As Ramadan sets in and makes our days shorter and slower, we dive into Diwan Bookstore’s recommendations for this April. We’ve got 5 books about taking risks, food recipes, love, spirituality and meditation.
1. The Archer
By Paulo Coelho
In The Archer we meet Tetsuya, a man once famous for his prodigious gift with a bow and arrow but who has since retired from public life, and the boy who comes searching for him. The boy has many questions, and in answering them Tetsuya illustrates the way of the bow and the tenets of a meaningful life.
Paulo Coelho’s story suggests that living without a connection between action and soul cannot fulfill, that a life constricted by fear of rejection or failure is not a life worth living. Instead one must take risks, build courage, and embrace the unexpected journey fate has to offer.
2. Modern Comfort Food: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook
By Ina Garten
Ina Garten shares 85 new recipes that will feed your deepest cravings. Many of these dishes are inspired by childhood favorites. From cocktails to dessert, from special weekend breakfasts to quick weeknight dinners, you’ll find yourself making these cozy and delicious recipes over and over again.
3. The Art of Holding Space: A Practice of Love, Liberation, and Leadership
By Heather Plett
Holding space is the practice of compassionately witnessing, accepting, and supporting someone without judgement, while retaining your boundaries and sense of self. When we hold space for other people, we open our hearts, offer unconditional support, and let go of judgement and control.
We show we are willing to walk alongside another person in whatever journey they’re on without making them feel inadequate, needing to change them, or trying to impact the outcome.
4. The Clear Light: Spiritual Reflections and Meditations
By Steve Taylor
Steve Taylor offers short and powerful poetic reflections as a guide to spiritual awakening, and as experiential glimpses into the state of enlightenment itself. Taylor’s words continually affirm the profound bedrock of peace and even joy in the present that is always available. Reading this book is a transformational spiritual experience in itself.
5. Sorrowful Muslim’s Guide
By Hussein Ahmad Amin
Published as Dalīl al-Muslim al-ḥazīn ilā muqtada-l-sulūk fī’l-qarn al-ʿishrīn in 1983, this book remains a timely and important read today. Both the resurgence of politicized Islam and the political, social and intellectual upheaval which accompanied the Arab Spring challenge us to re-examine the interaction between the pre-modern Islamic tradition and modern supporters of continuity, reform and change in Muslim communities.
This book does exactly that, raising questions regarding issues about which other Muslim intellectuals and thinkers have been silent. These include – among others – current religious practice vs. the Islamic ideal; the many additions to the original revelation; the veracity of the Prophet’s biography and his sayings; the development of Sufism; and historical and ideological influences on Islamic thought.
