It’s the end of the first week of “unofficial” summer, and the close of our concurrently titled ‘Relax! It’s (almost) Summer’ series of giveaways. Hope you haven’t overloaded that beach reading list yet, because we’ve got one more book to add to the stack! We yogadorks are thrilled to be able to give away TWO copies of funny travelogue “Yoga School Dropout” by smart and witful brit, Lucy Edge. You may remember her from the review of “The Handbag and Wellies Yoga Club” a little while back. Her first book, “Yoga School Dropout” was originally published in the UK in 2005, but has just recently seen stateside release by Lucy herself because, according to her, US publishers decided “Americans don’t get British irony or our sense of humour.” We get it Lucy! Even when you spell it funny.
“YSD” recounts Lucy’s journey from the corporate world of advertising into a samadhi-seeking sojourn through India to achieve spiritual yogic perfection. Ha. Needless to say, that’s not quite what she finds! If you’d like to read more about the story check out YD pal Linda Sama’s high praise review in which she declares, “I’ve read most of the books in the yogini-goes-to-India-to-find-herself genre (or you might call it the angst-ridden-yogini-in-general genre) …and I think Lucy’s book tops them all.”
WIN: “Yoga School Dropout” by Lucy Edge. We’re giving away 2 copies of the self-published American edition! Thanks so much to the publisher (Lucy!) for providing the prize.
TO ENTER: We all don’t always have time to read, let alone spend hours pouring over yoga books, but maybe the intention’s there. So what’s your favorite book you’ve read? OR have the best intention to finish reading, when ya know, you have the time? Let us know in the comments and you’ll be entered to win. No worries if it’s non-yoga. –winners to be chosen randomly early next week–
Bonus: We have confirmation that “Yoga School Dropout” is this month’s pick for Namaste Book Club! The next online meeting and first “YSD” discussion will be Sunday, June 27th at 7pm CST, 8pm EST. Sign up here.
Twitter: @NamasteBookClub, Lucy Edge @edgeygirl
“Yoga School Dropout” US edition now on Amazon
UPDATE! And the winners are… #16 Melissa and #36 Harriet. Congrats! Please send your mailing info to yogadork@gmail.com so you can get your books asap. Thank you to all! We now have a gargantuan Amazon wishlist.
The untethered soul by Michael singer.
It’s not necessarily yogic, but, it is. It such an amazing journey into your self and who you really are. Aaaaamazing.
This book sounds super 🙂
My favorite book ever would either have to be Fight Club or Fear and Loathing. Now as far as Yoga books go I’m reading ‘Enlightment for Idiots’ right now and I love it.
Best intention to finish would have to be ‘The Importance Of Living’ by Lin Yutang. I love this book but can only take it in small doses. It makes me think a lot.
I’d like to get it because Lucy told me she dedicated the book to me. I don’t have the American copy!
p.s. oh yeah, my fave book! I got this in India and could not put it down, it is excellent: Deaf Heaven by Pinki Varani…
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Deaf-Heaven-about-modern-India-s-story/Article1-433656.aspx
it’s a wonderful book! yea for lucy and of course to you YD for giving our little book club a shout out. fav books: too many to say… but “Tender at the Bone” by Ruth Reichel is a goodie and great beach reading.
On of my favs “Another Roadside Attraction” by Tom Robbins … I was captivated, totally, enchanted by the female protagonist, Amanda.
My intention to finish … Bhagavad Gita. Reading Stephen Mitchell’s translation right now. Book clubs and discussion groups are awesome btw! Definitely helps in the motivation dept. … fo’ sho’.
hmmm… so hard to pick one favorite book. but so loved Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. so, so beautiful.
I really enjoyed Cathleen Schine’s “The Three Weissmanns of Westport.” Also, actually, Donna Farhi’s “Living Your Yoga.”
For those who want to read about serious women practitioners on the path, I highly recommend: Radha: Diary of a Women’s Search
It’s an awesome story of a female yogini who went to India on the strength of some dreams and letters she’d swapped with Swami Sivananda. She was quite the pioneer and her story is just marvelous!
my all-time favourite book is Lolita, by Nabokov. i re-read it at least once a year. as for yoga books, my current fave is michael stone’s Yoga for A World Out of Balance. it just makes sense.
svasti: i’m also a big fan of swami radha’s bio! she’s an amazing woman. i’ve studied at her ashram and love her teachings and whole approach to yoga.
