CONSCIOUS | ANNAKA HARRIS | 2019

A brief guide to the fundamental mystery of the mind. Concise and enlightening, this book covers challenging arguments about the self, free will and felt experience. It’s also interesting to me because it was written by Annaka, who is married to Sam Harris, one of my favourite philosophers (who is also a PhD neuroscientist).

12 Rules for Life | JORDAN B. PETERSON | 2018

An antidote to Chaos. Former Professor of clinical psychology at Harvard and U Toronto, Jordan Peterson is a controversial person in the media’s eyes but I believe this only developed because he had the courage to challenge some populist beliefs. I enjoy challenging my own beliefs through Dr. Peterson’s lectures and books, this one is clear and simple and I believe valuable for especially young earthlings in 2019.

THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO | ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN | 1973

After Jordan Peterson called this possibly the most important book of the 20th century, I decided I had to attempt to read it. It is a marathon of Soviet camp suffering and literary masterpiece of critical political indictment. So many parallels existed in South Africa during apartheid and I can’t help but cringe every time I hear a modern politician use the word ‘comrade’ today. “Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago”

ON HAVING NO HEAD | DOUGLAS HARDING | 1961

Zen and the re-discovery of the obvious.
A short book about meditation and flipping one’s awareness to the observer who is “home”.