Memoir / Biography
A life well lived—or interestingly lived—is a perennial source of interest. And such a life well described makes one of the most satisfying reading experiences there is. Lose yourself in one of the intriguing lives described in these books.
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Alexandra David-Neel
Portrait of an Adventurer
This unique biography explores the inner journey of a woman whose outer life was a thrilling story of passion and adventure. Alexandra David-Neel (1868–1969), born in Paris to a socially prominent family, once boasted, "I learned to run before I could walk!" In the course of a lifetime of more than one hundred years, she was an acclaimed operatic soprano, a political anarchist, a religious reformer, an intrepid explorer who… Read More
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At Hell's Gate
A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace
In this raw and moving memoir, Claude Thomas describes his service in Vietnam, his subsequent emotional collapse, and his remarkable journey toward healing. At Hell's Gate is not only a gripping coming-of-age story but a spiritual travelogue from the horrors of combat to the discovery of inner peace—a journey that inspired Thomas to become a Zen monk and peace activist who travels to war-scarred regions around the world.… Read More
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The Bodhi Tree Grows in L.A.
Tales of a Buddhist Monk in America
Truth is regularly stranger than fiction for the abbot of a Buddhist temple in the far-from-tranquil inner city of Los Angeles, California. Whether he is talking a dangerously unbalanced man out of buying a gun, confronting a naked woman in his meditation hall, or helping gamblers reform, Bhante Walpola Piyananda demonstrates that every experience can be an opportunity for learning and appreciating the Buddha's teachings. Bhante Piyananda also reflects on… Read More
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Born in Tibet
Chögyam Trungpa—meditation master, scholar, and artist—was identified at the age of only thirteen months as a major tulku, or reincarnation of an enlightened teacher. As the eleventh in the teaching lineage known as the Trungpa tulkus, he underwent a period of intensive training in mediation, philosophy, and fine arts, receiving full ordination as a monk in 1958 at the age of eighteen. The following year, the Chinese Communists invaded… Read More
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Brilliant Moon
The Autobiography of Dilgo Khyentse
Through lively anecdotes and stories this highly revered Buddhist meditation master and scholar tells about his life of study, retreat, and teaching. The formative events of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s life, and those insights and experiences that caused him to mature into the warm, brilliant, and highly realized meditation master and teacher he was, are deeply inspiring. The second half of the book comprises recollections by his wife; his grandson,… Read More
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Chogyam Trungpa
His Life and Vision
Chögyam Trungpa is virtually synonymous with the transmission of Tibetan Buddhism to the West. Over the course of his seventeen-year teaching career in North America, Trungpa ushered in a radically new approach to spirituality—both rooted in the ancient wisdom of the buddhadharma and thoroughly situated in the contemporary world. His teachings, grounded in what he called the “Shambhala vision,” focused on the development of an enlightened society through the transformation… Read More
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City of Lingering Splendor
A Frank Account of Old Peking's Exotic Pleasures
In his early twenties, John Blofeld spent what he describes as "three exquisitely happy years" in Peking during the era of the last emperor, when the breathtaking greatness of China's ancient traditions was still everywhere evident. Arriving in 1934, he found a city imbued with the atmosphere of the recent imperial past and haunted by the powerful spirit of the late Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi. He entered a world of… Read More
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Daddy Long Legs
The Natural Education of a Father
John Price appears to have thrown in the towel. He has spent the last year struggling to support his family, neglecting to spend time with his wife and children, and becoming increasingly cynical about the degraded state of the natural world around him. After a heart-attack scare, however, his wife demands that he start appreciating all the “good things” in his life: their mouse-infested old house, their hopelessly overgrown yard,… Read More
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Dragon Thunder
My Life with Chogyam Trungpa
“It was not always easy to be the guru’s wife,” writes Diana Mukpo. “But I must say, it was rarely boring.” At the age of sixteen, Diana Mukpo left school and broke with her upper-class English family to marry Chögyam Trungpa, a young Tibetan lama who would go on to become a major figure in the transmission of Buddhism to the West. In a memoir that is at turns magical,… Read More
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