Category: good to read

William J. Craddock
It’s not hyperbole to say William J. Craddock’s Be Not Content is the historical and literary successor to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Both writers gave first-hand accounts of extraordinary eras in America’s cultural history. Just as Kerouac did in capturing the 1950s Beat Generation, Craddock’s fictionalized memoir provides the most authentic narrative of the psychedelic revolution of the 1960s. Craddock was working for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1970, when he decided to record his experiences on the behest of friends and admirers: «I wanted to describe in detail the hopeful hopelessness, the paralyzing simplicity, the intricate and dazzling complexity and the agony of final-truth-pain that was part of the religiously devoted acid-head’s day-to-day existence.» This 50th anniversary edition includes additional writings and photos. A hippie bombshell!
Transreal Books | December 2020

Dr. Carl L. Hart
Dr. Carl L. Hart, Ziff Professor at Columbia University and former chair of the Department of Psychology, is one of the world’s preeminent experts on the effects of so-called recreational drugs on the human mind and body. Dr. Hart is open about the fact that he uses drugs himself, in a happy balance with the rest of his full and productive life as a colleague, husband, father, and friend. In Drug Use for Grown-Ups, he draws on decades of research and his own personal experience to argue definitively that the criminalization and demonization of drug use – not drugs themselves – have been a tremendous scourge on America, not least in reinforcing this country’s enduring structural racism. Drug Use for Grown-Ups is controversial, to be sure: the propaganda war, Dr. Hart argues, has been tremendously effective.
Penguin Books | January 2021

Akiko Busch
Today, we are relentlessly encouraged, even conditioned, to reveal, share, and promote ourselves. The pressure to be public comes not just from our peers, but from vast and pervasive technology companies that want to profit from patterns in our behavior. A lifelong student and observer of the natural world, Busch sets out to explore her own uneasiness with this arrangement, and what she senses is a widespread desire for a less scrutinized way of life—for invisibility. Writing about her own life, her family, and some of the world’s most exotic and remote places, she savors the pleasures of being unseen. Discovering and dramatizing a wonderful range of ways of disappearing, from virtual reality goggles that trick the wearer into believing her body has disappeared.
Penguin Books | February 2021

Rae Lee
Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad, Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion—on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs.
Penguin Books | February 2021

Ibram  X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain (Editors)
Four Hundred Souls is a one-volume “community” history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith.
Random House N.Y. | February 2021

Kim Stanley Robertson
This is a wake-up call pointing to more and immediate action on the climate front. It describes an apocalyptic tomorrow where our ecological problems have been given free rein to reach their terrible conclusions, unknown numbers of casualties in their wake. These terrifying events looming on the horizon (spoiler alert: heat, heat and more heat), the author, a steady presence in science fiction, sends us «on a trip: through the carbon-fueled chaos of the coming decades, with engineers working desperately to stop melting glaciers from sliding into the sea, avenging eco-terrorists downing so many airliners that people are afraid to fly, and bankers re-inventing the economy in real time in a desperate attempt to avert extinction.» (Rolling Stone) The solutions discussed and the idea that there is a way out, make this an optimistic book. (sgs)
Orbit Books | October 2020

Anna Barnes
From accepting your thoughts to zooming your focus in and out, The A to Z of Mindfulness will spark your curiosity about a wide variety of mindfulness subjects and encourage you to practice them with interactive prompts and reflective activities. Bright watercolor paintings and charming design make for a calming reading experience, while quotes and mantras provide the perfect dose of inspiration. Sometimes concrete and helpful, sometimes broad and motivational, The A to Z of Mindfulness is an unintimidating book guaranteed to fuel anyone’s mindfulness practice. Anna Barnes has a longstanding interest in mindfulness and emotional well-being. Appreciate the little things, believe in your personal power, and connect with nature is her message.
Andrews McNeel | January 2021

