Stephen T. AsmaCritiques

He's a good writer, but completely off the rails. One of his early examples not only has a tavern owner hiring his brother's mediocre band over better entertainments because of nepotism, but the brother then skims off the top of the payment for his own needs (his daughter needs braces) before splitting with his band members. Asma thinks both the tavern owner and his brother are acting correctly. I'm prepared to think the tavern owner is within his rights (but his business will soon fail for consistently having awful music, so how does that advance his nepotistic interests?), but the brother cheating his fellow musicians (maybe they also have children needing braces) is wrong by any ethical standard. He also believes politicians should guide public monies to their relatives and friends because they have "history."

To put this perhaps in terms closer to the author's interest, if Asma was the editor of a prestigious philosophy journal, his argument puts the world on notice that he will choose his friends' and family's mediocre squibs over the superior work of strangers. And believe he is acting correctly and morally while doing so. Such favoritism exists in the world, but he hopes it becomes dominant, prevalent, and admired. All this he justifies by arguing that in elementary school children are not friends with everyone, they must discriminate, and therefore the ethos of "fairness" is a lie.

It doesn't help his case that he can only make his argument by lampooning what simple fairness demands. For most of the book he assumes "fairness" means everyone gets the same thing, no more, no less. That's naive, and suggests if nothing else he's never heard of Rawls. Because it fails this test, Asma says Occupy Wallstreet was not about fundamental fairness, but only about "justice," not fairness (cue Rawls). He offers no theory about why justice is not grounded in fairness, especially given he already concedes that fairness should prevail on questions of law and order. But not justice, it seems, leaving us to wonder that justice actually is, if not fairness. We're not told.

We always have favorites, and it is natural to want the best for them. Handing them unearned opportunities over others, even if better qualified, not only in private situations but public, as when a politician gives sweetheart deals to a nephew, though, does not follow from that simple observation. But such corruption is his ideal world.

That Asma views such dreadful self-interest as how morality ought to work says quite a bit about him, at least, but very little about how we should think about moral philosophy unless you favor some Ayn Randian self-interest as the highest good. Despite an early claim that he is adverse to Rand's objectivism, it is oddly ironic that he winds up in much the same place: my duties extend only as far as me and mine; everyone else can go to hell. This book, whatever his intention, will be warmly received by white supremacists who want to believe they're morally upstanding when restricting all privileges and benefits to people like themselves. Even Rosa Parks he rewrites to be someone who was not fighting for basic fairness, but only advancement of her own in-group, like all good nepotists ought.

The best that can be said is that Asma is a good writer. He is a provocateur, though, and not a careful or deep thinker.½

A good poke at the overly exalted position of the concept of fairness, along with a defense of favoritism. Very thought-provoking. A great challenge to many of my assumptions. Read this after reading an Asma essay in the NYT blog.

I'm really not sure what I was expecting when I dived into this, but it wasn't what I got. Not necessarily a bad thing. Asma digs into every sort of monster, from ancient Greek and Roman, through the Universal monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula, etc.) to the Jeffrey Dahmers and Charles Mansons of the world.

It's a smart, literary dissection of all the monsters in the world, real or imagined, and he does dig into why we consider these characters as monsters and whether they actually should be considered as such.

Illuminating.

This was the last of my batch of library books and probably the one I was looking forward to the most. I left it until last to break up the non-fiction I was reading and hoping that it lived up to the expectations that I had. I was drawn to the blurb on the back especially Asma's non tradition outlook on Buddhist.

The book starts promisingly enough and initially his writing style is pretty engaging with some good humour thrown in. However after that his style becomes very 'educational', this is probably due to the fact that he is a professor but I felt that it slowed the book down and it became too wordy. In particular the first few chapters on the nature of humans craving sex and our interactions with each other felt like I was wading through glue. There were some interesting points introduced but it felt very laboured and I really had to concentrate.

There is a chapter on raising children and this was a far better chapter. It felt as though Asma fell back into a more relaxed style complete with amusing anecdotes. I could completely identify he assertion that small boys in particular seem to spend there time finding ways to hurt themselves.

Two other chapters stood out to me, one on the beat generation of writers and one on music, in particular jazz and blues. I found the beat section very interesting but then I suspect that I would find this interesting regardless of who wrote it. There seems to a be magic that surrounds that particular group of writer and beatniks that makes any writing about them absorbing. As a fan of blues I also found this part interesting although I suspect that non fans wouldn't find it that interesting at all.

