Reviewed by Jaylynn Korrell

Informational, sincere, and valuable—a book on how Reiki can be an asset in your journey to better health

Author M. Lori Torok was a skeptic at the beginning. How could Reiki really work? She writes with honesty and joins the interested reader where they are—a personal story from skeptic to Reiki master. Her mind opens up, and so will yours. Her honesty allows to get comfortable, to let your guard down, and be a better vessel for something life-changing.

Reiki in Integrative Medicine makes Reiki feel accessible and achievable to people from all walks of life. I don’t think I’m the only reader who will leave this book ready to book my own session.

Torok didn’t feel fulfilled as a college professor, so she did something about it. She trusted her gut and took a leap of faith into practicing Reiki, and it amplified her body and soul. Now, she bridges the gap for others to do the same, especially for people on the road to better health. As a Certified Medical Reiki Master (CMRM ) Torok provides insight into the true benefits of Reiki and how they can and should be used in medical facilities.

Torok’s impulsiveness and ability to listen to her inner voice is refreshing to read. Not many would consider giving up a job with such stability, but it’s part of what makes her story compelling. It is this intuitive faith and unique experience that makes her so inspiring. She makes Reiki feel less like an exclusive new-age experience and more of a way for everyone to receive the energy they could be missing. For her it was a higher calling, and it seems this informative book is too.

It’s also a valuable guide for those who are unsure about how to set up an appointment and receive the service. We are coached on how to find the right practicer, joining group settings, and what questions to ask when booking. She explains the process clearly and effectively.

Torok provides readers with a clear path to becoming a Reiki practitioner too, explaining the different levels you can reach and the timeframe and practice it’ll take to get there. Reiki could be a beneficial business path since many top medical facilities are looking to integrate the practice into their standard care options. Sometimes it feels this business aspect switches audiences—from recipients of the service to people seeking Reiki as business—but it always returns to its primary audience in the end.

See Reiki for what it really is: a way to amplify both physical and mental healing with Reiki in Integrative Medicine. This is a book that everyone can take something from.

Thank you for reading Jaylynn Korrell’s book review of Reiki in Integrative Medicine by M. Lori Torok! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Addison Ciuchta

An honest & raw look at one man’s experience with schizophrenia and mental health stigma

Karl Lorenz Willett writes with honesty and hope. More like a glimpse into his mind rather than the filtered experiences you’d expect out of a memoir, this book covers a range of topics that include his financial struggles, his relationship with his wife, and his experience tapering off his schizophrenia medication.

Willett’s writing is vulnerable, sharing his deepest thoughts and real actions even if they show him in a less-than-perfect light. Which, it seems, is the whole point of the book. In his introductory chapter, Willett says he hopes to teach readers more about the condition of schizophrenia, including the lows like the stigma from society and the side-effects of anti-psychotic medications and the highs like his family, his healing, and his successes, like publishing this very book.

Chapters come with great variety. They document his experience off medication but also reach to his views on religion and the minutiae of daily life. His strength and his positivity radiate from the page. Dealing with the administrative burden that comes with mental health issues and coming to terms with some of the other low points of his life since 2016, like a one-sided romantic infatuation, only heightens his sense of purpose—which is, he says, “to spread peace, love and happiness, to encourage people to live life to the full and help others to do the same.”

At times, the writing can get repetitive with Willett explaining why he wants to taper his medication numerous times. Chapters circle back to the idea and his progress, but this repetition also helps illustrate the way his brain works without a filter. The way he keeps reassuring himself of his dedication to taper off, to the benefits he sees in doing it and the risks involved too. He is not advocating for everyone to do what he did but instead simply documenting the hows and whys of his own decision to do so.

Many chapters or parts of chapters document Willett’s deep fear of our current moment in the world: shootings, climate change, natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic. But still, he has hope. He writes. “I have plenty of concerns about the planet, but there are reasons to be hopeful about the world’s fate for the first time in a long time.” Despite the struggles, the stigma, and the side effects, Willett’s deep hope in himself and in the world shines through.

This book is an interesting plunge inside an interesting brain, an opportunity to experience feelings, anxiety, and mental illness out in the open. It is a touching and hopeful memoir that will give readers a deeper understanding of how mental health affects those around us.