Gordon Korman
Meet Jett Baranov, Silicon Valley’s number one spoiled brat. His father created Fuego, the most successful tech company in the world. So imagine his dismay when his dad’s private plane drops him off at a wellness camp in the middle of the Arkansas wilderness. Can the prince of technology survive an entire summer eating healthy, exercising, and living life totally unplugged – no phones, no TV, no screens of any kind? As the weeks go on, Jett starts to get used to the unplugged life and even bonds with the other kids over their discovery of a baby-lizard-turned-pet, Needles. But he can’t help noticing that the adults at the Oasis are acting really strange. Could it be all those suspicious «meditation» sessions?
Barnes and Noble | January 2021

Nnedi Okorafor, Dave Brahm (illustrations), John Jennings (adaptation)
During a furious storm a young woman’s destiny is revealed… and her life is changed forever. After the Rain is a graphic novel adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s short story On the Road. The drama takes place in a small Nigerian town during a violent and unexpected storm. A Nigerian-American woman named Chioma answers a knock at her door and is horrified to see a boy with a severe head wound standing at her doorstep. He reaches for her, and his touch burns like fire. Something is very wrong. Haunted and hunted, Chioma must embrace her heritage in order to survive. John Jennings and David Brame’s graphic novel collaboration uses bold art and colors to powerfully tell this tale of identity and destiny. Nnedi Okorafor, PhD, is a Nigerian-American author of African-rooted science fiction and fantasy.
Abrams ComicArts | January 2021

Christopher S. Kilham
In India, both yoga and cannabis are considered gifts from the Hindu god Shiva. They are seen as twin currents of wisdom and enlightenment, allies for healing and consciousness expansion. As an ethnobotanist and yogi, Chris Kilham elaborates how cannabis and yoga offer profound benefits for body, mind, and spirit when wisely and thoughtfully combined. Kilham examines the history and lore of both cannabis and yoga, with a special focus on the role of cannabis in Indian and Himalayan yoga traditions where it has been used for thousands of years and explains how yoga practice offers a way to tune the human nervous system and how, through the endocannabinoid system, cannabis harmonizes a multitude of functions, from respiration to pain control, in ways that enhance yoga including the effects of both THC and CBD as well as the different methods of consuming cannabis, with advice on selecting the right method for your yoga practice.
Park Street Press | February 2021

Ido Hartogsohn
The author examines how the psychedelic experience in America was shaped by historical, social, and cultural forces—by set (the mindset of the user) and setting (the environments in which the experience takes place). He explores uses of psychedelics that range from CIA and military experimentation to psychedelic-inspired styles in music, fashion, design, architecture, and film, while introducing us to a cast of characters including Betty Eisner, a psychologist who drew on her own experience to argue for the therapeutic potential of LSD, and Timothy Leary, who founded the Harvard Psilocybin Project and went on to become psychedelics’ most famous advocate.Hartogsohn chronicles these developments in the context of the era’s cultural trends, including the cold war, the counterculture, the anti-psychiatric movement, and the rise of cybernetics.
MIT Press, July 2020

Norman Pilcher
In London, in the late Sixties, the police to arrested as many “big names” as possible in order to deter England’s youth from taking drugs. This is the story of the man nicknamed “Groupie Pilcher” for being seen in pics with his high-profile arrests. He was later arrested himself for fabricating entries in his police records, a common practice then, it seems. Pilcher was convicted of perjury and spent four years in jail. His memoir paints a grim picture of a partially corrupt police force, hellbent on making the most of its power by leaking photos of busts to the press for pay, but rarely planting drugs on suspects, he claims. A sobered Pilcher advocates the legalization of all drugs. Lennon’s “I Am the Walrus” is supposed to be about him. John later sent him a postcard from Japan: “You can’t get me now!” Coo-cook-a-choo. (sgs)
Clink Street, September 2020

Derek Beres
Psychedelic rituals have given societies meaning for thousands of years. The plants and fungi known as psychedelics were showing tremendous mental health benefits in the 1950s and 60s. Suddenly, they were outlawed. A half-century later, a renaissance has begun. In Hero’s Dose, journalist Derek Beres explores his quarter-century journey with psychedelics and reviews the latest science on their role in mental health treatments. He investigates the reasons psychedelics were demonized, questioning why psychiatry turned its back on this promising field of research. Beres also considers the protocols psychedelics could replace by looking at antidepressants with a critical eye. He makes a convincing case that ritual and therapy are synonymous with optimal mental health, and that psychedelics are uniquely qualified to address some of the greatest social problems of our age.
Outside the Box, October 2020

