Once, my grandmother suggested that I read the works of Erich Maria Remarque. I still recall how she distinctly and somewhat melancholically said, “I love how Remarque’s books are so hopeless.” Indeed, Remarque writes about arguably one of the worst epochs of recent history, the 20th Century, and of all his books I have read, not a single one has a happy ending. To give a quick overview, Remarque’s books are historical, and they portray various stages of the 20th Century, namely...

I was reading through  Dr. Wayne Dyer’s works when, in the book Wishes Fulfilled, I came across several quotations from the book Three Magic Words by U. S. Anderson. Curious, I read the later book only to reread it five or ten times, for it is one of the finest nonfiction books I have ever come across.   It consists of 200 pages arranged in 12 chapters covering various topics, including positive thinking, the validity of evil, intuition, faith, love, health, wealth, Immortality, and one’s...

Alan Watts, early 1970s (Image courtesy of Everett Collection) “Getting rid of your ego is the biggest ego trip going in town. And the joke of it all is that your ego does not exist.”  Here is a man you should meet. By meet, I mean read his books or listen to his recorded lectures since Alan Watts left us on November 16, 1973, at the age of 58. Yet, in listening to his lectures or reading his books, I feel that I know him—obviously not the actual Watts, but some wise and rascally spirit that resides...

I learn about the American 19th century author Henry David Thoreau from speakers such as Wayne Dyer and Les Brown and through popular quotes you may also have heard of like: “If one advances confidently in the directions of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours”. OR “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however...

I have in my library a 700 page volume with the selected works of the French author Anatole France, yet to my shame from it I have only read Thaïs. This work was suggested by Alan Watts in one of his lectures as an example that illustrates how asceticism cannot lead to enlightenment, but rather to a moral and a spiritual descent. Thaïs is a short 100-page novel. The setting of the story is quite interesting – Egypt in the 4th century after the New Era, when Christianity starts to slowly spread in...

This book was my first major introduction into Zen Buddhism. Its author Alan Watts (see dedicated author review here) started as an Episcopal priest, but soon after joined the American Academy of Asian Studies and consequently wrote many books on Zen Buddhism, on Taoism, Hinduism, Christianity, conscientiousness, religion and philosophy. The way of Zen is among his more famous books with a length of about 250 pages, divided in two parts – Part One: Background and History and Part Two: Principles...

For this review, I went and re-read “Night flight” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who is most famous for his novella “The Little Prince”. I read “Night flight” for the first time when I was 17 years and in my memory, it was at least 150 pages long. It actually is only 58! It is not an accident that my memory tricked me because this little novel has tremendous substance. It is like “Notes from underground” or “Of mice and men” the small length might fool you in thinking they are an easy read, but in...