For the first time, I kept track of all the books I read in one year. There’s some observation bias at work; I sometimes made it a point to finish a book on principle when otherwise I would have moved on, and I think I read fewer anthologies and the like, because bits and pieces of a book wouldn’t count for the rules I made up for this silly little list. But here are the books, trivial or profound, for scholarship or entertainment, those I sought out and those I stumbled upon in closeout bins. Not all are necessarily recommended, but I’d be happy to talk about any of them if you’re curious. Linked to Google Books.
Bring Me the Rhinoceros, John Tarrant
Connect, Web Worker Daily
A Buddhist in the Classroom, Sid Brown
Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate, Brad Warner
The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, Andre Comte-Sponville
The Thief and the Dogs, Naguib Mahfouz
The Sinner’s Guide to the Evangelical Right, Robert Lanham
Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within, Kim Addonizio
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, Jennifer 8 Lee
X Saves the World, Jeff Gordinier
Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World, Mary Pipher
Get Known Before the Book Deal, Christina Katz
The Maharishi Effect, Geoff Gilpin
How to Work a Room, Susan RoAne
Joyful Wisdom, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, John McWhorter
The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, Alan S. Miller, Satoshi Kanazawa
The Glass-Maker’s Daughter, V. Briceland
The Living Buddha: An Interpretive Biography, Daisaku Ikeda
The Raft Is Not the Shore: Conversations toward a Buddhist-Christian Awareness, Thich Nhat Hanh and Daniel Berrigan
Three Mistakes of My Life, Chetan Bhagat
The Elephant Paradigm: India Wrestles with Change, Gurcharan Das
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Geoff Dyer
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, Jane Mayer
Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, Bich Minh Nguyen
Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writer’s Guide
Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe, Greg Epstein
How to Make Friends and Oppress People, Vic Darkwood
Libyrinth, Pearl North
Dreaming Me: Black, Baptist, and Buddhist – One Woman’s Spiritual Journey, Jan Willis
Turtle Feet, Nikolai Grozni