Books I Loved This Year (Scott's List)

A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart​ by Martin Luther King Jr
I must begin with this short book because I read it early in January and it set the tone for the entire year. Martin Luther King Jr is quite famous, but I had never read any of his actual writing. Then last year I heard a King expert speak about how misunderstood King is, buried under cultural symbolism and over-simplified platitudes. King, said the expert, was actually quite complex and detailed in his thinking, and was more controversial than is known. So I resolved myself to read some of his work. This volume contains six short essays and speaks to his intelligence and thoughtfulness, his philosophical rigor as well as his religious foundation. The title indicates a difficult balance that King says we should strive toward: a tough mind and a tender heart. 

King argues forcefully for the path of nonviolent resistance, saying that it can be effective where outright violence is not. He explains that nonviolent resistance "combines tough-mindedness and tenderheartedness and avoids the complacency and do-nothingness of the soft minded and the violence and bitterness of the hardhearted." Within his argument is deep belief in the underlying good of humanity. In the essay "The Sword That Heals," he suggests that people know injustice when they see it. "Punish me," he says. "I do not deserve it. But because I do not deserve it, I will accept it so that the world will know that I am right and you are wrong." 

Overall, King's writing is thoughtful and deep. Far more complex than our general impressions of his fame. 

How the World Thinks by Julian Baggini
I love a broad-scope look at philosophy and how our minds process the world. This book takes "big perspective" to a new level, breaking out of any single philosophical system to examine and compare a few different views from around the planet. While this approach seems simple enough, it reveals a profound limitation of most philosophical inquiry — that it is based in one specific tradition. In the West, most philosophers and other types of thinkers in the past 2000 years have worked in the tradition of the Greeks, Plato and Aristotle. And while there is diversity in the way people think, Westerners generally share a common worldview that looks through the lenses of reason, Christianity, capitalism and individual autonomy.

Baggini's book considers the Western worldview but also two other significant perspectives: those of India and China. Each of these areas of the world has an ancient and highly developed way of seeing the world and how humans function within it. There are central themes here, like how each culture thinks about time, ourselves, and even the nature of knowledge itself. While it is not an attempt at perfect understanding of all of these philosophical systems — indeed, such an endeavor would be impossible — the simplicity and directness of the comparisons are stark and illuminating.

Natural​ by Alan Levinovitz
Like most people, I value "natural" things. (And yes, that "natural" needs quotation marks.) I prefer all-natural foods to something that isn't labeled as such, wondering if it is processed or chemical or, God forbid, unnatural. Levinovitz's book takes subconscious preferences like these and questions them. Why do we prefer natural things? Furthermore, what do we mean by "natural"?

As he delves into the meanings we place on the word "natural," it becomes apparent that it is a fuzzy idea, and one that is rooted in faith. We believe that the world around us will not hurt us, but if we intervene and add our own unnatural elements, the results will be harmful. 

My favorite chapter is about natural medicine and healing. These concepts have changed profoundly from their earliest usage thousands of years ago. Medicine was originally part of a natural cure, set apart from more superstitious cures like rituals, exorcisms and prayer. Medicine was a move toward the physical body and away from the spiritual realm. In this way, medicines dealt directly with nature. This has changed in the past few centuries, as many in the West have become disillusioned by the systems of medical health. It can feel like diagnoses of illness and the prescription of medicines separates us into discrete parts. The symptoms and illness get treated but the whole person gets ignored. So now "natural" medicine tries to treat the whole person, and often places itself in opposition to the medical approach to treating disease. Somehow, medicine is now unnatural.

This book is insightful and readable. Levinovitz takes a topic that easily flies under the radar of our awareness — often we prefer natural things without knowing why. As he discusses the different aspects of nature and natural ideals, the concepts slip through our fingers. 

The Power by Naomi Alderman
This is a story about a supernatural power that develops in women — the ability to generate electricity and project it through their bodies and hands. With this power they can protect themselves and also control, harm or kill others. Some embrace the power and utilize it to gain equality and status in society; some reject it and try to live in more traditional ways; some use it for terror. The responses of the women, and the responses of the society around them are central to this story.

This book is wonderfully written and readable. The story centers on a few characters and follows them through their plights. Each uses their power differently, in ways that are entirely plausible and human. Some use it to protect those they love while others use it for revenge. Perhaps the most surprising element of this book was how real it felt despite the women with magical hands. Every decision that is made is credible, which at times is all the more terrifying.

On Gaslighting by Kate Abramson
I stumbled across this book at a shop in London, and I had the thought that must have motivated the writing of the book in the first place: What exactly is gaslighting? We've all heard the term, and it has become more prominent in the last few years, it seems. Often it gets used as a harsher way of saying "you are wrong" or "that is misleading." But "you are gaslighting me" is a way of announcing a more sinister intention to the misleader. 