Thank you for reading Addison Ciuchta’s book review of A Good Life by Karl Lorenz Willett! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

Thank you for reading Addison Ciuchta’s book review of A Good Life by Karl Lorenz Willett! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Frankie Martinez

A compulsive story of how aimless travels can become a meaningful life journey

David LeBrun was twenty-four and working at a broccoli farm in Ontario, Canada in 2011. At the same time, he was working on a manuscript about his past part-time jobs, Curriculum Vitae, and getting ready to send it to the editor-in-chief of Edifice Books in Toronto.

In order to finish his manuscript, LeBrun heads to Costa Rica to stay with a childhood friend for some well-needed work and isolation. However, after his stay in Costa Rica comes to an abrupt, sudden end, Lebrun finds that he’s willing to go anywhere. With money slowly dwindling and the vague direction of his friend’s farm in Mexico guiding him, LeBrun finds himself on a wayward, knife-edge adventure, hopping from the bus to the backs of trucks, to befriending strangers, and to busking (badly).

Told in expressive detail, LeBrun’s memoir, Delirium Vitae is a compelling story about trying to find your way in a world that sometimes feels woefully meaningless and ordinary. With his father’s death from cancer and his mother’s disability from a stroke hanging over him, Lebrun is on a mission to make his mark, not only with his manuscript, but also in his travels: “It was at seventeen, after watching his cancer devour him, that I knew I wanted nothing in my life to be ordinary.”

In many ways, Delirium Vitae is a successful product of this mission. LeBrun’s journey through Central America and Mexico is evocative of a real-life Alice in Wonderland. It’s easy to see him: a young man drifting around the open road with a broken family and no agenda; who is French-Canadian with some knowledge of Spanish, has fifty pages of his precious manuscript shoved at the bottom of his bag, and uses a recorder to gather voice notes from people he meets. Though locations, names, and faces are fleeting, his descriptions of places and people are fond and sharp. Even if LeBrun doesn’t have particularly good memories of certain people, tidbits of their words seemed to hold an impact.

One memorable example is LeBrun’s recollections of his interactions with Antonio, an unscrupulous musician he meets right after entering Mexico, who can’t seem to keep a steady relationship or stay in one place. There are several times LeBrun is sure that Antonio has abandoned him, only for him to show up once again to travel together: “Fuck it, David. You know what? My old friends always ask me how I stay slim, why I look this young… And I tell them it’s because I keep moving. I keep rolling, you see?”

While Delirium Vitae succeeds in portraying the uncertainty of travel and the multitude of perspectives you encounter, it can be difficult to find footing in LeBrun’s emotional journey. There are hints of it throughout, particularly of how emotionally taxing it is to have his father die at an early age and to see his mother in a hospital bed, but there isn’t much introspection on the topic to make me feel like I knew exactly how it all connected.

Of course, not all stories, especially memoirs, should be expected to follow a linear path or project a direct meaning. It’s impossible to know the right thing to do in a certain time, or for people to do and say the right things to keep a story moving. However, Delirium Vitae shows that with time and space, perhaps meaning can be gleaned from the biggest of adventures across countries to the smallest of interactions over a beer.

Thank you for reading Frankie Martinez’s book review of Delirium Vitae by David LeBrun! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Toni Woodruff | Content warnings: child sexual abuse

Heartbreaking and vulnerable—a story that should never exist

It takes power to tell this story. It takes bravery and strength and a machete—a way to chop through the tangled vines of trauma to forge a path ahead. Such a Pretty Picture is a powerful story that will break your heart and, hopefully, put it back together again.

Be ready for it though—the content warning is an important one. If you have experienced sexual abuse and are not up to experiencing someone else’s, this book will likely be triggering.

Andrea Leeb was four years old when her father first started molesting her. Her mom even saw it, but she went blind directly afterward. Her vision may have come back two weeks, but her figurative blindness remained. They didn’t speak of the molestation after the event, and her mother denied it when Andrea was finally old enough to confront her about it.

It wasn’t the only time either. Andrea was sexually molested by her father for more than ten years after that. He’d always follow up his actions with kindness and gifts, and he kept up an impeccable outward persona. He was a professor, a reader, and a confusingly kind dad.

We know, like Andrea knows, how bad her father is from the very beginning, but everyone else, including her mother, would have to wait years to find out that he’s been tricking people—completely separate from the abuse of Andrea. The perfect perception of him comes crumbling down even as he’s propped up by Andrea’s frustratingly forgiving mother.

Unfortunately, Such a Pretty Picture is a very real story. It’s a meaningful book for sexual abuse survivors to recognize that they are not alone. They’re likely going to have to confront their own pain to do it though. Scenes of sexual abuse are included, and while Andrea’s story lifts us up in the end, it’s only after our hearts are broken over and over again. She’s a smart, brave, and strong young girl who grows into a powerfully inspiring survivor.

