47 books like How Roland Rolls

Siddhartha is a profound exploration of spirituality, self-discovery, and the pursuit of meaning in life.

It encourages readers to seek their own paths, embrace the present moment, and develop a deep sense of interconnectedness with the world around them. The books protagonist Siddhartha encounters various forms of suffering throughout his journey, and he comes to recognize the necessity and inevitability of pain and hardship in life.

The novel teaches that true wisdom and growth can arise from embracing and accepting suffering rather than trying to escape or avoid it.

This book transformed my understanding of human cognition. I love how Daniel Kahneman delves into the dual systems that drive our thoughts—intuitive and deliberate.

This book helped me recognize cognitive biases and informed how I develop AI technologies that align with human behavior. It reinforced the importance of designing AI that complements our natural thinking patterns.

This book offers an interesting perspective on the potential biological basis for religious experiences and beliefs, supported by scientific research.

Even without a background in neuroscience or psychology, I still found it to be a fully understandable book, well-written but not overly complicated. In the modern era where we need to provide a logical basis and justification, it adds to the overall endeavor to bridge science and spirituality.

While I can’t say this book has many practical tips, it has deepened my perspective on the subject of spirituality, allowing me to better comprehend and visualize physical correlates of certain esoteric experiences.

Renowned for brilliant visionary novels like Brave New World and Island, Huxley also wrote one of the most insightful books about the underlying truth running through the great mystics of the world’s spiritual traditions.

By quoting mostly from the mystics of both East and West themselves rather than the Bible, Huxley focused on the common essence of the experience of divine union. Along with many unsung Christian mystics, he also quotes from Eastern masters and sacred scriptures, including Rumi, Lao Tzu, Shankara, and from scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Diamond Sutra, and the Upanishads, by way of showing that the universal Reality both transcends and is embodied in individual traditions. 

This book is an update of Bascom’s bestselling classic that was first published in 1963 and updated in 1979. I had the pleasure of learning about Bill Bascom by reading the papers presented at a symposium in his honor at the University of California, Berkeley, just a few years before his untimely death. 

Bascom was one of few people to use a DUKW boat to surf the big breakers at the Columbia River offshore shoals where the US Coast Guard cutters are intentionally rolled over in 20-30-foot breaking waves as a training exercise for new recruits (and to weed out those of faint of heart).  His buddy Kim McCoy, who is an oceanographer, sailor, and freediver, has brought this book back to life with updates regarding climatic impacts on coasts and beaches.  

While surfers and sailors will immerse themselves in this book, it vividly describes the struggle for supremacy between… show more.

A gorgeous picture book that captures the joys and excitement of being a child at the sea, playing chicken with the incoming waves. The little girl and a gaggle of gulls get braver and braver, until… SPLASH!

Suzy Lee’s lines are so fluid and expressive, her use of a limited palette works brilliantly, and there’s a clever use of the gutter (middle of the book) to build tension. Dare you not to smile and feel joy.

Yes, this is the published shooting script of the film.

When I read the premise of this story, I knew it would be special. I remember the author stating he got the idea of someone receiving a postcard through the post with the words "You have been deleted from X’s memory. Do not attempt to contact her" and how it intrigued him. From that idea, the entire idea of deleting the memory of a romantic relationship gone wrong, unfolded.

I love story ideas that stop me from breathing. The film (and script) is lovely, yet holds a twist or two up its sleeve. It is, underneath the science, a tragicomic love story. Genius.

Not all television shows are hit and somehow the decade of the 1980s had the greatest number of sitcom flops. It’s Your Move, The Best of the West, Square Pegs, The Duck Factory, and Life with Lucy are just a handful of the sitcoms that didn’t run for longer than a season. Single Season Sitcoms of the 1980s by Bob Leszczak is a delicious smorgasbord of information about these one-season wonders (and many others) that we barely remember, but refuse to forget.

The main reason I’m recommending this book is “The Little Mermaid” (the original version, not a sanitized later edition or off-the-mark Disney interpretation). I loved fairy tales as a kid and “The Little Mermaid” is my favorite because it doesn’t have a happy ending. (Not for the mermaid, at least.) I loved that just because we think things should happen a certain way doesn’t mean they will. The mermaid thought she was fated to be with the prince. But all her planning and sacrifice and suffering didn’t change the possibility that the prince was fated to be with the woman he chose. It was an early and valuable lesson for me on seeing things from a different perspective, and inspiration for one of my own short stories.

In order to really understand Disney history, I felt that I had to learn more about all of the ideas that Disney has explored and shelved. I could not believe my eyes when I discovered Charles Solomon’s volume on that very subject.

This book is one of a handful that changed my life as it led to a life-long fascination for the “hidden art” of Disney. Along with John Canemaker’s Before the Animation Begins: The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists, it is one of the two books that led me to write my own artbooks. I still re-read it from time to time up to this day.