwhile i just have to get on with the process as i’ve got some annoying habits to be rid of and good habits to build.
I repeat, once again, this book is a must.
James’ Page
#jamesclear
The War of Art — Steven Pressfield
The Ascent of Humanity — Charles Eisenstein
March of the Lemmings — Stewart Lee
It came up for £1.19 on an Amazon deal, or something like that, so i gave it a go.
As a stand up comedian i think Stewart Lee is really good and very enjoyable to watch: if you’re a person of lower intelligence then you will probably disagree with that statement, that’s fine, really, we can’t all be part of the liberal intelligentsia.
But as a newspaper columnist, he pretty much sucks donkey balls. So why did i buy this book when, after all is said and done, it’s just lots of his newspaper columns regurgitated with foot notes? Because i don’t read newspapers and had no idea that he sucked so badly at writing columns for them. But i do now.
To be fair though, it’s hard to ridicule and take the urine out of a bunch of narcissistic psychopaths and sociopaths — the career politicos of our age — when they themselves revel in being caricatures of their own urine, faecal and menstrual stains and happily parade their utter incompetence across all public realms for all to see: which bizarrely does actually encourage middle england to eagerly clamour and queue to vote for more. Why even attempt this satire and/or parody or whatever it is? Because the newspaper offered him money to make the attempt because David Mitchell wasn’t up for it and he’d have been a fool to not take said money: he’s got a mortgage to pay after all.
So i got 11% into this and mostly got utterly fed up going back and forth to the footnotes that explain the minutiae of every column that no one really cares about other than broadsheet newspaper readers just in case these things become part of a clue in the cryptic crossword the next day.
So if you are one of those broadsheet readers then this might amuse you, or not, i don’t really care. After 11% i’m done with it as i have many other more interesting looking books clamouring for my reading hours. The problem with brexit now is that there’s nothing more to say or read on the matter that hasn’t already been said or read — all we’ve so far achieved is the creeping erosion of our legal rights and a trade deal with Japan that’s worse than the one we had when we were in the EU — all the other trade deals we were promised have not emerged. The NHS is a complete mess, the economy is in tatters, unemployment is sky rocketing, Boris is determined to spend 100 billion to create 20,000 jobs building a new toy train set for the rich and wealthy while the old, decrepit, poor-people’s trainset’s franchises are all handing their franchises back to the government and are merrily washing their hands of the whole affair: the post brexit future is exactly what every remainer said it would be — but oh, thank heavens for corona virus, at least the leave camp have something else to blame for the mess we’re all in.
