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Perfect first step towards understanding Freud

Revisado: 01-17-24

This is a wonderful introductory step towards better understanding both Freud and psychoanalysis more generally. There are little pearls of wisdom sprinkled throughout this book. I listened to it a second time. One of the few books that really brings the ideas behind psychoanalysis to life.

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Such a fun history

Revisado: 04-25-23

This is an eclectic and compelling history of yoga between the late 1800s to the early 1900s. It’s assigned in teacher training programs and university classrooms.

I found this book more concise than I expected, and much more fun. There were many new connections I hadn’t even considered. And there are so many interesting people in this history.

If you speed up the audio’s playback speed, the narration isn’t a problem.

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Perfect for anyone interested in film

Revisado: 04-17-23

This is the best first step and capstone for learning about the language involved in describing and analyzing movies. Perfect for a student about to take a film class. (Or someone who wants to take a film class but can’t! I’m sure this book covers more material than most lecturers can cover in a semester.) And perfect for someone like me who’s seen every movie mentioned in this book and familiar with all the concepts but wants a more systematic introduction. I would much rather listen to this book than read it. It was fun and I learned something. More than anything, I liked how this author thought through stuff and how the author encouraged you to think.

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Best book on yoga on Audible

Revisado: 04-16-23

Hands down the best book on yoga you can get on Audible. Each chapter has a theme (e.g. Posture, Breath Control, Mantra, Liberation etc.), a long introduction by the editors, and then followed by quotes from a varied tapestry of sources. This book will challenge any orthodox dogmas about “authentic” yoga; the ancient and medieval world is a strange and complicated place. The book’s chapter introductions reflect current scholarship, but in a style accessible to those of us outside of academia. The quoted translations that follow each introduction are high quality translations—something rare for yoga books on Audible, don’t get me started, but most yoga books on here are not reliable translations. They pull from a vast variety of yoga traditions in India that precede colonization.

Other reviewers mentioned it’s hard to follow. First, it’s ok to only listen to the introductions to the chapter, that alone would be better than anything else about yoga on Audible. But you can really just let all the quotes wash over you and not get too tangled trying to grasp all the citations as they are read. I didn’t find the pastiche style too frustrating, the paperback book itself poses the same challenges. (I recommend borrowing or purchasing a copy of the book for orientation. For me, after spending time struggling with the paperback, so much was unlocked when I heard it read.) Finally, the narrator has a clear style and warm tone, and his accurate pronunciations are worth applauding. I hope more books like this are made available on Audible.

If you’re a practitioner of yoga and you don’t have much context for this book and it’s relationship with modern postural yoga practiced in studios across the world, I’d recommend listening to interviews with Mark Singleton (editor of this book) on The Yogic Studies podcast and on the Embodied Philosophy podcast. The other editor (Mallinson) is also interviewed about the history of Hatha yoga on The Yogic Studies podcast. Mark Singleton’s classic book “Yoga Body” is on Audible.

If you want a clear and linear history of yoga that accounts for contemporary scholarship, I’d highly recommend “The Truth of Yoga” on Audible as a good pre-read and companion to this book. If you’re a newbie to ancient and contemporary Indian traditions, I’d recommend two audiobooks books that manage to both be short but take up a wide historical scope: “The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography” by Richard H. Davis and “Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction”. For someone interested in literary and cultural history, definitely check out the magnum opus “The Hindus: An Alternative History” by Wendy Doniger. For the more advanced students of yoga interested in history and philosophy, I’d recommend the short but detailed book: “The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali: A Biography” by David Gordon White (and his interview and Andrea Jain’s interview on the New Books Network podcast). For Tibetan Buddhist yoga on Audible, listen to “The Life of Milarepa” (and “Words of My Perfect Teacher” and “Tibetan Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction” for more background on doctrine and context respectively). And of course “Mindfulness in Plain English” for instruction on seated posture and breathing technique from the most senior Sri Lankan monk in the US (to go one step deeper, “The Life of the Buddha” by Bhikkhu Nanamoli and “The Buddha” by John Strong). I highly recommend all the above audiobooks to anyone interested in yoga.

But this book, “Roots of Yoga”, is the essential and indispensable single-volume source. Every instructor, practitioner, and student can benefit.

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One of the best books on Audible

Revisado: 01-19-22

This is by one of the living masters of the humanities broadly and Sanskrit literature specifically. Her methodology here is so smart.

I’d 100% recommend every yoga teacher listen to this if trying to avoid orientalism, on the one hand, and fundamentalism, on the other.

Perfect for someone who loves ancient Greek and Roman mythology and wants to explore ancient Indian mythology but doesn’t know where to start.

You can listen to it no matter your background of knowledge. But “Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction” and “Religion: The Basics” might be helpful short books before this. I’m now excited to listen to the books from Penguin Classics like Rama and Mahabharata that have recently been added to Audible.

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Best big history on Audible

Revisado: 12-17-21

Totally demolishes the Yuval Noah Harari, Steven Pinker, and Jared Diamond vision of human history.

Lots of recent case studies in archeology and anthropology.

Even reading the critiques of this book is mind openings.

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Warning: not audio reading of the book

Revisado: 08-07-21

This is the podcast wrapped together. It is NOT a reading of the book. But it does cover the same objects in the book.

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Wonderful tour guide through history, theory, and practice

Revisado: 07-28-21

This book is easy to follow and moves as a nice pace. It works on a few levels simultaneously: contemporary theory, history of theater, and introduction to a number of people and plays. It’s intellectually rigorous in quality, comprehensive in breadth, and written in a straightforward style.

This isn’t a how-to make theatre. It’s more about giving you more tools to understand, view, discuss, and engage critically with theatre.

Highly recommended for beginners, the generally curious, and experienced professionals!

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Relevant contemporary existentialism

Revisado: 06-26-21

While not meant to be an introduction to phenomenology itself, this book certainly works as an entry point for understanding the basic approach. I listen to the book on 1.5x playback speed and didn’t find the narrator to be an issue like the other reviewer. It’s nice to have contemporary philosophy on Audible, especially one that’s so short and relevant. If you’re on the fence about this one, I encourage you to go for it.

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Foundational and fun

Revisado: 05-25-21

A capital “C” Classic short collection of works often assigned as the first text in core curriculum, great books, Intro to the Humanities, Greek Civ and Intro Philosophy courses.

Perfect short length for re-listening and discussing with a book club. Lots of strange ideas about the body, the soul, and cosmology from a pre-Christian point of view. It’s like directly hearing from people from another world and time.

One of the best entry points for Plato, Greek history and the Western philosophy on Audible. Great translation and performance. This audio edition also has helpful supplementary commentary.

The last text in the volume, Phaedo, works as an easy introduction to Plato overall before diving into The Republic.

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