Recommended Zen readings . . .
I love to read. I hope you do, too. There was a time long ago, before the Internet, when people gained knowledge from reading actual books. Clients who still read books occasionally ask me to recommend books related to their particular situation or health issues.
So here I have compiled and categorized an ongoing list of my favorite readings to help you on your journey to Zen. This list is constantly expanding and evolving, so check back from time to time. Happy reading . . .
Nutrition
1) The World's Healthiest Foods by George Mateljan. (This hefty little baby is my nutritional Bible.)
2) The Tao of Healthy Eating by Bob Flaws
3) The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman
4) Crossroads: Extraordinary Recipes from the Restaurant That Is Reinventing Vegan Cuisine by Tal Ronnen
5) Afro-Vegan: Farm-Fresh African, Caribbean, and Southern Flavors Remixed
by Bryant Terry
6) The Homemade Vegan Pantry: The Art of Making Your Own Staples by Miyoko Schinner
7) The New Now and Zen Epicure: Gourmet Vegan Recipes for the Enlightened Palate by Miyoko Schinner
8) The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks' Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
9) The Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine by Murray & Pizzorno.
10) Mindful Eating by Jan Chozen Bays
11) The Secret Life of Water by Masaru Emoto
12) What's Eating Your Child?: The Hidden Connections between Food and
Childhood Ailments by Kelly Dorfman
13) Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
14) The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth by Jonny Bowden
15) Forks Over Knives by Del Srouf
16) Food Inc.: A Participant Guide: How Industrial Food is Making Us Sicker, Fatter, and Poorer-And What You Can Do About It by Participant Media and Karl Weber
Health and Healing
1) Fierce Medicine by Ana T. Forrest
2) Anatomy of the Spirit: the Seven Stages of Power and Healing by Caroline M. Myss
3) Energetic Health, Volume 1 by Dr. Henele
4) Secrets of Aboriginal Healing: A Physicist's Journey with a Remote Australian Tribe by Gary Holz D.Sc. and Robbie Holz
5) Essential Oils & Aromatherapy Reloaded: The Complete Step by Step Guide
by Janet Evans
6) Healing with Whole Foods: Oriental Traditions and Modern Nutrition by Pitchford, Paul
7) Women's Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine: Alternative Therapies and Integrative Medicine for Total Health and Wellness by Tori Hudson.
8) Eat Dirt: Why Leaky Gut May Be the Root Cause of Your Health Problems and 5 Surprising Steps to Cure It by Josh Axe
9) The Autoimmune Solution: Prevent and Reverse the Full Spectrum of Inflammatory Symptoms and Diseases by Amy Myers M.D
10) Quantum Healing by Deepak Chopra
Emotional Mastery
1) Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
2) The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
3) Mastery by George Leonard
4) Six Pillars of Self-esteem by Nathaniel Branden
5) The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck
Relationships
1) The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
2) The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz
3) The Art of Sensual Massage by Inkeles
Philosophy
1) Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
2) The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
3) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
4) The Art of War by Sun Tzu
5) Ethics by Aristotle
6) Beyond Good and Evil by Nietszche
7) The Republic by Plato
8) A Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine
9) The Wheel of Time by Carlos Castaneda
10) The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
11) Voices of Wisdom: A Multicultural Philosophy Reader 9th Edition by Gary E. Kessler
12) Zen Without Zen Masters by Camden Benares
13) Nature, Man and Woman by Alan Watts
14) Like a Splinter in Your Mind: The Philosophy Behind the Matrix Trilogy by Matt Lawrence
15) The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers by Mark T. Conard Ph.D
16) The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra
Happiness
1) The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama
2) Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome by Novak and Montague
3) Zen for Beginners by Alexander Yamashita
4) The Way of Zen by Alan Watts
5) You are Here by Thich Nhat Hahn
6) The Dude and the Zen Master by Bridges and Glassman
7) Instructions to the Cook by Bernard Glassman
8) Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman
Mindfulness
1) The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh
2) Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel
3) Introduction to Zen Buddhism by Suzuki
Enlightenment
1) Awakening the Buddha Within: Eight Steps to Enlightenment by
Lama Surya Das
2) Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy… Alberto Villoldo
3) The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
4) The 5 Levels of Attachment by Don Miguel Ruiz
5) Tibetan Book of the Dead by Graham Coleman and Padmasambhava
6) Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho
7) The Abhidhamma in Practice, by N.K.G. Mendis (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society Wheel Publication 322, 1985)
8) Psychology and Philosophy of Buddhism, The: An Introduction to the Abhidhamma, by Dr. W.F. Jayasuriya (Kuala Lumpur: Buddhist Missionary Society, 1988).
"Free Your Mind" Fiction
1) Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
2) The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
3) Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
4) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
5) Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
6) 1984 by George Orwell
7) A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
8) James Buffalo and a Fit of Bad Dharma by Nigel Schroeder
9) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
10) The Trial by Franz Kafka (Also, The Metamorphosis)
11) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
12) Slow Boil Rising by D.T.E. Madden
13) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlen
14) Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
15) Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
16) Animal Planet by Scott Bradfield
17) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
18) 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
19) Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
20) Occupied by Joss Sheldon
21) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
22) Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky
23) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
24) Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
25) Dr. Sleep by Madison Smartt Bell
26) The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
27) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
28) The Road by Cormac McCarthy
29) No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
30) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
31) Spook Country by William Gibson
32) Jennifer Government by Max Barry
33) Lexicon by Max Barry
34) American Gods by Neil Gaiman
35) The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
36) Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg
37) The Secret History by Donna Tartt
38) The Illuminatus Trilogy! by Shea and Wilson
39) I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
40) Dangerous Visions (SF Masterworks) by Harlan Ellison
41) The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
42) Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto
43) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
44) The Stranger by Albert Camus
45) World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
46) I am Legend by Richard Matheson
47) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
48) The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
49) The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel by Adam Johnson
50) Idiots in the Machine by Edward Savio
51) Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
52) Neuromancer by William Gibson
53) Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
54) American Tabloid by James Ellroy
55) The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
56) The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
57) The Dead by James Joyce
58) Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig
59) The Big Lebowski by the Coen brothers
60) The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
61) For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
62) The Thin Red Line by James Jones
For Children
1) The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
2) The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
3) Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
4) Oh the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss
5) Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
6) Coraline by Neil Gaiman
7) Good Night Yoga by Mariam Gates
8) A Young People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
9) Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman
10) The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper
11) The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
12) Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
History-Biography
1) A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
2) You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times by Howard Zinn
3) How the World Works by Noam Chomsky
4) Civil Disobedience and Other Essays by Henry David Thoreau
5) Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated by Gore Vidal
6) Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare by Gore Vidal
7) Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S. C. Gwynne
8) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
9) The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
10) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
11) The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
12) Black Elk Speaks by John Niehardt