Lucy Delics
This is a new, “psychedelic inspired, oracle-deck featuring magical esoteric symbols, shamanic plant medicines, Tarot archetypes and high-vibration patterns,” yet there is more to Lucy’s art than mushrooms and patterns. The symbolism of these beautiful cards takes its inspiration from traditional interpretations of the tarot and its archetypes, reflecting them in strong images. The accompanying booklet tells the story of the artist’s shamanic initiation into various cultures, and describes each card, giving them their meaning. Lucy Delics, originally from the UK, lives in the Andes with her family these days and reflects the spiritual world around her in her delicate psychedelic work. I wish these cards were printed on a kind of cardboard one could easily color though. (sgs)
Bear Company, November 2020

Charles Winniger, LP, LMHC
In this memoir, the author, a licensed psychoanalyst and mental health counselor, details the ways that Ecstasy has helped him become a better therapist and husband. He writes about his coming of age in the 1960s counterculture, his fifty years of experimentation with mind-altering substances, and his immersion in the psychedelic renaissance. He explains how he and his wife found Ecstasy to be the key to renewing and enriching their lives as they entered their senior years. Countering the fearful propaganda that surrounds this drug, Wininger describes what the experience actually feels like and explores the value of Ecstasy and similar substances for helping psychologically healthy individuals live a more “optimal” life. He provides protocols for the responsible, recreational, and celebrational use of MDMA, including how to perfect the experience, maximize the benefits and minimize the risks, and how it may not be for everyone.
Bear Company, November 2020 

Claudio Naranjo
In his last book, psychotherapist Claudio Naranjo makes a final call to humanity to awaken to our collective potential and work to transcend our patriarchal past and present in order to build a new world. He argues not only for a collective individual awakening, but a concerted effort to transform our institutions so that they are in service to a better world. Naranjo targets our traditional education and global economic systems that increasingly neglect human development and must transform to meet the needs of future social evolution. Ultimately, he says, we need to embark on a collective process of rehumanizing our systems and establishing self-awareness as individuals to create the necessary global consciousness to realize a new path forward; stressing the need for education to teach wisdom over knowledge, and utilizing meditation and contemplative practices to form new ways to educate, and be educated.
Synergetic Press, September 2020

Claudio Naranjo
Claudio Naranjo was the first to study the psychotherapeutic applications of ayahuasca, the first to publish on the effects of ibogaine, and a long-time collaborator with Sasha Shulgin in the research behind Shulgin’s famous books. A Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim fellow, Dr. Naranjo gathered more clinical experience in individual and group psychedelic treatment than any other psychotherapist to date. In his final work, Dr. Naranjo shares his psychedelic autobiography along with previously unpublished interviews, session accounts, and research papers on the therapeutic effects of psychedelics, including MDMA, ayahuasca, cannabis, iboga, and psilocybin. Naranjo’s work shows that psychedelics have the strongest potential for transforming and healing people over all therapeutic methods currently in use.
Park Street Press, September 2020

Brian C. Muraresku
This is book you really want to read. It is not only well-written and full of humour, it also provides the keys to the central mysteries of antiquity and beyond. Finally, we have actual proof that the ancients spiked their holy potions with all kinds of drugs, from ergot to poppy, henbane, datura and more. Whereas from Neolithic times to around the birth of Jesus, beer was the root of sacred drinks, it was later substituted by wines so strong that they could kill you. The author visited with experts, made countless calls, studied for years and came up with groundbreaking results that vindicate what Albert Hofmann, Gordon Wasson and especially Carl Ruck, who lost his career of his theories, promoted in their famous book The Road to Eleusis – our ancestors used psychedelics to find the way to an eternal afterlife. Absolutely captivating. (sgs)
St. Martin’s Press, September 2020