Although it is portrayed as a book for beginners or people who don't like the tradition or religious parts of Buddhism I would disagree. There is a lot of info crammed into the 'educational' sections and a bit of background knowledge goes a long way here. I followed it fine but I have read about Buddhism extensively over the years. For people who are looking for a non-dogmatic look at Buddhism I would heavily recommend Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Bachelor. This is a much more relaxed book which assumes no prior knowledge and takes a much better look at the subject in my opinion.

"Stephen T. Asma is Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Scholar at Columbia College Chicago. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Research Group in Mind, Science, and Culture at Columbia College Chicago." He has written multiple books. Source: www.wikipedia.com "'Buddha for Beginners' conveys not only the facts of Buddhism, the peace, the silence. . .the feel of it. It is historically accurate, spiritually challenging, and the white spaces mean as much as the words." Source: The book's back cover. Most readers will find this book, on a very serious subject, to actually be fun, since it's written in a comic book format and heavily illustrated with pen and ink drawings by the author. A postscript and a list for further are included. The book is indexed.

SAaPH has been on my to-read list for quite a while (because there's only so many books available to a popular audience about preserving dead things in an academic setting), so when I saw it at a used bookstore had to jump on it. Until I started it, I didn't realize Asma was a philosophy professor which means a different perspective than other books on museology (such as Richard Fortey's [b:Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life Of The Natural History Museum|2553092|Dry Store Room No. 1 The Secret Life Of The Natural History Museum|Richard Fortey|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1329723153s/2553092.jpg|2561339], by a trilobite specialist at the NHM in London).

A good survey on the history of natural history museums and how collections are shaped by the perspective of their curator (anyone who's taken evolutionary biology will recognize Cuvier's strict orderliness and Richard Owens' attempt to rein in the beautiful chaos of John Hunter's massive wet prep collection), Asma muddles a bit when he muses over how and what museums should be narrating to patrons, especially in America where evolution is still a controversial subject (even ten years after he initially published it, the statistics haven't changed much). Considering natural history museums are one of the oldest, widely accessible means of science communication his philosophical thoughts apply to those interested in bridging the understanding gap in other mediums.

This was published in 2001, so I'm wondering if Asma's written anything on more recent events like the Field reducing its research projects or Ken Ham's glorious monstrosity of the Creation Museum down in Kentucky.

A serious book about a topic that doesn't get always get serious analysis. Asma's historical analysis is interesting: he traces how monsters were thought about in ancient Greek civilization, the medieval epoch, and in more modern times and ably connects their roles to the psychological or theological needs of their societies. In doing so, he provides a neat object lesson in how scientific and medical viewpoints slowly displaced theological interpretations of the world. He also considers the role of monstrosity in two of the schools of thought -- Darwinism and Freudian psychology -- that have done most to shape our modern understanding. He also includes some incisive analysis of monsters in popular film and successfully delves into why the old standbys: zombies, clones, vampires, and Frankenstein-type constructions, still scare us so much. His take on the monsters of the present is less compelling: while he makes a solid argument against transhumanism's attempt to obviate the term "monster," I got the sense that much of the same material could probably be found elsewhere, and that, sadly, goes double for his material on serial killers.

As expected "On Monsters" contains a lot of interesting tidbits, from information about the medieval geography of monsters to a generous selection of images of one-eyed or two-headed fetuses. Readers who pick it up solely for the "ick factor" won't be disappointed. I found it a good book, but not always an exceedingly deep one, although reminded me that I should really read more Greek drama and pick up some Freud. I was also charmed by the author's illustrations, which appear throughout the book. Mr. Asma's probably couldn't make it as a professional illustrator: they sometimes come off as improved versions of what that metalhead you sat next to in algebra doodled in his notebook. Given the subject under discussion, though, that seems oddly appropriate. No doubt Napoleon Dynamite would approve.

I was prepared to be convinced, but I'm afraid Asma is arguing entirely orthogonal to the thing I'm interested in (I'm against fairness because it's an impossible abstraction, he's against fairness in favor of nepotism) and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get anywhere interesting with this. Gave up fifty pages in.