This is also a story of sisterly love. Andrea and her younger sister Sarai are close and best friends. In their younger days, Andrea would stick up for Sarai and protect her with a glowing, angelic love. In a story of so much sadness, it’s a relief to get to experience this deep well of sibling love. You’re going to love their relationship.

The storytelling is spare and clean, yet packed with emotion. Such a Pretty Picture reads almost like it is made of stone—something you can drop but never break. A moving story with a heavy load to bear.

Thank you for reading Toni Woodruff’s book review of Such a Pretty Picture by Andrea Leeb! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski

A soldier’s search for meaning leads him down a path toward redemption in this touching poetic memoir.

A self-described warrior poet muses on his troubled childhood, war experiences, and the struggle to keep his family and finances together in the wake of the 2008 financial crash in Downriver by Ryan McDermott.

The product of fifteen years of rumination and catharsis, McDermott’s memoir is a quest for love, family, and reconciliation with a past that still haunts him. “I learned dreams couldn’t shield me from the inequities of life,” McDermott says about his childhood in 1980s Orlando, Florida.

Growing up with a single mother, McDermott cites the absence of his biological father as the “void” he has always wrestled with, ameliorated at times by a stepfather and uncles who try to provide structure, despite their flaws. It is McDermott’s ambition to rise above the troubling legacies in his family—alcoholism, failure, and co-dependency—that push him to West Point and officer training.

Accepted into West Point in 1996, McDermott found his calling and his creative voice. “Poetry became my voice to express what I had to suppress, the part that longed for connection and struggled with loneliness,” he explains. These poems are reprinted within McDermott’s memoir alongside the moments that inspired them, illuminating the artist underneath the military uniform and camouflage. Simple, yet sophisticated in imagery, the poems serve as a bookend for both the traumatic and triumphant moments in his life.

McDermott sheds light on the difficult, yet evolving relationship with his mother, Patty, and examines the impact of not having a father in his life; one can see in his choice of the military a surrogate for what he lacked at home. “I was a momma’s boy and illegitimate son. I embarked on the West Point experience as a rite of passage into manhood.” His engaging descriptions of a “day in the life” of a cadet, as well as what infantry basic officer training and Army Ranger School taught him are great fodder for those studying leadership principles, as well as for the military enthusiast.

While McDermott marches through his life story in a staccato chronology of military training, exercises, leadership lessons, and the friends he met along the way, the beating heart of the memoir is his intense desire to find love and build his own family. As he writes, “the river of life is rarely straight,” and through a series of twists and turns, McDermott finally finds the woman of his dreams, Lucy, before 9/11 occurs and turns his carefully laid plans upside down.

The narrative turns to more technical (yet fascinating) aspects of Army training and tactical deployment in the Kuwaiti Desert in 2003. In economic prose, McDermott relates his role as platoon leader directing a “hunter-killer team” of tanks and infantry in Iraq. It is during “Objective Peach,” an assault to capture the Al-Kaed Bridge, that McDermott sees his first dead man—an Iraqi man thrown into the bridge railing, eyeless and contorted:

“My proximity to him left a permanent mark upon me, one of many ghosts I still carry from the war. To this day, I can’t cross a bridge without being reminded of those moments. The chaos of the war lingers still.”

In the closing section appropriately entitled “Collapse,” McDermott explains the decisions leading to his employment with Lehman Brothers—a curious career choice at odds with the soldierly life of self-sacrifice. McDermott’s unflinching honesty is admirable as he admits to his “selfish ambition” to become an investment banker: “the childhood fantasy of becoming Luke Skywalker was erased from my mind. I readily gave in to the temptation of the dark side.” The “golden handcuffs” of a high-paying career in finance strain his marriage and his connection to his son, Brandon, as work becomes everything. Until it all came crashing down in the financial crisis of 2008, followed by the breakup of his home and a terrifying home invasion in 2011 that left him beaten and bruised, physically and emotionally.

McDermott uses poetry throughout to color the emotions and internal contradictions during his military training for war—and during the real thing itself—and he includes dramatized scenes with a therapist he sought for help with his PTSD in 2011. These devices work well within the narrative, adding nuance and an objective third party view of his issues. There is much to reconcile in McDermott’s life—with his mother, absent father, siblings, and his wife and son. The journey continues after the last page, but readers will appreciate the raw search for healing and wholeness that McDermott fearlessly conveys through his poetry and now prose.