Hari Kunzru
A writer has left his family in Brooklyn for a three month residency at the Deuter Centre in Berlin, hoping for undisturbed days devoted to artistic absorption.
One night at a party he meets Anton, the charismatic creator of the show, and strikes up a conversation. It is a conversation that leads him on a journey into the heart of moral darkness. A conversation that threatens to destroy everything he holds most dear, including his own mind. Red Pill is a novel about the alt-right, online culture, creativity, sanity and history. It tells the story of the 21st century through the prism of the centuries that preceded it, showing how the darkest chapters of our past haunt our present. More than anything, though, this is a novel about love and how it can endure in a world where everything else seems to have lost all meaning.
Scribner, September 2020

Trung Le Nguyen
Tiến has a secret he’s been keeping from his family. Is there a way to tell them he’s gay? Real life isn’t a fairytale but Tiến still enjoys reading his favorite stories with his parents from the books he borrows from the local library. It’s hard enough trying to communicate with your parents as a kid, but for Tiến, he doesn’t even have the right words because his parents are struggling with their English. Is there a Vietnamese word for what he’s going through? This graphic novel follows a young boy as he tries to navigate life through fairytales, an instant classic that shows us how we are all connected. The Magic Fish tackles tough subjects in a way that accessible with readers of all ages, and teaches us that no matter what—we can all have our own happy endings.
Random House Graphic, October 2020

Will Self
Unflinching, intoxicating, heartfelt, and propelled by an exceptional energy, Will is the long-awaited memoir by Will Self, whose works have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and translated into over twenty languages. A portrait of the artist as a young addict, Will is one of the most eloquent and unusual depictions of the allure of hard drugs ever written. Will spins the reader from Self’s childhood in a quiet North London suburb to his mind-expanding education at Oxford, to a Burroughsian trip to Morocco, an outback vision in Australia, and, finally, a surreal turn in rehab. Echoing the great Modernist writers of the early twentieth century in its psychedelic stream of consciousness, Will is vividly imagistic and mordantly witty and tells a tale of excess and degradation.
Penguin, January 2020

Hadley Freeman
Hadley Freeman knew her grandmother Sara lived in France just as Hitler started to gain power, but rarely did anyone in her family talk about it. Long after her grandmother’s death, she found a shoe box tucked in the closet containing photographs of her grandmother with a mysterious stranger, a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross and a drawing signed by Picasso. This discovery sent Freeman on a decade-long quest to uncover the significance of these keepsakes and piece together the puzzle of her family’s past, discovering more about the lives of her grandmother and her three brothers. This thrilling family saga is filled with extraordinary twists, vivid characters and famous cameos, illuminating the Jewish and immigrant experience in the World War II era.
Simon & Schuster, May 2020

Bett Williams
When word gets out about her mushroom farm, Bett’s solitary ceremonies by the fire over. Not long after the police read her her Miranda Rights. On a quest to find help through the psychedelic community, Bett is led to meet an African American leader within a high-dose psilocybin community, and to Huautla de Jiménez, where the legendary curandera María Sabina spent her life. Back home, Bett begins a solid ritual practice with the help of her partner and friends, bearing in mind the medicine’s indigenous roots and power to transform one’s life. By turns hilarious and moving, The Wild Kindness: A Psilocybin Odyssey is the tale of one woman’s hypnotic, psilocybin-fueled journey toward understanding the world around her and, in turn, herself.
Dottir Press, September 2020

Joseph Henri
We in the west are largely WEIRD: highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical whereas other and older societies concentrate on their relationships with others. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically distinct? Henri draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. The most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church – laying the foundation for the modern world.
Straus and Giroux, September 2020

Franjo Grotenthermen, M.D.
This book explores the use of a range of cannabis products in terms of treatment of a wide range of physical and emotional conditions. Dr. Grothenthermen first explains the history of marijuana as medicine, including its important role in medical practice during the 19th century. He explains the biochemistry of cannabinoids and shows how they interact with the human body, including a look at cannabinoids and how they occur naturally in the body. The author then draws on his experience legally treating patients in Germany as well as numerous research studies and tests to provide an in-depth guide to the many healing applications for cannabis and its derivatives. Written by a practicing physician, this guide provides all you need to know to use cannabinoids safely and effectively for health and healing.
Inner Traditions, October 2020