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

Unbeknownst to readers of this blog, I've been spending this summer tearing through a bunch of books on Buddhism and especially Buddhist meditation; I've started practicing a secular form of meditation in my personal life over the last year, and the insights I've had about my life because of it was recently referred to by a friend as "accidentally Buddhist" in nature, so I thought it'd be interesting to learn a little more about actual Buddhism and to see why my friend made this comment in the first place. The books have generally been hit-and-miss, the natural side-effect of just grabbing a bunch of random titles off the shelf of my neighborhood library; but one of the best writers on the subject of Buddhism in America has turned out to be a local, Columbia College professor Stephen Asma who takes a decidedly blue-collar, rationalist, and no-bullshit approach to his interpretations of these ancient texts, and how they can be applied to the practical lives of contemporary Westerners, without needing all the hippie New Age accoutrements that have typically been carried with them into our country. And thus have I ended up making my way this summer through nearly the entirety of Asma's oeuvre, from practical guides to meditation to a "for dummies" style introduction to the philosophy.

His latest that I've read, though, 2005's The Gods Drink Whiskey, I thought was finally the kind of book that could be justified writing about here at the blog for a general audience; and that's because this is not just a hyper-specialized guide to Buddhism itself, but a sprawling and fascinating look at a year Asma spent in southeast Asia (headquartered in Cambodia but traveling extensively through the rest of the region), where he blends lessons about religion and philosophy with an engaging travelogue, a primer on the politics of these developing nations, and an astute sociological look at how Buddhism has been warped and changed by various local populations in order to fit what they've needed to get out of it. And indeed, by constantly comparing this process to the one Christianity has gone through in the Western world (think of prim Mormons in their Sunday finest, snake handlers in Texas, suburban liberals in New England, and Midwestern fundamentalists flailing about and speaking in tongues, all of whom are supposedly worshipping the same Jesus), Asma makes it easy to understand why there's so many different forms of Buddhism in southeast Asia, why they've been so influenced by the local culture of each area, and why there's so much disagreement between different sects over how to "properly" practice. (Just for one example, and probably the biggest surprise to Americans in the entire book, the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism only comprises six percent of all practicing Buddhists worldwide, and is considered by most Buddhists to be an overly fussy, overly ritualistic form of the philosophy that relies way too heavily on mysticism and supernatural elements.)

All this would be interesting enough; but like I said, what makes this book truly spectacular is the way Asma weaves in his personal anecdotes about his travels there, and especially the ironic surrealism of being one of the most experienced veterans at the Cambodian Buddhist Institute where he was hired to teach, which is what brought him over there in the first place. (Although Cambodia is one of the nations where Buddhism was first cultivated thousands of years ago, the monstrous Pol Pot dictatorship of the 1960s and '70s systematically murdered nearly an entire generation of Buddhist teachers and practitioners, leaving an all-consuming gap in expertise after that radical Communist regime was defeated that has forced the nation to do things like hire Americans to come and teach their newest generation of Buddhist youths.) A funny, moving, eye-opening and always informative book, despite this now being a decade old it turned out to be one of the most illuminating and enjoyable travel journals I've read in years, which is why I wanted to do a writeup of it here for the main blog and not just my usual quick mention at Goodreads.com, like I've been doing with all the other Buddhism books I've been reading this summer. It comes very strongly recommended, as does Asma's other books, to anyone looking to get a better sense of what Buddhism is all about as a practical, secular philosophy, apart from the spiritual trappings it's picked up along the way from the various regional communities who have adopted it over the centuries.

Read this to help with stress. Agree with some of it. Have to re-read. A lot makes sense to me just need to work on it.

So not really a graphic novel but an educational primer for the life of Buddha rich with humor and illustrations. Sort of falling in the grey area that is no pronounced in the graphic novel medium.

I sort of enjoyed this personal reflection/discursus on Buddhist practice versus philosophy. However, it was often a struggle to continue reading given the author's two very obnoxious habits: Insulting and disparaging any form of Buddhism or related practices with which he does not agree, and putting these and other insulting and offensive commentary on others' thoughts and practices into the mouths of his conversation partners rather than claiming them as his own. I don't disagree with many of Asma's statements when they're stripped of their gratuitous contempt and vitriol, but I hope never to express disagreement with others the way that he does. An interesting book, but almost devoid of enjoyment for this reviewer, also a Buddhist-thinking, Cambodia-going, professor.

