100 books like Breakfast with Buddha

This book opened my mind to the possibility of spiritual superpowers and the wealth of wisdom that lives in the ancient spiritual traditions of the world.

A little on the dense side, this amazing book blew my mind as I felt like I was transported in time to study at the feet of great masters. I was amazed by stories of miracles and incredible gifts of consciousness that had otherwise seemed only the stuff of movies and fiction.

The images were so compelling to me that I could not stop reading it. It felt like a course in deep metaphysics. And it was all a way of sharing the life story of a master teacher I truly admire and want to know everything about.

I have to say, on top of all this, it felt familiar, easy, and like a beautiful world to immerse in.

This memoir follows the healing (both physical and ultimately spiritual) journey of a 13-year-old Iowan boy who is seriously injured in a car accident in which his father and sister are killed. Paralyzed from the chest down, Sanford recounts the excruciating challenge of restoring his mind/body connection. Though confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life he digs deep to locate hope and inner strength and even eventually becomes a yoga teacher. (I attended his inspiring class when he visited near my home so I can attest to the fact that this is a true story!) This is an unforgettable memoir of fortitude, love, and resilience.

Once a mover and shaker in the Kundalini yoga world, Dyson (aka Premka) was the right-hand woman to Yogi Bhajan, the fallen guru who brought Kundalini yoga to the west in the late 1960s. The memoir chronicles Dyson’s introduction to yoga, her rise within the Kundalini yoga community, her personal (and sexual) relationship with Bhajan, and the eventual realization that she’d been betrayed. For yogis venturing out on the path, Dyson’s story underscores what all true yogis know: The real guru resides within one’s own heart. As a Kundalini yoga teacher I found Dyson’s story riveting, but it will resonate with anyone who finds themselves seeking answers outside—rather than inside—one’s self. 

I really liked this book because beautiful, blonde, former model Saidman Yee (wife of the popular yoga teacher Rodney Yee) seems so perfect on the outside that one couldn’t imagine she’d ever have had a notable problem—let alone a seizure disorder or substance abuse issues. Growing up in Indiana, one of seven kids, the author ended up posing for glamour shots and making a name for herself in the fashion world. But inside she experienced anxiety and fear of failure. Saidman Yee’s vulnerability and authenticity shine in this candid story of how yoga helped her go within and honor her true self. Wonderful yoga sequences designed by Saidman Yee are included.

Detective Kylie Millard returns to her investigative duties in this second book in the Badlands Thriller series when she’s called to a murder scene of a young couple and a missing baby. Like the first book in the series, White Out, the writing is taut and the pacing is brisk. But what I especially love about this book is the intertwining narratives of the three female characters—Kylie, Lily, and Hannah—and how these disparate stories eventually come together. Quite the twist at the end!

Gabe Brown didn’t set out to change the world when he first started working alongside his father-in-law on the family farm in North Dakota. But a series of weather-related crop disasters put Brown in desperate financial straits. He decided to quit the industrial model of food production and began experimenting with regenerative agriculture instead. He stopped using herbicides, insecticides, and synthetic fertilizers. He no-tilled diverse crops into his fields and changed his grazing practices. By doing so, Brown transformed a degraded farm ecosystem into one full of life. Brown has grown several inches of new topsoil in only twenty years and turned the farm into a diverse, profitable enterprise. This book is a great introduction for all readers.

I used to moderate a book club for museum members at what is now the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Love Medicine was chosen by one of our exhibition artists. This astonishing debut is a masterwork about family, poverty, and passion.

The book is set where my grandparents came from, Minnesota and the Dakotas, and illustrates how settlers from Europe (my ancestors) continued to disrupt and destroy Native lives well into the 20th century. Ojibwe spiritual beliefs and Catholicism tangle as tightly as the characters that embody them. Spanning from 1934 to 1985, this novel should not be missed by anyone interested in Native American history.

I love this book because the characters Eli and Nector seem so familiar to me. The plot is full of tension, but the characters are genuinely humorous and affable, much like the elders I know across Ojibwe country.

This book also gives a window into Ojibwe culture. Louise Erdrich is a Pulitzer-prize-winning author, and this isn't even her biggest seller, but it's definitely my personal favorite. 

The cutest book I’ve ever read about being a fan. Warm and softhearted, Chuck’s writing is literary comfort food.

A music and sports journalist turned memoirist, this is his misty-eyed look back at childhood. Like an episode of The Wonder Years all about Hair Metal. You can substitute Hair Metal for anything chronically un-cool that you ever fell in love with.

It’s a gleeful defence of the dork inside, a reminder that taste is subjective, that fashions come and go, that when we poo-poo things we’re denying ourselves potential enjoyment. There’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. Pleasure is pleasure, and there isn’t enough of it in this sorry world.

So, curl up with Klosterman and enjoy what you enjoy. 

As a former novelist, I'm especially alert to characters in nonfiction who are as vivid and complex as anything a writer of fiction can invent.

Sierra Crane Murdoch gives us just that in the story of Lissa Yellow Bird, an Arikara woman who, after her release from prison in 2009, becomes obsessed with investigating the recent disappearance of a white oil industry worker from the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

Lissa is a human dynamo – resourceful, quick-witted, sometimes charming, sometimes troublesome, and unrelentingly persistent: truly one of the most memorable characters you're likely to meet in contemporary fiction or nonfiction.