Book Report : 2023

Another year, another stack of delicious, fascinating, heartbreaking, magnificent books. Paper books, ebooks, audiobooks. I wish every year I had an extra year just to read. I started a grad school program in 2023 which has meant a lot of reading for school and a busier schedule, but I still covered some good ground in my personal reading (I won't subject you to review of my project management and consulting books, though I secretly loved them). I hope you find some new ideas here. As always, I love discussing, so reach out if you want to talk about any of this.

The Gospel According to Jesus (Stephen Mitchell)

In 2023 I began the idea that I'd study one religion a year. I started with Christianity, a religion I have a lot of time-layered opinions about but little formal education. I didn't cover as much ground as I hoped, but my understanding was broadened, both in specifics of the religion's foundational teachings, and in the role it has played in so deeply shaping the world.

Stephen Mitchell's The Gospel According to Jesus was an ideal guide for someone like me and I found it relatable, educational, and moving. Mitchell, a polyglot scholar and translator who can credibly translate mystical poetry from the original Sanskrit, Aramaic, Greek, Chinese does two beautiful things here. First, he conducts his own theological forensics, arriving at his best guesses about what artifacts of the gospels are most credibly attributable to Jesus the historical man. He's not shy in his paring, and in the process shows what a nebulous and contested art this is: what did the guy really say, do, and which account is most accurate? Many Jesus-isms he writes off completely as the later contributions of others. It helped me understand that being involved in Christianity means forever forming some arrangement of beliefs about what the core teachings truly are.

Mitchell's second feat is to take his collection of authentic teachings and historical moments and give them loving, poetic, and asimilatable illumination. For this his tools are an extensive collection of jewels from across the religious spectrum. He paints Jesus as an awakened sage and inspired teacher who parallels the contributions of Zen priests, yogic ascetics, Jewish Rabbis, Greek philosophers and a wide cast of characters from the New Testament, Gospels, and other luminaries in the Christian tradition.

This artful perennialism I found very moving, and both my paper and digital copies of this book are covered with underlines and notes. It felt good to gain more appreciation for the compassionate and wise teachings contained in the brief career of perhaps the world's most influential religious founder. It brought me some new closeness and understanding of my own Jewish family tree. And it also helped me appreciate how fluid the accounts of early Christianity truly are, pushing each student and practitioner to contend with so many simultaneous storylines and truths, swirling around a set of elegant universals.

Though this book was my main gateway, the following were in the mix as well: Zealot (Reza Aslan), The Story of Christianity (Matthew Price and Michael Collins), The Gnostic Gospels (Elaine Pagels), The Book of Job (Mitchell's translation), some William Blake, and of course The Bible itself.

2024's religion of study will be Islam. Send me your recommendations.

The Surrender Experiment (Michael Singer)

This one's a trip, and a curious way to start the year. In his memoir, Mickey Singer recounts the events that led from building a meditation shack in the Florida backwoods to it becoming the site of a billion dollar public tech company. The premise is that letting go and allowing life to flow its course is what lets the universe provide. If nothing else, it's a pretty fantastic story. I found it laughable that he could tell his tale and never speak to any societal privileges that might have helped his surrendering go so well. And in general I don't subscribe to most of his spiritual/cosmological explanations for things. But all that said, something really stayed with me, and I found myself experimenting with surrender a lot this year. Yes, there is something very powerful and counterintuitively wise about learning to move with the current, what I recently heard described as non-interference.

I wouldn't count on it making you rich and powerful. But, as an experiment, spend a day paying attention to each time your mind makes plans to make things different than they are (rebelling not surrendering). In my case, I noticed a mind that is in nearly constant rebellion, laying endless plans to reshape the world to its preferences. Seeing this exhausting crusade, a dose of surrender is a noticeable serving of peace.

Buddhism Without Beliefs (Stephen Batchelor)

What a luminous little book. Batchelor is a Scottish teacher of meditation with a diversity of training experience in Asia and elsewhere. Buddhism Without Beliefs does a beautiful job making the case for a deeply spiritual path that leaves behind constrictive institutions, dogmas, and labels. His descriptions of core philosophical concepts is wonderfully simple and effective, like his use of the word "anguish" to sum up the first noble truth of Buddhism.

Ines and I read this book out loud to each other in the evenings before bed, taking our time with each bit and discussing it as we moved through. Definitely one to savor.

Bearing Witness (Bernie Glassman)

This is Roshi Bernie Glassman's book about the roots of The Zen Peacemaker Order and the Bearing Witness retreats for which it is most known. Glassman was the first successor of Japanese Zen teacher Taizan Maezumi, and he ran The Los Angeles Zen Center before setting up in New York, where he founded a series of social impact ventures including a bakery, apartment for unhoused families, and the New York Center for Contemplative Care.