When I was a kid, my brother and I used to negotiate Saturday Los Angeles traffic on our bicycles in order to get to the Museum of Natural History of Los Angeles, where the great collection of dinosaur bones from the La Brea Tar pits were exhibited. (Now, many of them are in the Page Museum and elsewhere). The museum had lots of things besides the dinosaurs, though, and it was all fascinating to me. Steven Asma has written a terrific book about how natural history museums came to be, and how natural history became scientific. He kindles (or rekindles) the sense of curiosity that so often opens the eyes of young people to science, and does a great job of explaining how mankind came to understand our place in nature and in evolution. The "pickled heads" in the title refers to those of William Mons, lover of the wife of Peter the Great, and Mary Hamilton, Peter's own lover. Peter had them both executed and their heads preserved. They were kept for many years in the chambers of his wife, Catherine. Stephen Asma has stuffed "Stuffed Animals" with dozens of stories like this, mixed with solid intellectual history.

Why I Am a Buddhist
No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey
by Stephen T. Asma, PhD

All I can say on first finding this 179 page read is "finally I get it", and this cool little guy helped me to get there. I have always loved the depth and wisdom connected with the Buddhist way, but what seemed to happen is when I would tell myself I was gonna get really serious about it and start studying, I would get so bogged down in the structure. It was like opening the door to this massive and great temple of wisdom and finally had someone you don't have to do anything just open up and believe.

The author in his simple laid back style took areas in my life I could understand and through examples helped me say how I could fit the wisdom of the Buddha into them. This read was so easy and practical that I found myself just smiling and nodding. I am so grateful that someone could show me how to apply it to my everyday life. I would recommend this illuminating guide to those looking for a way to bring Buddhism into their lives. Thanks so much Stephen for bringing it through my front door and happily placing it on my dinner table.

Love & Light,

Riki Frahmann

Buddha For Beginners
Written and Illustrated by Stephen T. Asma

I really really liked this 162 page masterpiece on depth and enlightenment with a generous helping of some of the coolest illustrations out there, all wrapped up in this blessedly irreverent package. I totally believe that we learn through love and laughter and the author gets it in aces. The book is easy to follow, lighthearted and yet deals with some fairly serious subjects, like ego and life, but in the gentlest of ways.

This precious read is one of those I just couldn't put down, it kept my inner child totally preoccupied and I just raced from one great concept and phrase to another. Te cartoons are nothing short of phenomenal and I just loved the one on karma, the steamroller and the prayer wheel. I would recommend this much needed teacher to anyone looking for a deep and meaningful way through the 8 fold path. Thanks Stephen for showering us with your God-given talents. My spiritual toolbox is getting a little full, but I am sure there is always room for a gem such as this.

Love & Light,

Riki Frahmann

Ugh.

Ok - let's start with something positive. I did appreciate Asma's discussion and comparison/contrast of variants of Buddhism, along with inclusion of historical context, influence of and confluence with Hinduism, and some of the other cultural references. That's all the positive I've got.

So onto the negative. What I found hard to stomach and which made it hard for the above to redeem the book was overall how it came across like the memoir of a mid-20's Peace Corps volunteer or a college sophomore who just spent a semester abroad - but with the arrogance of Asma's "I'm a big time Buddhist professor" attitude. I found his overall attitude and tone patronizing, particularly of women's and minorities' experiences - which maybe shouldn't be surprising given he's a white guy who teaches Buddhism for a small college in Chicago. But there are plenty of white-guy authors/commentators who do a perfectly non-patronizing job writing on non-white/non-Western religion/culture.

I also perceived him to be completely romanticizing of Southeast Asian culture and experience - despite his near-constant assertions to declare that he wasn't doing so. I found his analysis of Western culture versus his ideals of Southeastern culture shallow, trite and void of true investigation or depth. He makes sweeping generalizations about both Southeast Asian and Western cultures, and lots of straw-man types of arguments about the failings of Western culture which he can then beat to pieces while missing the bigger picture completely on underlying cause/effects/influence/reasons of the things he's criticizing.

