Book Recommendations from The Tools Team
What do you read for inspiration and solace? Barry Michels, Phil Stutz, and Tools teachers Jamie Rose and Kristan Sargeant share the books they turn to.
BOOK PICKS FROM BARRY MICHELS
Beautiful writing is my greatest source of solace, so while some of these may not offer direct advice, they serve as a powerful incentive to create beauty in the world.
The Alexandrian Quartet by Lawrence Durrell
You Must Change Your Life by Rachel Corbett
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Tenth of December by George Saunders
The Narnia Chronicles and The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins
And for humor, anything by P.G. Wodehouse.
BOOK PICKS FROM PHIL STUTZ
Knowledge of the Higher World and How to Attain It by Rudolf Steiner
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
BOOK PICKS FROM JAMIE ROSE, TOOLS COACH
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. Phil told me about this book in the 80s back when I was and actress and suffering from depression brought on by some career disappointments. I thought at the time, if this guy can get through Auschwitz I can get through pilot season! All kidding aside, this is a beautifully written, essential book.
The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Just, wow!
The Known World by Edward P. Jones. One of my favorite books of all time. Read the first paragraph and you’ll be astonished—Moses eating dirt, an indelible image.
Bleak House (or anything, really) by Charles Dickens. But Bleak House’s central theme (Jarndyce vs Jarndyce) is so illustrative of the danger of putting your life on hold for what Phil and Barry call The Giant Pearl (exoneration).
The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, especially the audio book version because it employed Korean actors. If I’d “read” it in print, I wouldn’t have understood the pronunciations.
Ruby by Cynthia Bond is another great audio experience (and is read by the author).
Chernobyl and/or Second Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich. Riveting and heartbreaking (so much so they can be tough to read), these oral histories put my own current problems in perspective.
BOOK PICKS FROM KRISTAN SARGEANT, COACH AND THERAPIST
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
Big Magic by Liz Gilbert
Letters to A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
Anything from Maria Popova, creator of Brain Pickings
Any poetry from Mary Oliver or Rumi
Crossing the Unknown Sea by David Whyte
A Hidden Wholeness by Parker Palmer