Downriver is a heartfelt and perceptive examination of redemption and the river-like way of its wandering to life’s next unknown bend.

Thank you for reading Peggy Kurkowski’s book review of Downriver by Ryan McDermott! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Toni Woodruff

A clear and direct answer to the unpublished writer’s first question: “Where do I go from here?”

You can’t get your book seen and sold if you don’t get it out there first. And there are so many ways to get it wrong.

This book by publishing & marketing professionals Claudine Wolk and Julie Murkette guides writers through the process of choosing the correct publishing path and navigating it with strategy and effect. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of internet advice on how to publish and market a book, but with Wolk and Murkette by your side, you can know exactly where you’re headed—and even get further than you thought you could.

In addition to discussing both traditional book deals and the logistics of self-publishing, this co-writing team explains a number of important truths of book marketing with honesty. Among the most impactful of their advice is rooted in choosing the exact right audience for your book: Your Ideal Reader. Don’t cast too wide a net; don’t think anybody who reads is your audience. Instead, tell me what your book buyers do in their free time—where they shop, what hobbies they spend their time doing, what newsletters they subscribe to, and beyond. It’s this specificity that Wolk and Murkette help you define with worksheets and actionable tasks.

In addition to putting all of the confusing parts of publishing and marketing in layman’s terms, they also fill these pages with useful flowcharts, graphics, exercises, and easy to reference information. You’ll not only gain a better understanding of what you’re up against, but you’ll also get friendly mentors in your ear telling you which marketing paths actually work.

The book shares plenty of practical tips on structuring your media kit, finding which platforms to pitch for review, and timelines on when to get started. It even includes some of the platforms to pitch so you’ve got a shortcut in the research department.

Some of the advice on traditional publishing focuses primarily on major publishers, book deals, and advances, so the small press author may feel separated from some of this content. This is more of an introductory work on book marketing than it is a deep dive on marketing strategy, so first-time authors would likely be the best target audience for this book. 

Get Your Book Seen and Sold is clean and effective and does just what it sets out to do. I’d be surprised to hear any first time author finding this book and not leaving it more informed and more ready to navigate the big, intimidating world of book publishing than when they started.

Thank you for reading Toni Woodruff’s book review of Get Your Book Seen and Sold by Claudine Wolk and Julie Murkette! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Lauren Hayataka

From inner chaos to stillness, a believer’s life is reshaped by the quiet strength of surrender.

Matt Schmuker’s Formed in Silence is a book shaped by tension—between silence and striving, presence and performance, fear and trust. Written with care and clarity, it traces one man’s movement out of spiritual rigidity and into a posture of listening, where the voice of God is not thunderous or formulaic but overwhelmingly quiet, patient, and deeply personal.

Part memoir, part meditation, Schmuker’s writing is rooted in experience rather than abstraction. He recounts the slow unraveling of his inner life, beginning in his teenage years and continuing into adulthood: long hours of prayer that only amplified his anxiety, intrusive thoughts mistaken for spiritual failure, and the exhaustion of doing everything “right” only to feel further away from God. What emerges from these stories isn’t bitterness but a persistent desire to know God differently—and to be known in return.

The phrase “obsessive-compulsive Christianity,” which Schmuker uses to describe his past approach to faith, is not a glib metaphor. It’s a painful and accurate depiction of how fear, when left unexamined, can quietly take the lead in one’s spiritual life—turning sincere devotion into a cycle of pressure, vigilance, and self-monitoring. Schmuker’s honesty in tracing this pattern—especially his recognition of how reflexively quoting Scripture became less about truth and more about warding off imagined danger—is one of the book’s greatest strengths. He doesn’t frame fear as a failure of faith but as a sign that something deeper needs tending.

But Formed in Silence is not just about what fell apart—it’s about what slowly formed in its place. A shift begins when Schmuker stops treating faith as a set of tasks and starts asking fundamental questions (regardless of how silly they may seem at first): “How do you see me?” “What lies am I believing?” “Is there anything you want to say to me about this moment?” These small prayers become an entry point into a new rhythm—one rooted not in instant answers but in attentiveness. He describes it as a trust fall with God, and the metaphor fits. There are no grand resolutions here, only gradual change.

The book’s theological posture is both thoughtful and open-handed. While clearly grounded in Scripture and the Christian tradition, Schmuker also reflects on the limits of certainty, the dangers of fear-driven doctrine, and the importance of remaining teachable. He writes with respect for the Bible but warns against treating it as a closed system: “Scripture became a framework for thinking,” he writes, a line that captures the core of his approach. He invites readers to hold truth and tension together—to listen without rushing to explain.