I went back and forth for awhile as I read this - as I really enjoyed getting the historical overview of Buddhism and Cambodia that my educational background is completely void on, as well as the comparison of the various flavors of Buddhism and the sources of the splits, conflations and muddlings Buddhism and Buddhist culture has experienced along the way. But by the end of the book - I just wanted to punch him for his cluelessly smug attitude and patronizing notions.

nog niet gelezen

An account of one's person's journey with Buddhism. Asma explains some about Buddhist thought and history, though not in great depth. More he discusses what it has meant to him. He sees Buddhism as more a philosophy than a religion, an attempt to answer why humans suffer and what can be done to ameliorate suffering. Asma likes the fact that Buddhism fits so well with both science and art

It is a good book, but could be longer, which is a rare criticism. It never spoke to me on a level that I wanted it to reach, but that isn't the fault of the book.

I enjoyed this book, written by an author who by his own admission wants to "take the California out of Buddhism." Part travelogue about post-war Cambodia and part analysis of Buddhism, it was an enjoyable read because Asma seems like a no-BS kinda guy. His descriptions of the efforts of Mormons missionaries to make poor Cambodians into "rice Christians" smacked of imperialism and made me both sad and angry. His description of the Khmer Rouge security prison "S-21" chilled my bones. Definitely a worthwhile read if your interest in Southeast Asia extends beyond Ankor Wat, marijuana and beautiful beaches.

Wise, witty, current, deep, funny, informative

If I have ever read a book that struck such an elegant balance between philosophical inquiry and sordid fascination with the grotesque as Stephen Asma's Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads, I certainly don't remember it. Asma's exploration of the evolution of modern-day natural history museums, from their primitive ancestors the medieval bestiaries, through Renaissance curiosity cabinets and the private, Enlightenment-era collections of proto-scientists, is perceptive and thought-provoking at every turn. It points out the moral and philosophical implications of curatorial decisions: things that are normally invisible to museum visitors, but which subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) communicate the agendas of their designers. It examines a selection of 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century curated collections, analyzing their presentation and, in the process, taking the reader on a fascinating journey through the history of collecting, classifying, and presenting widely differing versions of Nature in the West. But Asma's book also admits and even honors the darker instincts behind peoples' love of museums: our attraction to the unusual, bizarre, and just plain gross. And I think that's only right. There's no denying the pivotal role played by a prurient fascination with monstrosities, mutations, and myths on the road to science as we know it today. As Asma points out, "Oddities force us to attend. ... Museums figured this out a long time ago."

The jar that first drew my attention was about the size of an industrial stew pot and contained a curdled mass of flesh. This menacing basketball-sized blob was a tumor that John Hunter surgically removed from a man's neck in 1785 (fig. 2.8). Next to the jar was a small card quoting Hunter's notes: "The operation was performed on Monday, October the 24th, 1785; it lasted twenty-five minutes, and the man did not cry out during the whole of the operation." This poor patient had a tumor, roughly the size of his own head, sprouting out of his neck, and Hunter cut it out of him sixty-odd years before anesthesia was discovered - with nothing to numb the pain except some swigs of whiskey. As I pondered many of the pathology jars, I wanted to get on my knees and thank the gods of experimental medicine for letting me be born in the twentieth century.



In the first half of the nineteenth century England's intelligentsia was dominated by the "argument from design." Natural theologians were arguing that the natural world was perfectly adapted - each animal organ and appendage perfectly suited the peculiarities of different habitats and activities. Such perfect design, the argument concluded, proves the existence of a benevolent designer God. One of the overriding impressions that Hunter's pathology collection leaves on the observer, however, is that nature is sloppy. The notion of the perfect adaptation or fit of each animal to its environment and the elegantly coordinated physiological adaptation of each individual to itself (organs arranged and functioning in harmony) is dramatically challenged by Hunter's pathology jars.

As this passage illustrates, Asma moves from grotesque example to illuminating analytical observation, and the whole is delivered in a lively, readable prose. His book is structured, not in strict chronological order, but as a series of related investigative essays covering subjects from the development of taxidermy and embalming, to the history of taxonomy, to the national differences among modern presentations of evolutionary biology. His approach reminded me of an updated take on the 18th-century conversational essay - a form I very much enjoy, and one uniquely suited to Asma's subject matter, given the space he devotes to the Enlightenment-era collections of John Hunter and Georges Cuvier. His approachable prose is a real plus, since the reader is trying to wrap her head around radically different world-views throughout the book. At one point, while discussing a half-digested human stomach, Asma points out that in order to appreciate the specimen from an 18th-century point of view, we must imaginatively think ourselves back to an era when a purely mechanical mode of digestion was a possibility. This is actually quite difficult, since the role of stomach acid is so firmly entrenched in our minds. Similar thought experiments are necessary to grasp many of the pre-Darwinian stops along the track of natural philosophy, but Asma proves a capable conductor, endearingly enthusiastic about the human and scientific oddities he discovers along the way.