‘Light on Yoga’ by BKS Iyengar; I just keep going back to it…
I’d like to read ‘Yoga School Dropout’ and remember Linda-Sama’s review as being really good.
I intend to finish the Gita (ok, I REALLY should since my yoga training starts on July 1!)
Favourite book… Memoirs of a Geisha!
My favorite book: Lolita by Nabokov and Midnight’s Children by Salma Rushdie…. Would love to read Yoga School Dropout!
I’ve been trying to read through/do Baron Baptiste’s 40 Days to Personal Revolution book for…well, much longer than 40 days, but it has some interesting stuff in it and very nice illustrations of sequences and poses. Not yoga, but I love anything by Faulkner.
as soon as i have some beach time, i am DYING to finish Cradle to Cradle by Bill McDonough!
Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv. Wonderful book!
Water for Elephants. An incredible, transporting story. I actually started it when I boarded my plane in San Francisco and finished it when we landed in DC. I couldn’t stop reading!
fantastic book! I love yoga…best way to relax!
hmm best book i have read in awhile is probably “I’m with the band” by Pamela Dea Barres. It is about her time being a groupie in the 60s and 70s 🙂
The book that I read over and over is Pride and Prejudice. I just love it. Any any thing by James Joyce. I have a pile of books next to my bed that need attention – the new Dan Brown novel, Alice in Wonderland – books are a wonderful escape.
I looooove yoga themed novels! Another good one I enjoyed is Enlightenment for Idiots.
I just finished reading, “First There is a Mountain,” by Elizabeth Kadetsky. It is about her journey to India and studying with the Iyengars. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Elizabeth’s website is http://elizabethkadetsky.typepad.com/about.html
my favorite book is time traveler’s wife. i’m working on finishing up a path with heart by jack kornfield and would love to read as many books as i can by him this summer and fall. love him.
It’s so hard to pick a favorite. I have about a billion books in my “to read” pile. A book I recently enjoyed is called “Cultivating Compassion” by Jeffrey Hopkins.
The title sounds perfect for this A.D.D. yogi. I have started many books with the intention of finishing, but have only found one so compelling that I couldn’t put it down. “Love Is A Mix Tape: Life and Loss One Song At A Time,” by Rob Sheffield. He has another book coming out July 15th called, “Talking To Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut.”
My favorite book ever is Life of Pi and it took me FOREVER to get through it, for some reason it was SO hard to stick with it and finish it, but after I finished it, I just thought and thought and thought about it so much and still do many years later!
As for yoga books, “Waking” by Matthew Sanford. It surprised, moved, and inspired me.
Thanks for all the giveaways, Yogadork! :-))
“Mozart” by Alfred (not Albert) Einstein.
Oddly I’ve never read a yoga book but this one sounds like a great place to start.
Kurt Vonnegut …. Cat’s Cradle … but I supposed you could have guessed that I should strike with a hot irony ….
My favorite book ever? Wow, that’s tough, but ranking right up there is Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer and Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies.
My all time favorite book is Jitterburg Perfume by Tom Robbins. The main characters seek immortality.
Favorite Yoga Book? I think, for practice ideas it has to be “Cool Yoga Tricks”.
Next on my to read list is Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn.
Black Beauty and the Velveteen Rabbit are my all-time favorite books.
My favorite yoga related book is “Eat Pray Love.” I read it once when it initally was published and I’ve just started to read it again (before the movie is released). It’s no so much of a story about yoga, rather a personal journey.
I have many favorites, but the one I’m currently rereading is A River Sutra by Gita Mehta, a story of stories that added together tell a story of India itself. It’s beautifully written and thought provoking.
