Reviews
Here’s a selection of published book reviews
Seeing It Better: a Review of ‘After Cezanne’ by Maiteyabandhu
After Cézanne,By Maitreyabandhu,Bloodaxe, 2019 Maitreyabandhu’s most recent poetry collection reflects on Cézanne’s paintings and is a subtle meditation on the possibilities of art and perception The epigraph of Maitreyabandhu’s most recent collection After Cézanne is…
Macbeth is a Ritual. What happens when its demonic energy leaks into the world beyond the play?
Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a ritualised drama that summons demonic forces in the hero and the world the play creates. What happens when a production refuses to close the ritual when the play ends? A few years ago I wrote an essay on Macbeth and Karma, calling the play a…
‘The Escape Artist’: Powerful Holocaust Lesson for the Post-Truth World
An account of escaping Auschwitz with a sobering reflection on how deeply we repress knowledge of death: a Holocaust lesson for the post-truth world The usual question the Holocaust raises is: ‘How could this happen, how could people act so inhumanely’. In fact, for…
The Karma of Banking in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’
I sat down on Christmas Eve to watch ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ – it’s been a while – expecting a comforting serving of Christmas sentimentality with extra cheese. What I saw was a polemic about banking and a parable about karma and interconnectedness. You may be…
‘The Sound of One Hand’. Why You’ll Love this Funny, Moving Triratna Memoir
The Sound of One HandBy SatyadasaWindhorse Publications, 2022 Like Satyadasa I’ve been a part of the Triratna Buddhist Community for the whole of my adult life. He’s about a decade younger than me, but many of the Triratna experiences he describes in The Sound of One…
Lincoln in the Bardo – Review
Lincoln in the Bardo, winner of the 2017 Mann Booker Prize, has been widely praised as a remarkable vision of human life and its possibilities that is formally daring but also moving and accessible. It is all those things, but it is also the first truly great western…
‘East West Street’, by Philippe Sands – Review
East West Street is about the Nuremberg War Crimes trials, Sands’ family history and the law. It weaves its many threads into a powerful meditation on interconnectedness and its meaning for our lives and our ethics
Poverty Safari – Review
Poverty Safari is an eloquent account of poverty and the dangers and delusions that await people who emerge from it into a media spotlight. Change, he suggests, needs start with people.
Mindful Eating: Review
Why do you feel like eating right now? Jan Choden Bays guides you in bringing a subtle and detailed awareness to a natural activity that can become very fraught
Buddhism: An Introduction – a Review
Buddhism: An Introduction by Alexander Wynne, I.B. Taurus, London 2015 Alexander Wynne’s excellent book is nothing like most ‘introductions’ to Buddhism. There’s no blow by blow explanation of the Eightfold Path or other basic doctrines. As…
Greek Buddha
What if the Greek philosopher who travelled to India with Alexander the Great had become a monastic practitioner and taught Buddhism to the Greeks, thus offering dramatic new evidence of the true character of Early Buddhism. Do the claims of ‘Greek Buddha’ stack up?
The Sleep Book: Review
It’s true that Buddhism is about waking up, but this book using mindfulness approaches to address sleeping problems is a clear, thoughtful and practical application of sound principles
The Buddha on Wall Street
What does Buddhism have to say about our society and how can it become a force for changing it? Book review of The Buddha on Wall Street: What’s Wrong with Capitalism and What We Can Do about It by Vaddhaka Linn
Buddha’s Brain: Review
There is a buzz around the application of neuroscience to meditation, but can science really tell us more about meditation? Buddha’s Brain reviewed by Vishvapani
Books on the Karmapa Controversy
Two rival candidates currently claim the position of Karmapa, leader of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. The controversy has split the school and prompted a flurry of books describing the conflict. But what is really going on in this dispute, and why have we…
Reading Emptiness: Reflecting on Buddhism and Literature
There’s a tantalising affinity between Buddhist views of the insubstantial nature of the self and sophisticated ideas about the illusions created by literary texts. But there are also profound differences between Buddhist spiritual practice and nihilistic deconstruction
Ghostwritten: a Buddhist Novel?
David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten is a novel for the interconnected, globalised times in which we are buffeted among billions; it offers a neural network of thought, not so much an argument as ideas whirring like minds, and interacting like electrons. Was it the first Dharm…
Street Zen: The Life and Work of Issan Dorsey
in his life before Buddhism, Issan Dorsey was a ‘bad drag queen’. But at the San Francisco Zen Centre he was a bodhisattva for a gay community blighted by AIDS. This biography vividly evokes the extraordinary life of this ordinary Buddhist
When China Rules the World: And What it Means for Buddhism
China will soon possess the world’s largest economy, and cultural influence will follow economic power. Martin Jaques argues in his book ‘When China Rules the World’ that this change will shape the next century. But what does it mean for the future of Buddhism?
Surviving Tibetan Buddhism: Review of “The Novice”
A review of Stephen Schettini’s heartfelt and vivid account of becoming a Tibetan Buddhist monk and his valuable reflections on what it means for westerners to practice Buddhism
The Book of Enlightened Masters: Review
The Book of Enlightened Masters is a fascinating guide to the westerners who have become teachers in Eastern traditions. Book review by Vishvapani
Review of Gautama Buddha (AREIAC Newsletter)
“Excellent … thorough, carefully researched and well-written … A very readable and impressive account of one of the world’s most important religious leaders.”
Paul Hopkins reviews “Gautama Buddha” for the Association of Religious Education Inspectors, Advisers …
Secular Buddhist Reviews ‘Gautama Buddha’
This review of ‘Gautama Buddha’, my biography of the Buddha by Stephen Schettini appears on the website of the Secular Buddhist Association. “Vishvapani Blomfield’s Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of the Awakened One is one of a new breed of Buddha biographies.…
Guru Trouble
Wise men, eccentrics, geniuses and charlatans. Gurus have featured large as Buddhism has come the West. What should we make of them? Reviews of Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon: Theosophy and the Emergence of the Western Guru by Peter Washington; Riding the Tiger by Lama Ole N…
Review: The Origin of Buddhist Meditation
What, if anything, do we ‘know’ about the Buddha? This recent book employs scholarly detective work to ‘prove’ that certain elements in the ancient Pali scriptures are true. It casts fresh light on the world the Buddha inhabited and the meditation practices he learn…
David Breuer Weil: Radical Visionary
David Breuer Weil is a powerful artistic presence: heir to London-based Jewish like Freud and Epstein. As a new book and exhibition showcase his work, I reflect on my own friendship with David and the significance of his monumental images
Review: An End to Suffering by Pankaj Mishra
A vivid account of the Buddha’s life and a vivid personal journey
Review of ‘Available Truth’ by Nyanasobhano
A collection of beautifully written reflections on Buddhism, nature and meditation by an American Buddhist monk