Schmuker also explores how spiritual formation is not just a matter of belief but of becoming. His reflections on identity—particularly the distinction between the false self formed through pain and the true self created by God—are some of the most affecting in the book. He weaves together stories of childhood wounds, pastoral exhaustion, mental health struggles, and parenting with tenderness and insight. There’s a deep sense that nothing in his life is offered as a blueprint—only as a testimony that restoration, while not easy, is possible.

Stylistically, the writing is warm and accessible, with a pace that reflects the contemplative rhythm it encourages. Schmuker leans into metaphor without relying on it, grounding abstract ideas in lived detail—like an unexpected image of a cow chewing grass or a license plate that nudges a major life decision. These moments resist being turned into parables; instead, they model what it looks like to pay attention.

Defining all of his ideas is “epiphinal living”—a way of seeing that isn’t reserved for rare mountaintop moments but can be cultivated through regular, sustained openness to God’s voice. It’s not a slogan, but a way of moving through the world with greater sensitivity, formed slowly through silence, repetition, and the ongoing work of letting go.

Formed in Silence is not prescriptive. It doesn’t offer steps or solutions. But for those shaped by performance-based faith or worn out by spiritual striving, this book will feel like someone turning down the volume in a loud room. What Matt Schmuker offers isn’t a system—it’s an invitation—not to do more, but to listen more closely.

Thank you for reading Lauren Hayataka’s book review of Formed In Silence by Matt Schmuker! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by John M. Murray

A bold, thought-provoking exploration of humanity and the intersection of spirituality with political power

John Houston posits that leadership requires divine wisdom and enlightened governance. Contrary to how civilizations have risen in human history, Houston suggests a society overseen by a philosopher king in tune with spirituality and pragmatism can bypass the limitations of conventional systems. The book weaves historical narratives, mythological allegory, and esoteric philosophy to present the core argument: true power arises from alignment with spiritual principles. The book is the third and final in The Ibis Trilogy seeking to push a more holistic approach to political governance in the hopes of uniting humanity.

Interestingly, Houston suggests that a kingship/monarchy is the preferred, if not natural, method that humanity thrives under. The king won’t be a human but a reincarnated “Philosopher-King” who has been born before and will return as the “Absolute Monarch” to usher in a new age of prosperity. 

The Philosopher-King has yet to return, but after establishing their inevitable return, Houston moves through examining human history with a focus on where governments have failed before and what spiritual wisdom can provide to overcome the mistakes. He breaks down major civilizations including Ancient Egypt, the British Empire, and modern America. There’s a clear sense of society/government failing to uplift humanity and potential ways the Philosopher-King will bring about change.

Houston writes with an expansive and poetic voice: “The Human Race is the evolution of the consciousness which is required to bring the Universe to a state of equilibrium, the entropy of the Universe having run its course.” When discussing the historical record, he shifts into an engaging professorial voice accompanied by direct quotes from pivotal people—Plato and Hawking chief among them. While some of the content can be esoteric and strange, Houston maintains an intricate lyrical tone throughout that encourages an open mind.

There’s a gamut of historical, theological, and philosophical analysis that grounds the narrative, but the inclusion of more esoteric and unusual commentary does undermine the impact of the book. Houston mentions a few times that Scottish people were “seeded” on Earth to eventually rule with the supporting rationale requiring belief to be strained—it’s dependent on a series of personal conversations and letters. The supporting documents are provided in helpful footnotes, but the layout of the footnotes interrupt the book. The footnotes happen at the end of each chapter but contain paragraphs of information that often repeat what the footnote was referencing.

Absolute Ibis Monarchy challenges conventional boundaries of politics and spirituality. Some of the concepts might strain belief, but much of the book is a thoughtful and intelligent exploration of leadership throughout history. Houston lays out compelling reasons for humanity to reevaluate how modern and historical methods of governing were harmful as they did not focus on maximizing human potential.

Thank you for reading John M. Murray’s book review of Absolute Ibis Monarchy by John Houston! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by Eric Mayrhofer

Rowdy, frenetic, and a little bit filthy, Job Junky hurtles along with shocks and fun.

If there was a machine for taking a pair of books, mashing them together, and making a new, insane third thing, this is what would play out: Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas would go in first, Tom Perotta’s Bad Haircut would follow it, and Rudy Ridolfo’s Job Junky would blast out the other side—most likely riddled with bullet holes and tangled in some anonymous person’s discarded underwear. 