My curiosity about gaslighting must be combined with the fact that this type of book is one of my favorites. The philosophical essay which is often simply titled "On _____". (Last year On Bullshit was one of my favorites.) These essays are usually quite sophisticated in their reasoning while also being conversational and relatively easy to read. 

According to Abramson, gaslighting goes beyond mere lying or misleading or arguing. It is set apart because it is a long term project to destabilize a person's ability to think for themselves. Over time, the target begins to question their own sanity and eventually becomes unmoored from reality. It goes far beyond persistent disagreement, denial or lying. Those things certainly exist, and a long-term liar can make us question the nature of reality. But gaslighting is intentionally designed to make a person lose their own ability to think, and eventually they feel that their own reasoning is faulty. 

This book is as interesting for its clarity about topics that are not gaslighting. It brings specificity to the ideas of deceit and disagreement as it defines gaslighting. In this way, it is similar to On Bullshit, which brings clarity to ideas of truth and lie while it defines bullshit.

The Amaraugha and Amaraughaprabodha of Goraksanatha translated by Jason Birch
This is one of two truly scholarly books on my list this year. (The other is by Norelius, below.) But the importance of this book to our understanding of yoga history, especially hathayoga​, is immense. This book is an output of the Hatha Yoga Project that, over the past decade, has revolutionized the way we think about hathayoga. 

The Amaraugha is probably the first text that explains a system of hathayoga, as well as the first text to describe a system of four yogas, and the earliest to describe a relationship between hatha and raja yogas. All of these were adopted by later texts including the hugely influential Hathapradipika in the 15th century. So the Amaraugha is vital to our understanding of where hathayoga comes from, what its meaning was in the earliest days, and how it evolved over the centuries.

This book includes a critical edition of the text, an English translation, and an introduction that discusses the most important elements. Any serious practitioner who is interested in the history of yoga and can tolerate the formalities of scholarly writing will benefit from reading this book. Birch is the sharp end of the spear in hathayoga study. All the rest of us are using his work as a primary reference point. 

Kerouac by Ann Charters
Over the summer, a friend and I were discussing the prevalence of Buddhism in Western thought, and the possibility that it began in the 1950s with the so-called Beats like Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs. Though I have read several of Kerouac's books and knew a little bit about his Buddhist influence, I was unclear about what Kerouac's other influences were. How influenced was he by Buddhism, actually? How much Buddhism was present in the thinking of the other Beats? So I decided to read a biography of Kerouac, in the hope that I could better understand the cultural movement of the time.

​The first thing that struck me while reading Ann Charters's biography was how brilliantly it is written. There is urgency and creativity to the language, not just a ho-hum play by play of his life. It is exhaustively researched, and told in a story as compelling as one of Kerouac's novels. In addition to every beat, trip, relationship and book of Kerouac's life, it includes his interactions with other key cultural figures like Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs. 

My initial inquiry was quickly overshadowed by the depth and intensity of Kerouac's quest for life and literature. Disenchanted by a materialistic society, seeking inward, authentic spiritual insight, he could never sit still for long. The influence of Buddhism on him was smaller than I initially thought. He seems to have studied it and discussed it and written about it intensely for a brief period. Overall, he strived after a new form of writing that was immediate and free.

Soul and Self in Vedic India by Per Johan Norelius
​This is a beast of a book in the best way possible. A 600 page scholarly investigation of various notions of the self in the Veda. These include full chapters on atman, ​manas, purusha, prana and ​asu. Norelius traces the meaning and usage of these concepts through the entire Vedic corpus, as well as investigating smaller bits of their usage in other traditions.

The difficulty of a book like this is the same as the difficulty of any vast set of teachings like the Veda. There are no clear answers, no straightforward narratives. So many concepts change in meaning in a non-linear fashion, or have different significance to different groups. The best we can do is to try to understand the meanings and hold them side by side, without collapsing them into a perfectly sensible story. I always finish reading volumes like this with an awe-filled sense of the complexity of history and knowledge.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey
This is one of the more recent books I read this year. It just won the Booker Prize in November. The day after I heard about it, I saw it in a bookstore and picked it up. It is one of the most profound, poetic and beautiful pieces of writing I've ever read.

​The story is built around a small group of astronauts who are orbiting the earth aboard the International Space Station. Their removal from the rhythms and patterns of earth is destabilizing, and everything from their blood to their sleep, their sense of time and the meaning of humanity is untethered. Though the book is short and easy to read, it combines evocative, poetically written prose with genuine insights into the meaning of our lives and our relationship to this planet.