A revered Buddhist monk tells the bracing and beautiful story of a singular life compelled to contemplation, sharing lessons about the power of mentorship and an open mind “A necessary and captivating narrative of spiritual courage and truth seeking far beyond the veil of our contemporary delusions.”—Sting Born in India to a prominent Hindu Brahmin family, the Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi was only six years old when he began having visions of a mysterious mountain peak, and of men with shaved heads wearing robes the color of sunset. “It was as vivid as if I were watching a scene from life,” he writes. And so at the age of ten, he ran away from boarding school to find this place—taking a train to the end of the line and then riding a bus to wherever it went. Strangely enough, he ended up at a Buddhist monastery that was the place in his dreams. His frantic parents and relatives set out to find him and, after two weeks, located him and brought him home. But he continued to have visions and feel a strong pull to a spiritual life in a tradition that he had never heard of as a child. Today, he is a revered monk and teacher as well as President and CEO of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he works to build bridges among communities and religions. Running Toward Mystery is the Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi’s profound account of his lifelong journey as a seeker. At its heart is a story of striving for enlightenment, the vital importance of mentors in that search, and of the many remarkable teachers he met along the way, among them the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Mother Teresa. “Teachers come and go on their own schedule,” Priyadarshi writes. “I clearly wasn’t in charge of the timetable and it wasn’t my place to specify how a teacher should teach.” And arrive they did, at the right time, in the right way, to impart the lessons that shaped a life of seeking, devotion, and deep human connection across all barriers. Running Toward Mystery is the bracing and beautiful story of a singular life compelled to contemplation, and a riveting narrative of just how exciting that journey can be.

They sold their house and everything in it to move into a truck camper. And they were not small people. Laura began her memoir in the summer of 1995, when she walked into a summer party and met the love of her life, Sasha. Their whirlwind courtship started them on an adventurous journey. Along the way, Laura created six careers and used frugalness and thrift to find financial freedom while battling anxiety. They looked at what they wanted before marriage and chose a path. That meant pooling their finances, paying off debt, and ultimately deciding to work half the year while traveling in a recreational vehicle (RV). There were a few distress signals along the way. The self-doubt and anxiety of job jumping as an environmental geologist, computer trainer, and small business owner gave Laura insomnia. Yet those experiences allowed her to follow her dream job: to work as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service. When she retired from the rat race of full-time work, she was 38. They lived in the truck camper of 24 square feet before the season of the bugs forced a change of RV. With a new-to-them fifth-wheel toyhauler, they found a togetherness few married couples find. There were still bumps in the road, no matter who was driving. So, Laura created a website and blogged about their travels, finances, and full-time living in an RV: Laura & Sasha's Excellent Adventure. It was her way of being creative in a small space. It allowed friends and family to see the beauty of national parks and remote nature areas few saw. This memoir presents their adventures to their twentieth wedding anniversary. Come along for the ride and learn how to do this lifestyle too.

Essays on small art films and big-budget blockbusters, including Antonia's Line, American Beauty, Schindler's List, and The Passion of the Christ, that view films as life lessons, enlarging our sense of human possibilities. For Alan Stone, a one-time Freudian analyst and former president of the American Psychiatric Society, movies are the great modern, democratic medium for exploring our individual and collective lives. They provide occasions for reflecting on what he calls “the moral adventure of life”: the choices people make—beyond the limits of their character and circumstances—in response to life's challenges. The quality of these choices is, for him, the measure of a life well lived. In this collection of his film essays, Stone reads films as life texts. He is engaged more by their ideas than their visual presentation, more by their power to move us than by their commercial success. Stone writes about both art films and big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. And he commands an extraordinary range of historical, literary, cultural, and scientific reference that reflects his impressive personal history: professor of law and medicine, football player at Harvard in the late 1940s, director of medical training at McLean Hospital, and advisor to Attorney General Janet Reno on behavioral science. In the end, Stone's enthusiasms run particularly to films that embrace the sheer complexity of life, and in doing so enlarge our sense of human possibilities: in Antonia's Line, he sees an emotionally vivid picture of a world beyond patriarchy; in Thirteen Conversations about One Thing, the power of sheer contingency in human life; and in American Beauty, how beauty in ordinary experience draws us outside ourselves, and how beauty and justice are distinct goods, with no intrinsic connection. Other films discussed in these essays (written between 1993 and 2006 for Boston Review) include Un Coeur en Hiver, Schindler's List, Pulp Fiction, Thirteen Days, the 1997 version of Lolita, The Battle of Algiers, The Passion of the Christ, Persuasion, and Water.

Jim Brown has a lot to say. His first book, JUSTICE DENIED, painted a chilling picture of how easy it can be for an individual to be prosecuted and persecuted by the federal judicial system. Since this first publication, he has continued his writings with a weekly column that is widely read in newspapers and internet sites throughout the South. Few southern writers have observed the struggles within Louisiana to "catch up" with other more progressive states throughout the country. That is because Jim Brown not only has witnessed the changes taking place, he was a part of the political process for twenty eight years. His insights bring practical wisdom for the present and a vision of what could be in the future for this deepest of the deep southern states. His observations and conclusions in are not just limited to within Louisiana. And that is the joy of this collection of columns. Jim Brown takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the world from Bangkok to Paris, from the D Day landing site in France to St Paul's cathedral in London, and a drive across America all with a Louisiana flavor. And yes, he does have an agenda. Whether you read his opinions on political issues and current affairs to personal revelations, there will never be any doubt of Jim Brown's point of view. And that, we hope you will agree, is refreshing in this day and time. But besides being a respected observer of the political scene in Louisiana, Jim Brown's ideas are what really matter. Yes, he entertains, inspires, and informs, and does so by cutting through the fog of confusion as to the future of the Bayou State. His lessons have appeal and application throughout America, and that is why his following continues to grow.

In his memoir of a 1970s suburban Glaswegian childhood, Robin Dorman vividly recalls the episodes that defined his early years. He invokes the reader to accompany him on a journey like no other, one that is evocative for those who lived through the decade, yet resonates deeply for those who did not. Tender-hearted, humorous and philosophical it is an affectionate celebration of that which is the mainspring of our lives: childhood.

In Victorian London at the height of the industrial revolution, Horatio Lyle is a former Special Constable with a passion for science and invention. He's also an occasional, but reluctant, sleuth. The truth is that he'd rather be in his lab tinkering with dangerous chemicals and odd machinery than running around the cobbled streets of London trying to track down stolen goods. But when Her Majesty's Government calls, Horatio swaps his microscope for a magnifying glass, fills his pockets with things that explode and sallies forth to unravel a mystery of a singularly extraordinary nature. Thrown together with a reformed (i.e. 'caught') pickpocket called Tess, and a rebellious (within reason) young gentleman called Thomas, Lyle and his faithful hound, Tate, find themselves pursuing an ancient Chinese plate, a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of polite society and a dangerous enemy who may not even be human. Solving the crime will be hard enough - surviving would be a bonus...