Our Staff Summer Reading List
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Nicole (Trainer): I’m actually re-reading No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering (Parallax Press, 2014) by Thich Nhat Hanh for the second time right now. It’s just one of the best books ever written. This and When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron are ACTUAL bibles to me.
Book Synopsis: Thich Nhat Hanh offers practices and inspiration for transforming suffering and finding true joy. He shares how the practices of stopping, mindful breathing, and deep concentration can generate the energy of mindfulness within our daily lives. With that energy, we can embrace pain and calm it down, instantly bringing a measure of freedom and a clearer mind.
Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most revered Zen teachers in the world today. He is the founder of the Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, the largest Buddhist monastery in Europe. Thich Nhat Hanh has been teaching the art of mindful living for more than 70 years. He lives in Hue, Vietnam.
Jamie (Dir. of Program Development & Trainer): I recommend The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story (Graywolf Press, 2017) by Edwige Danticat. Danticat says, “We write about the dead to make sense of our losses, to become less haunted, to turn ghosts into words, to transform an absence into language.”
Book Synopsis: She writes a remarkably rich story about her mother’s living while dying; and simultaneously showing us how great writers attempt to make meaning of death with their poems and novels. It’s part memoir and part critique-creative, challenging and comforting. I think it’s a great read for anyone doing death work.
Edwige Danticat is a Haitian-American author. She is a two-time finalist for the National Book Award, and has received the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is a 2009 MacArthur fellow, a 2018 Ford Foundation “The Art of Change” fellow, and the winner of the 2018 Neustadt International Prize and the 2019 St. Louis Literary Award.
Krista (Manager of Business Operations): I have no history of working as a doula, but I was given Permission to Mourn: A New Way to Do Grief (Bish Press, 2014) by Tom Zuba when I lost a close family member six years ago and at the time found it brought me some peace. I now give it to others who have lost someone with hopes that it does the same for them.
Book Synopsis: The death of someone we love cracks us open inviting us to become the person we were born to be. This is the book Tom Zuba wishes he had read after his daughter Erin died. And after his wife Trici died. It’s the book he wishes he’d been handed following his son Rory’s death. Once he gave himself permission to mourn, healing began.
Tom Zuba is a life coach, author and speaker teaching a new way to do grief to people all over the world. Tom offers those living with the death of a loved one the tools, knowledge, and wisdom to create a full, joy-filled life.
Henry (Co-Founder, Executive Director): I love the book Nox (New Directions, 2010), by Anne Carson. Actually, it is much more than a book–it is prose poetry, visual epitaph and a beautiful box all in one.
Book Synopsis: This book doesn’t fall into a neat category and is difficult to describe. It’s an accordion fold-out of 192 pages nestled in a box that combines fragments of letters, photographs, collage, drawings, analysis of words and more. It explores in bits and pieces the life and impact of her brother who was in and mostly out of her life for long periods of time. The language and imagery is a furious, sometimes repetitive drum beat of grief and pain that candidly reveals Carson’s struggle to stitch together these fragments into a life that she can comprehend. It is a stunning legacy/grief project that when laid out on the floor can stretch nearly the entire length of my house. I have read it and look through the visuals numerous times and I am always moved by it.
Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, translator of Ancient Greek Tragedies, classicist, and professor who has taught at McGill, NYU, and Princeton. She has received Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships and has won numerous prizes, including the T.S. Elliot Prize and the PEN/Nabokov Award.