Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER from the beloved author of Bird by Bird and Traveling Mercies . A funny, warm, and wise novel about family and forgiveness from an author acclaimed as "nothing short of miraculous" ( The New Yorker ).

Hard Laughter: A Novel

by Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott's poignant first novel, reissued in an attractive new edition. Writer (and sometime housecleaner) Jennifer is twenty-three when her beloved father, Wallace, is diagnosed with a brain tumor. This catastrophic discovery sets off Anne Lamott's unexpectedly sweet and funny first novel, which is made dramatic not so much by Wallace's illness as by the emotional wake it sweeps under Jen and her brothers,... (more)

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

by Anne Lamott

A step-by-step guide to writing and managing the writer's life covers each portion of a written project, addresses such concerns as writer's block and getting published, and offers awareness and survival tips. Reprint. Tour. K. NYT.

The Dharma Bums

by Jack Kerouac

From the author of "On The Road" comes this story of two men enganged in a passionate search for Dharma or truth. Their major adventure is the pursuit of the Zen Way, which takes them climbing into the high sierras to seek the lesson of solitude.

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

by Anne Lamott

When Anne Lamott was twenty-five, her father died after a long struggle with brain cancer. Over the next few years she herself began to suffer from an overwhelming sense of desperation and fear which she tried to suppress with alcohol and pills. Although she was managing to write and publish successful novels at the time, it was clear that her life was spinning out of control. In Traveling Mercies , a... (more)

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (Unabridged)

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (Unabridged)

by Anne Lamott

With the trademark wisdom, humor, and honesty that made Anne Lamott's book on faith, Traveling Mercies , a runaway bestseller, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith is a spiritual antidote to anxiety and despair in increasingly fraught times. The world is a more dangerous place than it was when Lamott's Traveling Mercies was published five years ago. Terrorism and war have become the new normal;... (more)

A Scanner Darkly

by Philip K. Dick

Perhaps the most unnerving drug novel ever written, as well as an industrial-grade stress test of identity, this novel explores the perverse symbiosis of cop and criminal, observer and observed.

The Way of Zen

by Alan Watts

A 2 part book where the first part provides the history and background of Zen and the second deals with its principles and practices. Intended both for the general reader and for the more serious student. Bibliography.

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Shambhala Library)

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Shambhala Library)

by Shunryu Suzuki, Trudy Dixon

Zen mind is one of those enigmatic phrases used by Zen teachers to throw you back upon yourself, to make you go behind the words themselves and begin wondering. "I know what my own mind is," you tell yourself, "but what is Zen mind?" And then: "But do I really know what my own mind is?" Is it what I am doing now? Is it what I am thinking now?" And if you should then try to sit physically still for a while to see... (more)

Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen

Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen

by Edward Espe Brown

Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well. In a beautiful companion volume to Shunryu Suzuki's first book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, this is a collection of thirty-five lectures taken from the last three years of Suzuki's life that has... (more)

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image

by Leonard Shlain

Could the invention of writing, and then the alphabet, have been largely responsible for a decisive shift towards patriarchy and misogyny? in this book, the author draws on brain anatomy and anthropology, religion and history, to develop his challenging thesis. Literacy, he argues, encourages "masculine" linear, reductionist and abstract modes of thought which tend to degrade women. (The witch-hunts of the... (more)

Art & Physics

by Leonard Shlain

Art interprets the visible world, physics charts its unseen workings--making the two realms seem completely opposed. But in Art & Physics, Leonard Shlain tracks their breakthroughs side by side throughout history to reveal an astonishing correlation of visions. From the classical Greek sculptors to Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, and from Aristotle to Einstein, aritsts have foreshadowed the discoveries of... (more)

Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries: 1971-1973

Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries: 1971-1973

by Jim Carroll

The illuminating, shocking, humorous diary that tells all about the sex, the frugs and the atmosphere of New York in the late '60s and early '70s. A supremely entertaining book that will expand the legion of Carroll's fans.

Somewhere in the City: Selected Stories

by Marcia Muller

"Her stories crackle like few others on the mystery landscape."- San Francisco Chronicle "One of the treasures of the genre."- Chicago Tribune A new collection of Marcia Muller's best short fiction from the past twenty years, including hardboiled private-eye, horror, western, and psychological suspense stories. Marcia Muller , a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, is the author of... (more)

The Greens CookbookDeborah Madison, Edward Espe Brown

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: marin county

Blue Shoe

by Anne Lamott

Hard Laughter: A Novel

by Anne Lamott

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

by Anne Lamott

The Dharma Bums

by Jack Kerouac

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

by Anne Lamott

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (Unabridged)

by Anne Lamott

A Scanner Darkly

by Philip K. Dick

The Way of Zen

by Alan Watts

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (Shambhala Library)

by Shunryu Suzuki, Trudy Dixon

Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen

by Edward Espe Brown

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image

by Leonard Shlain

Art & Physics

by Leonard Shlain

Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries: 1971-1973

by Jim Carroll

Somewhere in the City: Selected Stories

by Marcia Muller

The Greens Cookbook

by Deborah Madison, Edward Espe Brown