Books We Like
» Books on Yoga
» Books on Social Sciences & Medicine
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» Books We Love Just Because
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." — Groucho Marx
Groovy Yogis love to read, not just for enjoyment but to enlighten themselves as well.
Below you will find a growing list of books that we like.
Groovy Yogi would like to invite you to contribute to this list, suggesting books that you love and why. Just email us your selections via the Contact page and let us know if we can use your story and name, as well.
"The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves." — E.M. Forster
There is good reason why yoga is called a "practice." A practice implies that you do not master the thing entirely; that you are still working to gain mastery. Yoga is such a broad term, encompassing physical, mental and spiritual/ philosophical disciplines, and its very breadth requires you to understand it as a lifelong pursuit. You may focus for a period of time on the physical mastery of poses, only to discover that you opened to your physical practice only when you had an emotional breakthrough. This shifts your practice to a more philosophical one, which may lead you to work on pranayama - breath/ life itself.
Whatever your path and its order, reading books on the subjects related to yoga can help you along the way. Below are some books that we return to again and again.
Bhagavad Gita, A New Translation - Stephen Mitchell
The Bhagavad Gita is listed as one of the most spiritual books of all time, and this translation is very enjoyable. Gandhi used the Gita as his life handbook.
Light on Yoga - B.K.S. Iyengar
A definitive text on modern yoga, Iyengar emphasizes precision and careful technique and a whole body mindfulness as prerequisites to success in hatha yoga. There are more than 600 photos of Iyengar demonstrating poses, accompanied by thoughtful commentary on the postures.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with commentary by Sri Swami Satchidanada
Sutras are thought-threads, or meditations, and these are at least 4,000 years old and cover the yogic teachings on ethics, meditations, physical postures and dealing with daily life.
Anatomy of Hatha Yoga: A Manual for Students, Teachers and Practitioners - H. David Coulter
A must-have for teachers, this book correlates hatha yoga postures to anatomy and physiology.
The Yoga Handbook: An Inspirational Reference for Teaching and Home Practice - Stephanie Keach
Stephanie Keach wrote this handbook to accompany her teaching training program after she realized how few references actually discuss teaching techniques and the importance of a personal yoga practice.
Books on Social Sciences and Medicine
We actually believe there is an argument to be made that these books could be placed under the banner of yoga, but for the sake of keeping the yoga section more traditional, we are using this section for other influential books of nonfiction that give us a greater understanding of our human condition.
Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable, and Volatile Relationship - Christine Ann Lawson
We have thought hard on whether to recommend this book, but we feel that the children of parents with Bordeline Personality Disorder may benefit from it. This book is a comprehensive account of the many faces of the disorder, written by a layperson in terms that non-medical people can understand.
Traveling is an art in itself. Part of the art is keeping a positive mental attitude, giving up control and keeping a good read close by for the long waiting hours. This section points you to resources that will make the passing hours on a plane more pleasurable.
When You are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris
Save this one for the plane! These quirky essays are so laugh-out-loud funny that you may actually be annoyed when the plane lands and you haven't finished. You will also get some colorful commentary on places Sedaris travels, such as Tokyo and Normandy. A huge thanks to one of the groovy yogi friends for recommending it.
Merde Actually - Stephen Clarke
An Englishman in France struggles with cultural differences in a comedy of errors tale. The second in a series, we can only recommend this one because we haven't read the rest yet. We suspect the rest of the series is just as funny.
Did you ever meet someone and have the most incredible chemistry for reasons that you simply could not define? Sometimes a book is like that - you develop a love for it that has little sound reason. You only know that you are happier knowing that its words exist on this earth. Some of the books below are like that.
The More Than Complete Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
This is Groovy Yogi's desert island book. All of the wisdom of the universe is embedded in these pages - the first lesson is the multifaceted uses (psychological and physical) of the towel. If you saw the movie but have not read the book, forget everything you think you know and read the book.
Foundation novels (all books) - Isaac Asimov
What Star Trek is to TV, Foundation is to sci-fi novels. Science geeks unite! Prelude to Foundation introduces mathematician Hari Seldon, who has developed a new branch of mathematics known as psychohistory. Using the law of mass action, it can roughly predict the future on a large scale. Psychohistory exploits the tendancy of people to make the same mistakes over and over again, repeating the same patterns on a large scale.
Time Enough for Love - Robert A. Heinlein
Heinlein used the genre of science fiction to explore the rawest of human emotions - desire to live (or die), longevity of memories and the propensity to dwell in them, sexual and romantic feelings, why we procreate. Lazarus Long is one of the most famously shocking characters in sci fi and honestly some of the harsh opinions about people almost kept the book off this list, but some of the most beautiful statements ever written about life are in this book: "Work is not an end in itself; there must always be time enough for love."