My reading this past year included the latest issues of Tape Op magazine, The Old Farmer’s Almanac 2022, and content received via Feedly (I still like RSS feeds). I also read or reread the following books in 2022:
Buddhist Suttas for Recitation: A Companion for Walking the Buddha’s Path (Bhante Gunaratana)
A Peterson Field Guide to Stars and Planets (Jay M. Pasachoff)
7 Treasures of Awakening: The Benefits of Mindfulness (Joseph Goldstein)
The Kentucky Bourbon Trail (Berkeley and Jeanine Scott)
In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon (ed. by Bhikkhu Bodhi)
The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering (Bhikkhu Bodhi)
A Hard Day’s Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song (Steve Turner)
I read dozens of books a year for decades, but now I’m lucky to read more than a handful–and not one work of fiction, even! But here we are.
During my formative years, I cared more about sports, music, and reading than nature, but I enjoyed learning about things that interested me. When a kid down the street invited me and a few others to watch him feed a live toad to his pet snake, we accepted. I’ll spare you the details, but witnessing nature firsthand inspired me to check out a handbook on the subject.
Reptiles and Amphibians (Golden Press), a “guide to familiar American species,” presented more than 200 species with color illustrations, and I loved flipping through its pages. Better yet, the library had other Golden Guides in the series, including Mammals and Rocks and Minerals, and those books interested me even more. A few months later, however, my fleeting interest in natural science had all but disappeared.
Fast-forward a few decades. I’m at Lowe’s browsing through books on projects I hope I never have to do when I spot the sixth edition of Roger Tory Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America. I bought it, and as in my youth, I discovered the book was only one in a series of great books, so I ordered the latest edition of the Peterson Field Guide to Stars and Planets. I’ve started reading the latter from cover to cover, and it’s fascinating!
Peterson Field Guides are “Golden Guides for Adults” published to assist curious lay people in identifying natural phenomena, and I’m amazed at the number of guides available. Like most people, my pursuits leave little time to explore every shiny object that comes along, but those looking to take a break from time to time will find these books packed with fun facts about the world in which they live and the universe in which that world exists.
When I say I read a handful of books in 2020, I mean it. I only read five books in 2020! Here’s the list of books I read or reread during a very busy year:
Buddhist Suttas for Recitation: A Companion for Walking the Buddha’s Path (Bhante Gunaratana)
Post Office (Charles Bukowski)
Revolution in the Head (Ian McDonald)
What Why How: Answers to Your Questions About Buddhism, Meditation, and Living Mindfully (Bhante G)
Hawk: I Did It My Way (Ken Harrelson)
Despite the small list, I love to read (I even wrote a song about it), and I plan to read more books in 2021.
With the exception of Todd Rundgren‘s long-awaited “autobiography” and a meditation guide, I devoted the past year to reading and rereading the works of Bhante G. Here’s the list of books I read or reread in 2019:
Mindfulness in Plain English (Henepola Gunaratana)
Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English: An Introductory guide to Deeper States of Meditation (Henepola Gunaratana)
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness in Plain English (Henepola Gunaratana)
The Meditator’s Atlas: A Roadmap to the Inner World (Matthew Flickstein)
Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness: Walking the Buddha’s Path (Henepola Gunaratana)
Meditation on Perception: Ten Healing Practices to Cultivate Mindfulness (Henepola Gunaratana)
The Individualist: Digressions, Dreams & Dissertations (Todd Rundgren)
Journey to Mindfulness: The Autobiography of Bhante G. (Henepola Gunaratana)
Loving-Kindness in Plain English: The Practice of Metta (Henepola Gunaratana)
Buddhist Suttas for Recitation: A Companion for Walking the Buddha’s Path (Henepola Gunaratana)
I’m now halfway through a really good book on the music of the Beatles, but as I will not finish it by the end of the year, that book will appear on next year’s list.
This past year, I spent more time studying and playing music than I did reading books from start to finish. That said, here’s the list of books I read or reread in 2018:
Bhavana Vandana (Bhante Henepola Gunaratana)
White Gold Wielder (Stephen R. Donaldson)
Life of a Lay Buddhist: Meditation=Awareness (Ven. Dr. M. Vajiragnana)
The Runes of the Earth (Stephen R. Donaldson)
Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four’s Instruments, from Stage to Studio – The Ultimate Edition (Andy Babiuk)
I doubt I’ll have time this year to finish the next book I intend to read, so I’ve decided to go ahead and post this list of books I read or reread in 2017:
A Briefer History of Time (Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow)
Lord Foul’s Bane (Stephen R. Donaldson)
Loving-Kindness in Plain English: The Practice of Metta (Bhante Henepola Gunaratana)
The Illearth War (Stephen R. Donaldson)
The Power That Preserves (Stephen R. Donaldson)
The Wounded Land (Stephen R. Donaldson)
The One Tree (Stephen R. Donaldson)
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a ****: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life (Mark Manson)
I didn’t expect to be reading any fantasy fiction in 2017, but when my brother told me that Stephen Donaldson had written seven more Thomas Covenant books after the three I’d read long ago, I went for it, starting from the first book. Expect a few more by Mr. Donaldson on next year’s list.
When I finish reading Beatles Gear and Stephen Donaldson’s The Power That Preserves, I’ll have to read two of these titles I bought recently at City Newsstand:
I’d already read the issue of Tape Op, as I’m a subscriber and read/save every issue, but my May/June issue was mauled in the mail and I wanted a clean copy. I look forward to reading the other two soon!
When BBC Culture asked book critics to name the top 100 British novels and then published the results earlier this month, I couldn’t resist going through the list to see how many I’d read. As it turns out, I’ve only read 15 of them:
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (Laurence Sterne)
Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift)
The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy)
Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell)
A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess)
David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)
The Forsyte Saga (John Galsworthy)
Animal Farm (George Orwell)
A Room with a View (E.M. Forster)
Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)
Sons and Lovers (D.H. Lawrence)
I do have Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf) on my Kindle, so sometime next year I’ll make it 16. Until then, however, I’ve got some nonfiction to catch up on.