In his opening chapter, he observes that

Educational and entertainment institutions meet in the common-ground territory of the spectacular. But some spectacles lead to something cognitive or reflective, and the hope of the educator is to facilitate that trajectory. There is a place in that trajectory for the odd, the wonderful, and the grotesque. But some spectacles, using the same spectacular launching pads of human curiosity, only lead back to themselves. The thrill-ride spectacle can be "managed" in such a way that it leads to more of the same, not contemplation and reflection. The spectacle itself becomes the commodity.

In addition to being an accurate description of his own book, this strikes me as a sane and reasonable take on the "edutainment" debate vis-a-vis museums, which Asma tackles at greater length in his final chapter. While justly concerned about the effect on museums of alliances with corporate sponsors (i.e., how can a museum maintain objectivity in an exhibit about petroleum, if the primary source of funding is an oil company?), he lauds curatorial attempts to lighten the mood of exhibits, to teach with humor and not take themselves and their subject matter in deadly earnest. I think there is a tendency among people who stand up against "edutainment" (understood as entertainment without content), to look down on any exhibit that encourages people to laugh, or connect a scientific concept with some element of popular culture. But, as Asma rightly points out, studies show that laughter improves peoples' willingness and ability to remember information. It therefore seems backward to get sniffy about humorous exhibits, since there's a high likelihood they're doing a better job of teaching than their unfunny analogs, while simultaneously showing museum patrons a good time. Of course entertainment shouldn't be the only experience one finds in a museum, but Asma makes a strong point for it being one effective curatorial tool, and one that, perhaps, ought to be used more often, especially given the modern distrust of authority figures. When a museum can laugh at itself for a moment, he points out, it lets down its guard and becomes more relatable and sympathetic to patrons, and they in turn become more receptive to new ideas.

If used thoughtfully, spectacle and laughter can lead to contemplation; when used exploitatively, they only lead back to themselves. The spectacle in Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads was uniformly linked to fascinating ideas and information, and I'll be contemplating much of it for a long time to come.

Buddha for Beginners by Stephen Astma gives a great and visually pleasing over view of the core teaching of the historical Buddha. I found most enjoyable with this book that it gives a great overview that is easily digested for someone just wanting to get an overview of Buddhism.

That is what it did well. What it did extremely well was place the core teachings into a modern context without any New Age terminology. Just the basic philosophical tenets with an added bonus of being critical of some of the newer (relatively) sects of Buddhism. I, myself, being a member of one of these sects notwithstanding, I found the clarity and wit to be refreshing.

I would recommend this to a person of any age interested in a quick reference for what Buddhism is. From this you can build up to the MANY other texts out there that dive deeper into this subject. I agree with BTRIPP's review except to say that I don't think another addition is needed. I would rather see this work remain light and "cartoonish" and serve as a wonderful supplement to more "serious" texts.

An illustrated introduction to the core beliefs of Buddhism, and its various sects. While a very quick read, it's a pretty good book, even for those who have already some idea of buddhism.

Quick Take: A straightforward and easy-to-understand introduction to Buddhism. Beginners will find this illustrated guide a quick and thought-provoking read.

Since becoming interested in Buddhism four years ago, I've been on the lookout for introductory texts offering philosophical, psychological and historical insight into my practice. What I'm not looking for is New Age claptrap trying to cash in on the cachet of Buddhism. Luckily, author Stephen T. Asma shares the same distaste, so Buddha for Beginners offers an academic yet accessible introduction to the life and times of Siddartha Gautama. The graphic novel format ensures a quick read (although, on a purely aesthetic note, I wish the textboxes in the illustrations had all been handwritten, not typed).

If you have a passing interest, Buddha for Beginners will likely satisfy your curiosity about who the Buddha was and what he accomplished. If you're a serious student, this book will open the door to even more questions (and that's a good thing).