OCTOBER 2012

Chögyam Trungpa was a Tibetan monk running a monastery when China invaded. Forced to flee, he escaped to India, then eventually the United States, where he ditched his monastic vows to become a lay teacher. He's considered one of the most influential voices in bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West—unfiltered, challenging, and completely uninterested in making it comfortable.

Travis Shelton is a high school dropout who spends his days fishing—not for pleasure, but to sell his catch and pay for his truck insurance. One day he stumbles onto something he shouldn't have: a marijuana field hidden deep in Appalachian woods. What follows is a brutal collision with the people who own that field and the violent history that shaped them.

Among the legendary female travelers, Alexandra David-Neel stands out as both pioneer and absolute badass. She walked away from her bourgeois Parisian life to hit the road—and I mean literally walked, often disguised as a beggar, through forbidden Tibet in the 1920s. This is her account of reaching Lhasa when foreigners were banned on pain of death. No GPS. No backup plan.

Franck and Louise barely know each other, but they share something—or someone: Alexandre, brother to one, husband to the other. Since Alexandre's accidental death, these two strangers are bound by grief, awkwardness, and something else they can't quite name. A quiet, devastating look at what happens when loss pulls people together in ways they never expected.

In 1937, Japanese forces invaded China, capturing Shanghai and marching on the capital, Nanking. The city fell in days. What followed was one of history's most brutal massacres. Fifty years later, a young British woman arrives in Tokyo searching for answers buried in that horror. Mo Hayder delivers a thriller that doesn't flinch from the darkness of history or human nature.

I've been into meditation for a while now, which naturally led me to Zen Buddhism—particularly the Japanese tradition that centers on zazen, seated meditation. This diary takes you inside the daily grind of monastic life: the discipline, the silence, the small moments of clarity. It's unglamorous and honest, which is exactly what makes it worth reading.