Kenny Berman
The plants studied here are ayahuasca and iboga as well as the psilocybin mushroom. They find their application in a ritual context, using elementary shamanic tools, enhanced by the application of conscious willpower to effect transformation of self and circumstances or to receive messages from the otherworld. Berman’s account inspires regret for a more innocent time when Amazonian curanderos were not for sale and western seekers were but few. The author finds his teacher in a Peruvian mestizo by the name of Alberto Reategui Sangama to whom he keeps returning to compare and find meaning in other shamanic work in Mexico and Ecuador. This encompassing book provides a helpful guide for all who wish to engage in ritual, be it by themselves or as part of a group, illuminating the powerful use of the elements. (sgs)
Self-published, 2020

James Nestor
Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again. No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly.
Riverhead Books, May 2020

Julie Holland, M.D.
The key to understanding the science of connection is oxytocin—a neurotransmitter and hormone produced in our bodies that allows us to trust and bond. It fosters attachment between mothers and infants, romantic partners, friends, and even with our pets. There are many ways to reach this state of mental and physical wellbeing that modern medicine has overlooked. The implications for our happiness and health are profound. We can find oneness in meditation, in community, or in awe at the beauty around us. Another option: psychedelic medicines that can catalyze a connection with the self, with nature, or the cosmos. Good Chemistry points us on the right path to forging true and deeper attachments with our own souls, to one another, and even to our planet, helping us heal ourselves and our world.
Harper Wave, June 2020

Wade Davis
The highly regarded Canadian ethnobotanist, anthropologist, author and photographer has given us a new book about a country he knows and loves so well and has done so much for that, in 2019, he was made an honorary Colombian. With him we travel near one thousand kilometers up the Rio Magdalena, the country’s main artery, and learn about its past, present and future by way of its history, music, literature, poetry and longing – while meeting the people who live on its banks. Only when navigating the commercial and cultural corridor that is the Magdalena can a traveler “wash ashore in a coastal desert, follow waterways through wetlands as wide as the sky, ascend narrow tracks through dense tropical forests, and reach verdant Andean valley rising to the soaring ice-clad summits.” (sgs)
Vintage Publishing, August 2020

Candice Iloh
Candice Iloh is a first-generation Nigerian-American writer, teaching artist and youth educator. She has performed her work around the United States, most notably at Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City, the Women Poets & HipHop celebration at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore, and as a part of the Africa in Motion performing arts series at the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C. Her first novel takes us through the life of Ada – the daughter of a Nigerian immigrant father and an African American mother who struggles to craft her identity in the world and within her own family. Candice Iloh weaves the key moments of Ada’s young life into a luminous narrative about family, belonging, sexuality, and confronting our deepest truths in order to feel whole.
Penguin-Random House, September 2020

Jim Carrey
The author is an insanely successful movie star – but he’s also lonely. He’s tried diets, gurus, and cuddling with his military-grade Israeli guard dogs, but nothing seems to lift the cloud of emptiness and ennui. But then Jim meets Georgie: ruthless ingénue, love of his life. And with the help of auteur screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, he has a role to play in a boundary-pushing new picture that may help him uncover a whole new side to himself–finally, his Oscar vehicle! Things are looking up! Memoirs and Misinformation is a semi-autobiographical satirical novel. In it, Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon have fashioned a story about acting, Hollywood, agents, celebrity, privilege, friendship, romance, addiction to relevance, fear of personal erasure, our “one big soul,” Canada, and a cataclysmic ending of the world – apocalypses within and without.
Knopf, May 2020

Eric Holthaus
The first hopeful book about climate change, The Future Earth shows readers how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades. The basics of climate science are easy. We know it is entirely human-caused. Which means its solutions will be similarly human-led. In The Future Earth, leading climate change advocate and weather-related journalist Eric Holthaus (“the Rebel Nerd of Meteorology”—Rolling Stone) offers a radical vision of our future, specifically how to reverse the short- and long-term effects of climate change over the next three decades. Anchored by world-class reporting, interviews with futurists, climatologists, biologists, economists, and climate change activists, it shows what the world could look like if we implemented radical solutions on the scale of the crises we face.
HarperOne, June 2020

