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Just finished it on audio book. Tried reading it before never very good at finding the time for reading consistently.
I think I got during some of it in the middle where he was having arguments over didactics but enjoyed and defiantly made me think even if I could do with redoing some of it.
Any other suggested reading of a similar vain?
Edit: I've also done tao of pooh
I can't imagine the audio book. I read it for the first time when I was 17 and I had to keep going back to re-read sections of it as my head couldn't cope with it. I've re-read the whole thing a few times since. Its properly life-changing stuff
The (sort of) follow up 'Lila' is worth a read, though it's very different
Similar title, Leonard Zinn wrote one about looking after your MTB, 'Zinn and the Art of Mountain Cycle Maintenance'
Never read it, but love the name
I've tried a few times and never really managed to get on with it. Might give it another go.
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Like binners, it was a book of my teens......and on. A re read or two is worth it.
Love the book.
Which audio book version did you read as every single one I found suggested it wasn't a direct reading of the book and that kinda killed the idea of listening to it for me.
I can’t imagine the audio book. I read it for the first time when I was 17 and I had to keep going back to re-read sections of it as my head couldn’t cope with it
Yeah I re-listened to some sections and still think I need to re-listen / read but need t ogive it a gap. I have had a couple attempt of reading it before but never completed. I'll look up Lila thanks.
I finished 1984 recently to as that was another half read book of my past. Totally depressing.
Which audio book version did you read
I don't know if its direct or not. From the first third that I had read it seemed similar from memory.
Tried and failed first time round, need to go back and try again.
On the slim chance anyone here hasn't read it, would suggest A Brave New World, I found it incredibly thought provoking (was living in Vancouver at the time which was about as close to the society Huxley described in B.n.W as you can get in my limited travelling experience).
I have a well thumbed copy that I picked up in Kathmandu 😆 clichéd or what?
It wasn't even new, and has been signed in the inside cover by the various hippy backpackers who'd read it first.
I've lent it out many times over the years, but it's always come back.
Might give it another read.
A Brave New World,
ITs on the todo list
He wrote a 2nd book called Leila, about a boat journey - Christ, it was hard going. Other moving, deep reads (if that's what you want)...
Paul Coelho books good (early ones, later ones I found a bit space cadet).
Surfing the Himalayas (Lenz) if you are into Bhudism
Mans Search for Meaning (Frankl) - again, deep and a bit harrowing but interesting
Read it years ago and found it a bit hard going, bought a copy a few years ago and tried again, got a lot more from it. In a similar vein, I'd probably lump in Travels by Michael Crichton and Derren Brown's Happy (which is a big and slightly opaque book, slow to start but great when it gets going, he's just released a cut-down version which is on my list to get). I got Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which is good, but one to just dip in and out of, rather than read straight through.
If it's just motorcycle related your looking for then stealing speed by Matt Oxley is a cracker. It's about 2 stroke development and Ernst Degner defecting from behind the iron curtain with MZ secrets.
For travel I'm currently re reading uneasy rider by Nick Carter. Again a good read, got drunk at a Christmas work party, told everyone he was going to do a bike trip but didn't have a bike, license or a plan.
Thanks for the suggestions. Although I like motorbikes outs more the philosophical and zen / Tao leaning contemplation.
Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon is a good 'journey by motorbike' book.
Think it was inspired Ewan McGregor to his 'Long way Round' trip.
The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen is another book that hangs a discussion of Eastern philosophy around a tale (in this instance searching for snow leopards). It's very good.
Read it several times in my teens along with other cliches like On The Road. I thought it was hard until I tried to read the work that inspired it, The Critique of Pure Reason. That was down the side of the bog for about two years and never got more than a third of the way through.
Still want a BMW R65 though....
The snow leopard sounds good thanks
Off hand I can think of two books that I've read that I think have left something of them in me in. I'm not sure if it's a case of them changing me, more a case of them showing me who I am, the other is The Grapes of Wrath.
In no particular order
Tao of Physics - Capra
Answer to Job - Jung
Modern man in search of a soul - Jung
Alan Watts and D T Suzuki for the real thing – or is it?
Hesse and Nietzsche if you want to explore eastern philosophy from a western perspective.
There is a whole industry built around this and you will probably have explore a lot of dead ends before you might find something that speaks to you.
Anyway enjoy the journey and if you meet Buddha on the road kill him.
I seem to remember the first half was good, the second half was hard going.
I read it back in the 70s and found it thought provoking though not as life changing as it's reputation. Reread it a few years ago and all I could think of was his poor neglected son, ignored while his dad pondered philosophical questions
This is pretty interesting in the vein of travel/philosophical type writing, also hard work at times.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33600.Shantaram
The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen is another book that hangs a discussion of Eastern philosophy around a tale (in this instance searching for snow leopards). It’s very good.
This (reminded by the reference to Kathmandu 🙂 _
Everyone I met in Nepal about 8 or so years ago was reading Shantaram. Great story but from what I remember I wish he'd got to do the do with the woman in it or just move on as it got a bit lovesick/tedious. My first trip out in '96 everyone was reading The Snow Leopard but it was On The Road that inspired me to go.
Tao of Physics – Capra
I'd avoid that one - it draws parallels between mystic teachings and physics, but based on the assumption that if both mention the number (say) 4, they must be linked. It's bollocks.
His son died in a knife attack didn’t he? Not sure if that was pre or post writing the book.
There was a bit at the moment Nd talking about that. After the writing and the. He had daughter.talks about pattern of his son and how his daughter helped fill the pattern
Everyone I met in Nepal about 8 or so years ago was reading Shantaram. Great story but from what I remember I wish he’d got to do the do with the woman in it or just move on as it got a bit lovesick/tedious.
Yeah I loved it at first but it was very hard work from about half way through. The description of Indian city underworld/slum life is pretty fascinating though.
I read Zen in my 20's and it altered my outlook, I still break things down on the classic/romantic split and don't like metaphorical dripping taps. Quality trumps quantity all day long.
All this talk of motorcycle journey books and not one mention if Mondo Enduro?!?
Just finishing reading it for the third time.
I even met Austin Vince at the Birmingham bike show once.
I got it when I started my apprenticeship and although found some of it hard going, I have gone back to it a number of times since. As an engineer and a tinkerer, its been almost a Bible for me. One of the things about it, is that there are so many concurrent threads running throughout that you could probably edit three different coherent books out of it.
Radio4 did a version of it that seemed to concentrate on his mental state and relationship with Chris and barely touched on any of the inner talk.
I think I tried reading Kant after and failed miserably.
Brave New World is a definite recommend; I picked that up in 6th form and it got me reading.
I can also recommend The Craftsman by Richard Sennen which is more to do with the personal relationship with making things and also various writings of Soetsu Yanagi, who was a Japanese master Potter, but to my mind it is all linked in a linear way.