Seeking ways to take Buddhist practice closer to the frontlines of life's anguish, he began leading Bearing Witness retreats, week-long interfaith excursions to some of the world's most difficult places. The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps (about which Peter Matthiessen, another Zen student/teacher, wrote "In Paradise"), Rwanda, and "street retreats" where participants spend the week living unhoused, starting on The Bowery in the 90s.

I read this book while on a Bearing Witness retreat on Lakota land in the Black Hills (my account his here)

The book is captivating storytelling about the forming of these ambitious experiments as well as the thinking behind their purpose. Very good lessons for life are captured in the three tenets of the Peacemaker Order: not knowing, bearing witness, and taking loving action.

(I read it in paper)

Instructions to the Cook (Bernie Glassman)

Another one by Bernie Glassman, Instructions to the Cook is a Zen-inspired approach to taking positive action with your life and livelihood. Most of his examples of socially impactful business initiatives and careers are based on what his Greyston social ventures were doing in Yonkers New York in the 90s (mentioned above).

There are definitely ideas that sound dated to the modern ear, but there is still good inspiration here on ways to bring real-life social entrepreneurship together with contemplative approaches.

(I read it in paper)

Of Boys and Men (Richard Reeves)

Of Boys and Men, by Brookings Institution scholar Richard Reeves, is a groundbreaking compilations of research on what is happening with men in the U.S., with a particular focus on the precarious conditions for Black men. This book was pivotal for me, and was definitely the book I left the most highlights and notes in this year. If you're anywhere near this field, if you work with young men, or if you have male children, please pick it up.

Among the facts I've cited far too often this year include the realities that Black boys, compared to their Black female peers, struggle more in school, are less likely to graduate, less likely to attend college, and will earn less in the workforce. And that while Black youth are twice as likely to die by suicide than white youth, Black boys are 2.5 times more likely to die by suicide than Black girls.

In fact, recent research suggests that while Black women have made considerable economic gains, Black men largely have not. By some analyses, the Black/white income gap in the U.S. is almost entirely a story of Black male income lagging behind.

This field of research, policy, and programming was especially pertinent to me this year as I started working more deeply for The B.R.O. Experience, a Brooklyn non-profit specializing in mental health programming for young Black men, an approach that I think has enormous potential on many levels, from violence reduction to healing from trauma to economic empowerment.

Reeves' TED Talk is a good intro to his thinking.

(I did this one as a Kindle book plus synchronized audiobook, read by the author, which is a terrific way to work through a book like this)

Black Elk Speaks (John Neihardt)

This book is a jewel and a classic, and I believe would be considered required reading for anyone trying to better understand Native American life and history. In 1930, John Neihardt, Nebraska' poet laureate, went to the Pine Ridge Reservation to research the legends of the Ghost Dance among the Lakota people. He was introduced to Black Elk, an elder Oglala holy man who had lived through some of the pivotal eras of struggle and bloodshed for the Plains Indians. Through a translator, Neihardt recorded Black Elk's life history as well as the dreams and visions that guided his understanding of the period.

This is a book every household should have (Carl Jung was amazed by it and had it translated to German). I listed to it as an audiobook – beautiful narration by Robin Neihardt – and then got an old 1960s paper copy to read as well.

The Journey of Crazy Horse (Joseph M. Marshall III)

Another on the list of required American Indian reading, Marshall's book tells the story of perhaps the most revered warrior leader of the Lakota. Marshall was born and raised on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota and has served a range of roles in Tribal life, including being a prolific author. The Journey of Crazy Horse is written as a dramatic and personal narrative that threads through the bloody battles, deadly winters, tragic shattering of the Native ways by colonization, settlement, and the brutal push onto reservations, many of which remain the home of what is left of our great indigenous civilizations.

This history has been a requirement for me lately as I've been working with Lakota groups in South Dakota through business school, including the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations. The wisdom, bravery, and dignity of the great Lakota warrior leaders can't be underestimated in understanding Native life today.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Marshall, and read from a paper copy as well.

I also started reading The Lakota Way: Stories and Lessons for Living, also by Marshall, began working my way through An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz), as well as the poetry of Joy Harjo and Layli Long Soldier.

Also stunning is Ken Burns’ new documentary, The American Buffalo, a deep study of the vital role of the buffalo, once numbering in the tens of millions across the continent, played in the lives of the indigenous people, then falling victim to American industrialism and reckless sport.

Thank you for reading my writing about reading and writing! I always encourage people to write their own book report, in any format that suits them. Book recommendations are always welcome, as is discussion on any related topics.