Ben Ehrenreich
The author, a columnist for The Nation, describes the natural landscape of Joshua Tree National Park and the artificial desert of Las Vegas, where he spends time writing. First, he keeps a journal while living in a cabin in Joshua Tree, only to move to a lonely apartment in Vegas on a six-months scholarship. In Joshua Tree, he is riveted by the vastness of the land and the sky and nurtures his love of owls – real and imagined. Nature writing, mythology, environmental science and his own inner and outer adventures fill his days and pages. Another dimension awaits him when he moves to the city of neon lights where he also finds beauty and plenty of occasions to pursue his thoughts about the Anthropocene and the changing fate of the earth and its inhabitants, including the unstable political climate. (sgs)
Counterpoint, July 2020

David Mitchell
This rock novel plays in the psychedelic sixties, where we witness a British band rising, peaking and sinking. They resemble the British folk rock band Fairport Convention and their unforgettable lead singer, Sandy Deny, and are managed by a strange beatnik called Levon Frankland. Band members Elf Holloway (vocals), Jasper de Zoet (guitar), Dean Moss (base) and Griff (drums) move from provincial venues to big cities, including the Apple. Their trials and tribulations are a rollercoaster ride of elation and sorrow but there is one constant: their music. We also gain deep insights into the proponents’ characters, introspection being what you practiced when you were on heroic doses of drugs in those days. This is the author’s eighth novel, and it is a smash hit already because this man knows how to tell a story. (sgs)
Hodder and Stoughton, July 2020

Chris Frantz
Chris Frantz met David Byrne at the Rhode Island School of Art & Design in the early 1970s. Together – and soon with Frantz’s future wife, Tina Weymouth – they formed Talking Heads and took up residence in the grimy environs of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where their neighbours were Patti Smith, William Burroughs and a host of proto-punk artists who now have legendary status. Building an early audience and reputation with many performances at CBGB alongside the Ramones, Television and Blondie, Talking Heads found themselves feted by Warhol (who famously referred to them as ‘Talking Horses’) and Lou Reed. A band whose sensibility was both a part of, and apart from, punk, their early albums quickly became classics; until the Brian Eno produced masterpiece Remain in Light, saw them explode…
Orion, July 2020

Alice B. Toklas (author); Maria Kalmas (illustrator)
Alice B. Toklas was Gertrude Stein’s lover, and Gertrude wrote her irreverent autobiography under her lover’s name since Alice was not going to write it herself. Instead, Alice saw “many things to tell of what was happening then”… Arguably the only woman with a moustache as famous as Frida Kahlo’s, Alice is known for baking hash cookies in the 1930’s, when the two formidable ladies were living in Paris, befriending Gurdjieff, Hemmingway, Pound, T.S. Eliot, Picasso and many other celebrities. In this edition, artist Maria Kalman paints a lively portrait of  Paris between the two wars, and celebrates Stein and Toklas in bright colors. Her illustrations of Gertrud Stein’s classic complement this witty and intelligent must read. It is also a lesbian love story in an age when these things were not easily talked about. (sgs)
Penguin, March 2020

Nigel Pennick
There are still many places left in England, or anywhere in the western world, where we are able experience the land as it used to be before it was parceled up and commercially exploited. When it is was lived off and interacted with by our ancestors. Its features were imbued with magic and meaning, and much of it was sacred because the land had a soul that spoke to ours. Nigel Pennick tells us about these days long gone and how it came to pass that our communion with the land was lost. He also shows us how we may retrieve some of the magic inherent in our landscapes, in our own backyards or when exploring the countryside around us. Traces of the sacred arts of geomancy, feng shui and magic still abound, our spiritual connection with nature is not lost but waiting for us to be rediscovered. (sgs)
Destiny Books, May 2020

Kasper ter Kuile
We are in crisis today. Our modern technological society has left too many of us  feeling isolated and bereft of purpose. Yet ter Kuile reveals a hopeful new message: we might not be religious, but that doesn’t mean we are any less spiritual. Instead, we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in which we seek belonging and meaning in secular practices. In The Power of Ritual, ter Kuile invites us to deepen these ordinary practices as intentional rituals that nurture connection and  wellbeing. With wisdom and endearing wit, ter Kuile’s call for ritual is ultimately a call to heal our loss of connection to ourselves, to others, and to our spiritual identities. Our daily habits matter and have the potential to become a powerful experience of reflection, sanctuary, and meaning.
Harper One, June 2020

