William Dalrymple: From the Holy Mountain
Dalrymple follows the path of Christian monk John Moschos, who wandered the world of Eastern Byzantium, visiting the scattered Christian monasteries and hermitages and recording the rituals he saw and the preaching he heard in a book called The Spiritual Meadow. What Dalrymple finds 1500 years later is a religion dying in the land of its birth, as oppression, conflict and outward migration devastate the handful of Christian cultures left. For those who are even nominally Christian, it is a thought-provoking look at how dramatically different our practice of Christianity in the west is from its origins, and how far removed we feel from the roots of the faith we claim.

Simon Winchester: River at the Center of the World
Winchester, with the feisty and opinionated Lily as his Chinese guide and interpreter, travels the length of the Chang Jiang (or as we call it, the Yangtze) River into the heart of China - a journey which in many ways takes him back in time to a China barely known.

Thich Nhat Hahn: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Genuinely useful practices and teachings from the man who Martin Luthur King, Jr., nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Past Picks

The poetry of Rabindranath Tagore. Exquisitely beautiful poetry, even for a jaded student of the genre. Dare to dip into random selections from the Indian Nobel Laureate's pen - but don't be surprised if you are moved, disturbed, or changed.

Mike Watkinson, Julian Cope, Pete Anderson: Crazy Diamond: Syd Barrett and the Dawn of Pink Floyd.
A compassionate and affectionate portrait of a complex man. Well-written, if a little amateurish in its turn of phrase sometimes, but terribly valuable for the authors' access to Barret's loyal and notoriously close-mouthed family.

Burrough, Brian: Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir.
(Also released under the title "Dragonfly: An Epic Adventure of Survival in Outer Space")
A truly excellent book very much in the tradition of The Right Stuff. Dragonfly follows the troubled Mir, the American space agency, and the relationship between the two during the collaboration's darkest period in 1997 - missions punctuated by accidents, fire and interpersonal and cultural conflict. Scientifically interesting but outstanding for its studies of the American and Russian personalities in the eye of the storm.