Absolutely extraordinary book. Extremely informative, powerful, emotional, inspiring, and poetic. I was struck at first by the amazing writing (which comes across really well in translation, I think, not that I've read the original ...), but stayed for the amazing story-telling and information about various illegal practices in Brazil.

It's really an impressive piece of work, I can highly recommend it, but do note that it is also, in parts, quite traumatic. Still; one of those books that you feel sad when it ends; well worth reading!

Written by Thich Nhat Hanh, of "How To Walk, How To Love, How To Eat, ..." fame, this is quite a large book but nevertheless, very engaging. Consisting of several stories related to the life of the "historical" Buddha. I think this book is a particularly good entrypoint to this particular variant of Buddhist writing: namely stories that have a bit of magical character, but also attempt to be somewhat historical accuracy. One thing I found particularly interesting was to learn that early Buddhism, in this telling, was quite sexist. I really appreciated this detail being included; it helped me see that Buddhism, much like any approach, isn't perfect and needs a process of self-correction; which in my interpretation it does have. Overall, I loved this book. It's simple, easy, reading, has some nice messages and stories. But it's certainly not full of practical advice for mindfulness, but if you're keen on that you can you can check out the authors many other offerings!

An incredibly detailed journey through various political regimes through the lens of understanding how they were structured and how that structure affects social inequality. Concludes with some very strong and interesting ideas about how we can move towards a global social democracy, and how to finance a substantial social state.

An exploration into compassion, kindness, empathy, innate goodness and how these concepts relate to the idea of being altruistic. Comes from a Buddhist point of view, but has a very broad approach and generally-applicable advice and thoughts. Particularly good comments around the idea of emotional burn-out and (Buddhist) techniques for managing it.