Elena Ferrante
Giovanna’s father says that she is changing and looking more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Will she turn out like her despised aunt, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father have spent their whole lives avoiding and deriding? There must be a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is. Giovanna searches for her true self in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: the Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and the Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves between these two cities, disoriented by the fact that, whether high or low, neither city seems to offer answers or escape.
Thorndike Press, July 2020

Andy Roberts
Psychedelic trickster guru, or conman and charlatan? Exactly who Hollingshead was and what his motives were remains unclear. Some believed he was working for the secret services, others that he was just a Leary wannabe, his aspirations destroyed by his deviant personality and addiction to alcohol and opiates. Divine Rascal is the first reliable biography of one of psychedelia’s key figures, without whom the trajectory of LSD in the world would have been radically different. Appearing as if from nowhere, mysterious Michael Hollingshead turned Timothy Leary on to LSD in 1962, and was influential in Leary’s years at Harvard, Millbrook, and beyond. Author Andy Robert is widely regarded as an authority on contemporary folklore and psychedelic history.
Strange Attractor Press, August 2020

Mike Millard
Love in the Time of Trump is a veteran journalist’s account that recalls the Vietnam War era, the psychedelic ’60s and the progressive human values generated during that freewheeling and transformative period. Even so, it sounds an alarm amid the repressive politics of our present day, when an emerging, corporate-driven fascism threatens to dismantle our democracy and yoke the lives of working people to the enrichment of the few while destroying the natural life of the planet. This contrast evoked via memoir recounts the formation of a personal perspective that warns directly of a historic disaster that approaches, while hoping that it can still be avoided. Mike Millard, a veteran journalist with roots in the Pacific Northwest, has written and edited for newspapers, magazines, wire agencies and websites.
BookBaby, February 2020

Nigel Pennick
There are still many places left in England, or anywhere in the western world, where we are able experience the land as it used to be before it was parceled up and commercially exploited. When it is was lived off and interacted with by our ancestors. Its features were imbued with magic and meaning, and much of it was sacred because the land had a soul that spoke to ours. Nigel Pennick tells us about these days long gone and how it came to pass that our communion with the land was lost. He also shows us how we may retrieve some of the magic inherent in our landscapes, in our own backyards or when exploring the countryside around us. Traces of the sacred arts of geomancy, feng shui and magic still abound, our spiritual connection with nature is not lost but waiting for us to be rediscovered. (sgs)
Destiny Books, May 2020

Rutger Bregman
From the real-life Lord of the Flies to the solidarity in the aftermath of the Blitz, the hidden flaws in the Stanford prison experiment to the true story of twin brothers on opposite sides who helped Mandela end apartheid, Bregman shows us that believing in human generosity and collaboration isn’t merely optimistic—it’s realistic. Moreover, it has huge implications for how society functions. When we think the worst of people, it brings out the worst in our politics and economics. But if we believe in the reality of humanity’s kindness and altruism, it will form the foundation for achieving true change in society, a case that Bregman makes. Rutger Bregman provides new perspective on the past 200,000 years of human history, setting out to prove that we are hardwired for kindness, geared toward cooperation rather than competition, and more inclined to trust rather than distrust one another.
Bloomsbury, June 2020

Otessa Moshfegh
While on her daily walk with her dog in a secluded wood, a woman comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground by stones. “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.” But there is no dead body. Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to this area, alone after the death of her husband, and she knows no one. A triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, Death in Her Hands asks us to consider how the stories we tell ourselves both reflect the truth and keep us blind to it. Once again, we are in the hands of a narrator whose unreliability is well earned, and the stakes have never been higher. One of the most anticipated books to be published this year.
Penguin/Random House, June 2020

