I haven't read for a few years but feel like starting again and i think i'll go for
Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram...as it sounds pretty exciting and a true story i think, or fictionalised? I've heard much good said about it.
The Voice of the Infinite in the Small-
revisioning the human insect connection by Joanne Lauck one of
those books. i find any topic can be interesting if you're interested and/or the author is infectiously enthusiastic about it. i thought id like it but was blown away with the scope of it. "go to the ant, consider her ways and be wise"...interspecies communication, insect totems, mantis etc. also i like it cos, as my sis pointed out, it addresses more than the subject matter and showed me conditioning that i was unaware was there till it was suggested. one last peachy quote,,
""Our persistence in dividing up the "Oneness" of the world into good species and bad species and then trying to eliminate those we have judged to be bad, ruptures the web of relationship on which our lives depend. To wage war against any species is to wage war against ourselves.""
The Secret Life of Nature By Peter Tompkins -
living in harmony with the hidden world of nature spirits from fairies to quarks. one of my favourite authors. speaks of clairvoyant investigations into the periodic table of elements using the "ajnic microscope" (3rd eye supposedly). it was this book that introduced me to ayahuasca as the author travels to amsterdam to partake and writes it up in the last chapter. what led me to the book was apparently seeing faeries and elves and other beings at a party in wales called pendragon that involved an maoi...strange as it led to maoi, kind of. also by him that i thoroughly enjoyed,,"the secret life of plants"--"secrets of the soil"--"obelisks"
Ben Okri- The Famished Road...spiritual fiction about a young "spirit child" living in an african township. excellent read, not fluffy spiritually stuff; his father was a local prize fighter.
Supernature by Lyall Watson looks into all, or most of, the "spiritual" talents and practices, from palmistry to telekenesis to poltergeists and attempts to use science and laws of chance to investigate such phenomenom, without being conclusive.
The Mutant Message Down-under by Marlowe Morgan. fictionalised account of a womans walkabout with some of ausatralia's last surviving "wild" indigenous peoples. one part where it is her job to find food and water for the day; to find it she had to tune into the land as it was there to provide if she was able to listen and see the signs.
J Krishnamurti - Freedom From the Known spiritual "teaching". my dad gave me one of his books when i set to travel around israel, was blown away by it. quotes-- ""A man who is not afraid is not aggressive, a man who has no sense of fear of any kind is really a free, a peaceful man."" -- ""In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself..."" -- ""All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man."" -- ""in the condemnation of others lies the justification of ourselves"" -- "there is no psychological evolution: there is only the ending of sorrow, of pain, anxiety, loneliness, despair and all that..."" -- ""freedom from the desire for answer is essential to the understanding of a problem..."" -- ""the bigger the outward show the greater the inner sorrow..."". other books by him i recommend are "Krishnamurti's Notebook"...the "commentaries on living series" and the auto biographies.
"only a closed mind is certain"