And to be clear: that’s a pretty good thing.

In a blisteringly fast 90 pages, Ridolfo relates “a rundown of my life while striving for a dream.” As he works his way toward making it as an actor, those reading his memoir witness the odd jobs he takes to assert his independence as a young man in the 70s, 80s, and beyond. 

Unlike a greatest hits radio station, however, his resume has no standard gigs. Many have worked as an overnight donut shop employee, but I’d wager few worked at a donut shop where their boss invited them upstairs, seduced them in an occult-themed apartment, and almost sacrificed them. I also feel pretty confident guessing that not many busboys find themselves working with a celebrity chef who whips out a 0.44, runs from the LAPD, and turns out to be a vigilante (possibly…maybe…probably).  

Job Junky has story after story like these, larger-than-life exploits that usually involve sex and often find Ridolfo harrowingly close to violence. Readers diving into his anecdotes might be worried for the author as they race through each short episode, but his danger is their blessing. Reading this book is wild.

That is thanks in large part to Ridolfo’s guiding principle. “Basically,”he says, “I’m a workforce nomad type o’ guy.” His journeyman nature, combined with his well-documented willingness to stick around just because a job is interesting, results in stories so sensational they could make a stuntman’s life feel boring. 

And it’s also because of the author’s style. His voice is raw and unfiltered. His writing feels authentic, his imagery vivid. A particularly great passage is when he describes having dinner with his beanpole of a friend, as well as his friend’s wife as she consumes an entire rump roast by herself “like an alpha wolf on a carcass always eyeing the others over her snarling nose.” 

The reading experience is so evocative that when we turn the page and read about the job where he walked in on multiple, separate sexual encounters between colleagues—and liked it (for a minute anyway)—we’re too entertained to mind the sometimes-jarring tonal shifts. They’re moving too quickly between spectacles to notice a lack of specificity that holds the narrator and some of his deeper truths at arm’s length. This distance may keep readers from achieving the true emotional connection that would make Job Junky an undisputed homerun. 

As is, Ridolfo’s book is a rush. It’s textured with all the grit and grime of the 70s’ and 80s’ most outrageous films. It’s fun and shocking. And it’s a book any reader should find a chance to make quick work of.

Thank you for reading Eric Mayrhofer’s book review of Job Junky by Rudy Ridolfo! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Reviewed by John M. Murray

An accessible and engaging overview of Buddhism, meditation, and how to incorporate their teachings into modern life

While humanity has evolved from the hunter/gatherer tribes of the past, we still all experience suffering. The Buddha once proffered his teachings that while misery is unavoidable, suffering is not. His Eightfold Path sought to help people understand and develop a practice toward reducing suffering. 

Pathway to Freedom provides valuable context for the Buddha’s teaching by discussing how to adapt a practice to fit modern life and how to face the world with realistic positivity.

The book’s structure provides a logical progression through the historical context before ending up at developing a modern practice. The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path are the bulk of the book comprised of the teachings but also the rationale behind each element. 

The concluding chapters provide the most actionable information in regards to setting up, maintaining, and deepening a healthy meditative practice. A recurring push to stop and reflect gives space for readers to process the material along with suggestions on how to apply the lessons to everyday life.

Green writes with patient enthusiasm, eager to share the information while providing enough “technical” jargon to reinforce the material. The unusual concepts and terminology come with sufficient context to help people unfamiliar with Buddhism understand. 

The actionable sections of the book become even more patient with clear information on how and why meditation is helpful in modern life. The material is free of judgement and doesn’t require any previous knowledge. Green frequently refers to historical and spiritual predecessors, but some of the most compelling stories and poems are her own creation. The injection of personal experiences helps ground the material and makes it feel much more accessible to novice practitioners.

To reinforce the desire to keep the material accessible and engaging, the final chapter is a concise summation of everything that proceeded it. This outline is a fantastic resource for reviewing the material quickly especially if someone is trying to stick to a meditation routine after reading this. The inclusion of further steps—additional elements and variations on the meditation practice—provides more opportunity for growth.

Pathway to Freedom is an educational, practical guide for improving one’s quality of life. While bad things will always happen, the response to those negative elements determine mental wellbeing. Mindfulness and various types of meditation—all covered in this informative and actionable overview of Buddhism—can provide a framework to build resiliency and realistic positivity in the face of hardship.

Thank you for reading John M. Murray’s book review of Pathway to Freedom by Lucinda T. Green, Ph.D.! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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