Katrina Rasbold
This practical book covers everything from the history and divine figures of Brujería to the healing, protection, and money magic that you can use in daily life. Explore power words and breath work, treat spiritual maladies, perform different types of limpias (cleansings and clearings), and learn about Brujería as a business. Katrina Rasbold gives you an insider’s look at this sacred practice and how it helps others as well as yourself. Featuring hands-on exercises, simple techniques, and how-to instruction from a professional bruja, this beginner-friendly guide is the best choice for understanding and practicing Brujería—the healing witchcraft of Mexico and the American Southwest. Adapted from a twelve-month series of classes this book presents a wide variety of topics, including magical tools, the body’s energetic systems, and effective spellcasting.
Llewellyn.June 2020

Jason Brett Serle
Sri Ramana Maharshi (Venkataraman Iyer) was a Hindu sage and enlightened teacher, born in 1867 in Tamil Nadu, India, where he died in 1950. He left a large body of teachings, often in the form of answers to questions by his students or commentaries on Advaita Vedanta. The Ribhu Gita or Song of Ribhu, was his favorite passage of the Shivarahasya Purana, a mainstay of Shiva and Shaivite worship. “In the same tradition as the Bhagavad Gita or the Ashtavakra Gita, the Ribhu Gita, literally the Song of Ribhu represents the highest declaration of Advaita Vedanta, spoken by the enlightened sage Ribhu to his disciple Nidagha on the slopes of Mount Kedara in the Himalayas.” Jason Brett Serle is an English writer, musician, filmmaker and NLP Master whose love of Ramana Maharshi and his supreme clarity has led him to annotate this classical text. (sgs)
Mantra Books, October 2019

Thomas Nathan Patton
In Myanmar or Burma, the belief in traditional healing, in wizards, their powers, in cures and curses, is still widespread though the art went underground when strongman Ne Winran ruled the country (from 1962-1988). Witchcraft is rare in Buddhism, The Buddha’s Wizards is a “historically informed ethnographic study that explores the supernatural landscape of Buddhism in Myanmar to explain the persistence of wizardry as a form of lived religion in the modern era.” The author is assistant professor of Buddhist and Southeast Asian studies at the City University of Hong Kong. He does not only discuss the everyday aspects of religious belief but also analyzes the political situation in a country that has remained largely hidden from western view. (sgs)
University Press, April 2020

Mark O’Donnell
As a father of two young children, Mark O’Connell finds himself worrying whether the times we live in justifies having kids when so many are talking – and expecting – the apocalypse. He decided to visit some of the groups who bank their lives on this gloomy view, following up on people who think about TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) – but only all of the time. O’Donnell didn’t know what was about to happen when he reported on preppers, white supremacists, the death zone of Chernobyl or billionaires who move to New Zealand to avoid the worse. We follow him as he tracks down a diverging posse of people with alternative to extreme worldviews, and he make us laugh, about their conspiracies, their clumsy acronyms, their arsenals of survival and their literal way of coping with life every step of the way to hell. (sgs)
Penguin Random House, April 2020

Merlin Sheldrake
“In Entangled Life, the brilliant young biologist Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world from a fungal point of view, providing an exhilarating change of perspective. Sheldrake’s vivid exploration takes us from yeast to psychedelics, to the fungi that range for miles underground and are the largest organisms on the planet, to those that link plants together in complex networks known as the ‘Wood Wide Web,’ to those that infiltrate and manipulate insect bodies with devastating precision. Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life’s processes. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms—and our relationships with them—are changing our understanding of how life works.“
Penguin/Random House, May 2020

Jay Shetty
Shetty writes, “I grew up in a family where you could become one of three things: a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. My family was convinced I had chosen option three. Instead of attending my college graduation ceremony, I headed to India to become a monk, to meditate every day for 4–8 hours and devote my life to helping others.” After three years, one of his teachers told him that he would have more impact on the world if he left the monk’s path to share his experience and wisdom with others. Heavily in debt, and with no recognizable skills on his resume, he moved back home to north London with his parents. Shetty reconnected with old school friends—many working for some of the world’s largest corporations—who were experiencing tremendous stress, pressure, and unhappiness, and they invited Shetty to coach them on wellbeing, purpose, and mindfulness.
Simon & Schuster, April 2020