I’m currently reading ‘Light on Life’ by BKS Iyengar and I’m loving it – cannot put it down. My favorite book from childhood was “A Wrinkle In Time” by Madeleine L’Engle and I want to re-read it this summer:)
I have a lot of favorite books and they change based on my mood, but I’d have to say Tom Robbins “Jitterbug Perfume” is probably my current favorite. It’s hilarious! How can you not love a book whose whole beginning paragraph is about the intensity of beets? 🙂
“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” – my favorite book and I return to it once very 2 or 3 years and I always get something different out of it each read.
I’m currently reading “Awakening the Sacred” by Lama Surya Das – I read it a few years ago, stopped in the middle and I just picked it up again, starting over. It’s a lovely book about finding the divine in the mundane and how to find meaning in your life.
I just finished Game Change and found it a very interesting read.
A great one I just read recently that also happens to be a yoga book is “Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence” by Matthew Sanford. Harrowing and intense, yet incredibly inspiring and insightful.
I’ve been so busy lately with a full-time job, part-time job and then just completing my yoga teacher certification (yay) I’ve barely had time to read… I’m in the process of finishing “Anatomy of the Spirit” by Caroline Myss but am absolutely hooked, it’s a great book to gain perspective on “the whole picture” of the relationship with your mind, body and spirit and how things outwardly manifest (disease, illness, etc). On my to read list: Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith. I ♥ chakras.
i love reading everything by paulo coehlo – especially warriors of light.
he is a constant source of inspiration and his words are filled with so much beauty. i’ve also got “devotion” on my summer reading list.
nothing better than the promise of a glorious summer ahead, a stack of inspiring books to read, and wonderful friends, food & warm weather ahead!!!! (and oh yeah, time to practice my yoga in warm weather! my muscles are loving it!)
My favorite books are half the sky by nick kristof and Houskeeping by Marilynne Robinson. I am brand new to yoga and would love a copy of this book!
I liked Rodney Yee’s Yoga. The conversational tone of the book was nice.
Favourite all time book ever? A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry.
(and yeah, I’m Canadian. There’s a u in favourite. 🙂 )
My favorite book is Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince. It’s a deceptively easy read, much in the dandasana is a deceptively easy pose (yeah, you’re there with your legs out in front of you, ta-da! But can you actually stay there, staying tall in your spine, breathing and not fidgeting?). The fox in The Little Prince is sphinx-like.
Tie between Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons. Both amazing writers.
So hard to pick a favorite book! I love everything from Jane Austen to Sophie Kinsella. I do seem to prefer women authors, although I’m reading the “Game of Thrones” series right now…great fantasy summer reading. The most recent book to really rip my heart open was “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy.
I just finished reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire….great page-turning mysteries. I’m also doing daily readings from The Book of Awakening…very touching and thought provoking readings. Hard to pick an all time favorite…I LOVE books!
My favorite book is “Evening Class” by Maeve Binchy. It’s just a fantastic story of seemingly unrelated people who come together. I love books like that!
My favorite book – honestly – Eat Pray Love. I’ve read it like 4 times, it’s great to read when you’re traveling.
On another note, I’ve owned Light on Yoga for like 6 years and never read any of it.
Goodnight Moon gets the nod every time!!
Siddhartha. I thought it was going to be a really heavy read, but it wasn’t. Lots of really good insights, I loved it!
All time favorite: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Best book read recently: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
My favorite book? It is too hard to pick an all time favorite, but perhaps To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
Most recent book I loved was What It Is by Lynda Barry. Give it a try!
My favorite book has to be Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
The book I have the best intentions of finishing is Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer
jason(at)allworldautomotive(dot)com
Hello! My fav book would definitely have to be the Alchemist, life-changing for sure!
Thanks! -Bryan
Yoga of Breath by Richard Rosen xxx
UPDATE! And the winners are… #16 Melissa and #36 Harriet. Congrats!
Thank you to all!!
An all-time fave is “Year of Wonders”. Geraldine Brooks won a Pullitzer for this novel. It’s language is rich Old English and takes about 30 pages to click and get into. After that it’s smooth like butter and hard to put down. Many graphic scenarios though so be forewarned! and though the story is devastating it is about a woman’s personal transformation.
Also, the lyrical words and story out of time line in “The Time Traverler’s Wife” is worth the read, separate from the movie, an experience in its own right.