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Here’s a very short list of three books I finished reading in the past week. Enjoy!

No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering by Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the late teacher’s most-read books. When I was in my 200-hr yoga teacher training, our teacher had a shirt that said “Yes Mud, Yes Lotus”. It became something of a trend and other women in the training were seen wearing them soon after.

I started reading this book when I was feeling a particularly strong wave of grief this summer after my son moved out West. It had been sitting in the stack near my bed for a year or more and it called to me. If you’ve ever read a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, you know how gentle, direct, and simple yet deep his writings are. They are practical and get right to the heart of human suffering and he shows you how to access peace through the simple act of breathing, through slowing down and living with mindfulness. He encourages love, peacefulness, gratitude for what we have, paying attention to our lives, and not waiting to be happy while we go through suffering. And there are many practices to try, at the end of the book.

The night I opened No Mud, No Lotus, I felt soothed and was able to breathe easier. This book is one to read if you’re going through something difficult. I also recommend my favorite book of his (so far anyway), Peace Is Every Step as well as Peace of Mind: Becoming Fully Present. Next I’m going to read his book: The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation.

The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves is the third mystery in the Two Rivers (Detective Matthew Venn series). It started out with a murder in a coastal town, a storm with lashing rain, impossible waves, a treacherous coastal path. I loved the feel for Fall reading. And it was good for about halfway through and then I began to lose interest. I think it’s that the people who were being killed off weren’t loathsome enough to be glad they got their just desserts and they weren’t innocent and nice enough to feel sorry for. I just didn’t care. I do recommend Ann Cleeves Vera Stanhope series (set in Northumberland, England) and her Shetland series (set in the–you guessed it–Shetland Islands in Scotland), so if you want great British mysteries definitely give either or both of those a read.

The Enchanted Life: Reclaiming the Magic and Wisdom of the Natural World by Sharon Blackie was one I started last year. Her books are dense with myth, fairytale, poetry, and many personal stories from many different creative people from around the world. She is such a richly storied author, and she’s lived all over the British Isles, so I thoroughly enjoy reading about her experiences. This book was no different. And she had reflection questions interspersed throughout to help the reader take what we were reading and make it part of us. Her chapters on “The Mythic Imagination”, “Coming Home to Ourselves”, and “An Ear to the Ground” were my favorites. She is an advocate for rooting in and learning to know the place we live, for however long we are there., and for living a slower, creative, and more imaginative life. If any of these themes spark something in you, you’ll enjoy this book.

I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into my current reading life. If you enjoyed this post, you will also like reading my Substack. Here’s my latest post. You can subscribe for free to read one free post a week, or subscribe for $5 per month for access to all my posts, plus the archive. Why become a paid Substack subscriber? To support my writing on Substack plus this blog which is a gift to you: an ad-free, restful, and quiet place among increasingly busy, loud, and frenetic blogs and websites.

I’d love to know what you’re reading right now. Share in comments below!