Why am I passionate about this?

Livia Kohn, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita of Religion and East Asian Studies at Boston University. The author, or editor, of close to sixty books (including the annual Journal of Daoist Studies), she spent ten years in Kyoto doing research. She now serves as the executive editor of Three Pines Press, runs international conferences and workshops, and guides study tours to Japan.


I wrote

Taming Time: Daoist Ways of Working with Multiple Temporalities

By Livia Kohn,

Book cover of Taming Time: Daoist Ways of Working with Multiple Temporalities

What is my book about?

Time, literally, is of the essence. It is a key feature in all cultures, determining human thought, expectations, actions, and…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Through the Time Barrier: Precognition and Modern Physics

Livia Kohn Why did I love this book?

A powerful melding of psi powers and physics, this proves just how certain phenomena usually thought supernatural or extraordinary fit within the framework of the natural sciences. The book focuses particularly on the functions of quantum reality, a cosmic order that is independent of human will, perceptual categories, and laws of causation. If finds expression in synchronicity and allows for nonlocal coincidences, holographic effects, and meaningful flow, which in turn make things like telepathy, clairvoyance, and other paranormal phenomena possible.

By Danah Zohar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Through the Time Barrier as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Examines the supposed ability of people to foretell future events and discusses precognition from the point of view of quantum physics


Book cover of Some Science Adventures with Real Magic

Livia Kohn Why did I love this book?

This reports on a physics experiment that shows how people in a state of deep concentration can focus their intention and create changes in their environment. In a special unitary symmetry state energy is exchanged via both photons (light) and phonons (sound), moving faster than light. Fine, information-wave generated patterns then activate all sorts of particles and modulate substances in a measurable and meaningful way. Any moment we are concentrating our intention, we therefore have tremendous power not only over ourselves but also over our environment and our future.

By J. Gregory Fandel, William A. Tiller, Walter Dibble

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Some Science Adventures with Real Magic as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book provides the reader with an encapsulation of all the key experimental psychoenergetics observations made by Professor Tiller ande his group over the past 35 years. It reveals the true nature of the human acupuncture meridian/chakra system and how "sacred" spaces are created. It shows that the physical vacuum is not really empty and that, under the proper conditions, our digital measurement instruments can reveal a sum of contributions from two unique levels of physical reality. The book describes a new energy in nature that produces a very long range information entanglement and appears to be related to movement…


Book cover of Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives

Livia Kohn Why did I love this book?

Named after the “I am” in cogito, ergo sum, this is a powerful parody of our concepts of time and turns time perception around in a big way. For example, it pictures an afterlife where one relives all previous experiences, but clumped together into long time slots, so that “you spend two months driving the street in front of your house, seven months having sex. You sleep for thirty years without opening your eyes. For five months straight you flip through magazines while sitting on a toilet.” And so on. The book is a great delight by one of the masters of contemporary time studies.

By David Eagleman,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Sum as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the afterlife you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your existence. Or you may find the afterlife contains only those people whom you remember. In some afterlives you are split into all your different ages; in some you are recreated based on your credit-card records; and in others you are forced to live with annoying versions of yourself that represent what you could have been.

In these wonderfully imagined tales - at once funny, wistful and unsettling - Eagleman kicks over the chessboard of traditional notions and offers us a dazzling lens…


Book cover of Momo

Livia Kohn Why did I love this book?

As the subtitle of the original German says, this is the story of the time-thieves and how a child called Momo brought stolen time back to the people. A group of men in gray, paranormal parasites that steal people’s time, arrives in her hometown and all the inhabitants are made to save time in special banks by increasing efficiency and cutting down on leisurely human contact, fun activities, and artistic endeavors, considered “time-wasting.” Life becomes sterile, but Momo comes to the rescue, bringing time back to where it belongs: in the hands and minds of the people.

By Michael Ende,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Momo as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Brand New. Ship worldwide


Book cover of Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World

Livia Kohn Why did I love this book?

This book is since it shows just how potent the earth is, not simply a puppet dancing to the imposed rhythm of astronomical cycles but a complex webwork in a delicate balance, where even small changes to intricate natural systems can have large and unanticipated consequences. Becoming aware of its depth in time and resonating with it organically, people can find a new awareness of being in time, which she calls timefuleness. The book encourages not just a new perspective but a different way of being in time.

By Marcia Bjornerud,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Timefulness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Why an awareness of Earth's temporal rhythms is critical to our planetary survival

Few of us have any conception of the enormous timescales of our planet's long history, and this narrow perspective underlies many of the environmental problems we are creating. The lifespan of Earth can seem unfathomable compared to the brevity of human existence, but this view of time denies our deep roots in Earth's history-and the magnitude of our effects on the planet. Timefulness reveals how knowing the rhythms of Earth's deep past and conceiving of time as a geologist does can give us the perspective we need…


Explore my book 😀

Taming Time: Daoist Ways of Working with Multiple Temporalities

By Livia Kohn,

Book cover of Taming Time: Daoist Ways of Working with Multiple Temporalities

What is my book about?

Time, literally, is of the essence. It is a key feature in all cultures, determining human thought, expectations, actions, and developments. The great master of time studies, J. T. Fraser, describes it in terms of six major temporalities that move at different speeds in unique environments. Matching the evolution of the universe, they include (1) the atemporal or timeless state of primordial chaos; (2) the prototemporal realm of quantum simultaneity; (3) the eotemporal long-term rhythms of the stars; (4) the biotemporal dimensions of living creatures; (5) the noötemporal phenomena of brain and mind; and (6) the sociotemporal world of clocks and calendars, history and society, analysis and philosophy.

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Black Crow Cabin

By Peggy Webb,

Book cover of Black Crow Cabin

Peggy Webb Author Of Without a Trace

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Bookworm Pianist Master Gardener Gigi to 4 grands Lover of porches and hot tea

Peggy's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

A small town in the grips of evil... a single mom with nowhere to turn... and a madman who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

He is the Collector, and he's taking prized possessions, pets, and children, keeping what he wants, and burying his rejects in shallow graves. When he comes after Rachel Logan, an ordinary schoolteacher living on a ranch with her grandmother and her two children, she has no weapon except her wits.

But how can she stop a monster who outdoes Hannibal Lecter in cunning and depravity?

Black Crow Cabin

By Peggy Webb,

What is this book about?

A small town in the grips of evil... a single mom with nowhere to turn... and a madman who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

He is the Collector, and he's taking prized possessions, pets, and children, keeping what he wants, and burying his rejects in shallow graves. When he comes after Rachel Logan, an ordinary schoolteacher living on a ranch with her grandmother and her two children, she has no weapon except her wits.

But how can she stop a monster who outdoes Hannibal Lecter in cunning and depravity?


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